Gimme, Gimme Gimme

31 Oct 2010

Ocean...

...Deep!

Well, not really.

The estuary of the Terengganu River is not that deep, even to the extend that a F36 Monsoon Cup yacht could run aground if it sails too near to the shore. How does mad redo1 know all this?

He just competed in the Heritage Bay Cup, The Monsoon Cup 2010 Edition with his Team AG:eing.


mad redo1 is not a sailor and he never intend to become one during his childhood years. But since the annual Monsoon Cup tour came to town in 2005 it has been his ambition to get himself onto the boat.

Last year was the closest when someone offered him the chance to ride with the competitors during the race but due to his 'busy' schedule, he only got to shoot pictures of the race from the balcony of the Marina building.

Then when mad redo1 received this call, he did not have to think twice and within a day a crew of seven was assembled. Taking into consideration the average age of the crews (39.3 years old) thus the name Team AG:eing was adopted.

A set of sailing attire was ordered and printed with the name of the team and the crew, at a very low cost, thanks to the sponsorship by the print-shop owner himself who then delivered the shirts on the very next day after confirming the order.

Anybody wishing to get a good deal on uniforms/shirts or other items can get in touch with ABB Jaya Enterprise via e-mail: abbjaya_05@yahoo.com or contact the manager: Encik Anuar at 013-927-1418. The business already has a good reputation in kT.


On Friday, the crew assembled at The Ri-Yaz Heritage Marina and after a briefing by Mr David Mills, the Programme Facilitator, Team AG:eing took to the water on a F36 boat under the tutelage of Miss Ai-Li and Miss Anushka. Of course it was just a short with just over an hour for these ageing brains to absorb all the information needed in order to compete later in the afternoon.

Then it was time for Friday Prayers.


The race time could not come soon enough for the crew. Despite having a few butterflies in the stomach everybody was in an upbeat mood. After Mr Mills had given the racing brief, everybody headed out to the marina and this time everyone seemed to know their job.


Linda a.k.a. Mrs Birch had taken the role of the skipper while mad redo1 a.k.a. The Birch would be the Bowman. These roles put both of them at different ends of the boat. Nizam or more more affectionately known as Kulat had volunteered for the role of the Mast-man while the rest of the crew namely Abu, Hilmi a.k.a. Mat Ming, Enal and Eskay became trimmers and grinders for port and starboard sides respectively.

The weather was similar to the monsoon which made us more excited with the challenge.


Race One was done on a Windward Leeward Course and after a few tacking and jiving we surprised ourselves by coming in at third place. Not bad, not bad at all for a crew of beginners.

Unfortunately for Race Two which was done on a Trapezoid Course, our advisor 'seemed' to be misjudging the distance in getting to the starting line in time for the start of the race. As a result we were already 15 seconds behind the rest of the pack. It was not a recoverable distance and Team AG:eing finished last.


For Race Three which returned to the Windward Leeward Course we timed our start almost perfectly and despite going in different direction from the rest of the pack it seemed that we were still in a good position to at least finish at least among the top four of this race.


Unfortunately several 'questionable advices' threw us off the pace and after hitting a buoy which induced a penalty, Team AG:eing really looked the age as we finished last again. Thus the two last finishes put paid to our hopes of not finishing last of the pack.

The sailing bugs certainly have bitten us hard and we are certainly looking forward to competing again in the next edition of the Heritage Bay Cup.


Watch out world, Team AG:eing is coming at you again!

By the way the Heritage Bay Cup was won by the Ri-Yaz Sailing Team.



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5 comments:

Ai said...

... it is the power of Google!

haha, i think i forgot to highlight one point about myself. i have been sailing for a very long time, BUT, i was never the leader of the pack, unfortunately...

questionable advices is something i myself am trying to overcome in my own sailing career.

nevertheless... i hope you guys keep the spirits high and continue to train hard and smart!

till we meet again, go team AG:eing! :D

mad redo1 said...

Hi Ai Li (got to get that spelling corrected)

It's good having you here and we certainly enjoyed ourselves on the F36 with you on board. Team AG:eing is certainly looking forward to coming back for the next edition and we hope to see you again.

In regards of questionable advices, I can relate to that with me being a goalkeeper in football, I do commit errors due to misjudgment which most of the time would be costly as I was the last line of defence.

But life is all about learning, so we move on having learned something from our errors and try not to let it occur again.

Thanks again Ai Li!

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Ai said...

thanks, for the advice and encouragement!

i will be back for the monsoon cup, i am taking you guys up on the offer for dinner..

see you guys then! :)

Unknown said...

Aili, Birch..........excuse me...my English is not so good but i'll try myself to express what was i feel and its is come from the bottom of my heart...please correct me if i'm doing wrong....

Ai Li...Thanx 4 all of the comments...we're so sorry if our team members looks so ambitious..and this is because we're all new in that kind of sport...for the first experienced in our life, we actually really enjoyed ourselves to sail and get accompanied with u...thanx 4 all of the coaching and support......and i hope you're not feel so frustrated and angry according to our 'hot' and 'funny' comments in our facebook.

AG:eing members... what an exciting day with all of u...it made me feel so happy to the rest of my life...although, these are our 1st experience...here we learnt a lot of something new in our life...we learnt the new 'Words" like 'winch' 'starboard and port side' 'jiving', 'tacking,and also , "BOOM" etc,...we feel so happy altogether ... As a beginner I saw we actually have a lot of talent..but we only have a few hours of practice and continuously complete a day with 'touring Heritage Cup 2010 race , thats why we finish last...by the way ...a thousands thanks to our cute coach Aili and Anushka for all of the commitment, we miss both of U so much...tq

Lastly ,Aili ,You're welcome to the monsoon cup and don't forget to have some special dinner with our team....

TQ so much......

MatMing@Mohd Hilmi

mad redo1 said...

AL - yup, someone will take you for dinner during the Monsoon Cup... tell us your preference first

MH - I would not apologize for being ambitious because when you enter any competition you can only have full satisfaction when you know you have done your best, if doing my best makes me looking too ambitious, then so be it... HAHA!

Of course the most important thing is to have fun, that why there was no shouting & swearing from this bowman that day... if not everybody would be stressed out and this bowman would be without a team for the next edition... hehehe...