The story of this trip to China started long before we arrived, and despite naturally haphazard and last minute organisation we were somehow just about on track. That was, until the morning of the flight, when Lucy awoke in London only to realise her British passport was on a yacht in Foye with her family. Chaos swiftly ensued as we desperately tried to rectify the situation, however, much to everyone’s disappointment, it was not possible. And so our team of five was reduced to four. Despite a minor visa saga at check-in, we made the plane and met up with our 4th member of our team, Marisha.
At the opening ceremony, it became clear to all the competitors (who had travelled from countries including Australia and Russia) that we were highly prized photo opportunities for the locals, as well as being very welcome guests of the Chinese government, who had put a phenomenal amount of money into the event and opening ceremony. Having been met with countless cameras, the ceremony kicked off with loud music, promo-videos and mesmerising dancers. If the ceremony itself wasn’t crazy enough, the entire city of buildings behind the stage had synchronised lights to create an inspiring skyline during performances. The evening concluded in a bar where we were introduced to the local beer (Tsingdao), which had the benefit of being both very palatable and having a low impact on the wallet. Meanwhile, a live band kept the teams energised for the evening while we met the many international university sailors.
Qingdao has another reputation aside from its cheap beer, and that is for its lack of wind. Despite many concerns, thankfully this failed to materialise during the event. We only saw one day of minimal wind but the race committee were very experienced in dealing with this situation and so managed to keep the racing going, on a day where it otherwise seemed bleak. The race course saw a rather stable wind direction on all days, with the largest benefits coming in the form of pressure differences. Splitting off from the pack was a risk, but one which also had the possibility of bringing boats back from the dead, even in the presence of a significant tidal gradient. This was especially true on the first two days of racing where a light breeze meant the sluggish boats responded very well to just a knot or two more over 45+ minute races.
Thankfully the new fleet of boats avoided creating more horror stories of breakages, as were rife in previous years. Unfortunately, their twin rudder and asymmetric spinnaker setup resulted in somewhat limited agility. Despite other teams’ complaints to the committee about the performance of the boats, we stayed positive, safe in the knowledge that all the teams were all in the same boat (excuse the pun). Marisha’s magic bag of medicine came into use on the penultimate day of racing in the form of sea sickness tablets due to a very large swell that had been whipped up by a modest breeze against a ripping tide.
After a tough first day racing, it was Beer Festival time! The evening began with a journey on the longest bridge in the world, before arriving, much to our delight, to free refills of beer and various performances during the evening. The hotel became a hub for post racing socialising between teams (partially due to the bar), and being close to the local metro station meant we were easily able to travel into the city during some downtime in order to make the most of the amazing opportunity to explore the area. We took a particular liking to a PG massage establishment which gave all four of us a chance to release tension in our muscles after wrestling the boat.
With Lucy stranded in the UK, the structure of the boat had to be reorganised. However, we did our best to manage the situation even though, on occasion (usually spinnaker related), that last pair of hands was sorely missed. The racing was challenging and a change from our team racing pedigree but this kept us on our toes throughout – my role as tactician saw me (James Scott) rediscovering some fleet racing. Sadly we just missed out on gold fleet though we were not too disheartened after a close fought initial two days. The final day sadly saw no racing due to a storm making the sea-state even more formidable than the previous day. This left us a respectable mid-fleet amongst 12 teams after 4 days of sailing.
Our helm’s birthday (Ali Bibby) coincided with the closing ceremony, and as we mentioned previously the hosts were incredibly generous, pushing out a final act of kindness in the form of two of the largest cakes we’d ever seen! To which Ali admitted that “even my own parents could not provide birthday love on that level.” We would like to thank the organisers of the event for their incredible hospitality and the smooth running of the event, hence making it an easy decision for Oxford to send a team in future years. The social aspect with international competitors and fun atmosphere made the event enjoyable for everyone involved (despite minor bouts of seasickness).
We are very much looking forward to returning to Qingdao with a new OUYC team this year, and hope to improve on last year’s result
James Scott