{"id":43106,"date":"2021-07-14T14:20:47","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T18:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/?p=43106"},"modified":"2023-05-06T17:35:04","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T21:35:04","slug":"sailboat-racing-with-singapores-changi-sailing-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/story\/people\/changi-sailing-club-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Sailboat Racing with Singapore\u2019s Changi Sailing Club"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Changi <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The Changi Sailing Club\u2019s race committee keeps things \u00adsimple and hoists signal flags from the dock rather than tying up a committee boat for weekend racing.<\/span>\n Courtesy Gary M. Goodlander<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

While I raced competitively as a youth in Optis and Lasers\u2014and loved to sail big boats in all the Caribbean regattas during the \u201980s and \u201990s\u2014I fell out of Grand Prix yacht racing as I began to focus on circumnavigating a couple of decades ago. The few times I hopped aboard others\u2019 boats and raced in the Med, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa were unsatisfying on two fronts: One, I didn\u2019t seem to be able to completely focus on winning for the entire duration of the event; and two, the vessels and crews were disappointments as well. Once you\u2019ve raced on top-notch racing boats that are designed, built, financed, campaigned, and equipped to win against similarly serious craft, well, it\u2019s hard to go back to the mom-and-pop beer-can races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Thus, my racing skills atrophied\u2014delightfully so. Where I once would adjust a boat\u2019s cunningham as we accelerated after every tack, as a cruiser, I set it for winter or summer, if that. On the racecourse, I used to joke about yacht racers \u201crushing to get it over with\u201d; then I adopted a go-slow philosophy and took it to heart. I was in no hurry. I didn\u2019t want to beat anyone; I just wanted to be. I wanted to happily exist in a watery world where God\u2019s smiling face is reflected in every wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

When a salesman at a marine-supply store in Cape Town boasted that a certain $100 gizmo would \u201csave you at least a day, or perhaps two\u201d on my upcoming nonstop passage back to St. John in the US Virgin Islands, I smiled and asked, \u201cDo you have anything for $100 that would allow me to spend an additional week at sea?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

After all, racing aside, the sole constant in my 61 years of living aboard is the desire to be at sea. For me, Mother Ocean always works her magic. Who needs Zen when there\u2019s a tiller in your hand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Then COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Not only were my wife, Carolyn, and I forced by logic and common sense to stay put in Singapore, our options to use our heavy-displacement ketch that\u2019s set up for offshore voyaging were slim. Sure, we sailed to Lazarus Island and Pulau Ubin many times, but we practically could have swum there as well. Thus, our bottom fouled. And, as the saying goes, we ended up aground on our coffee grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

This is the reality of world cruising: Sh-t happens, occasionally and pandemically! As lifelong cruising sailors, our job is to roll with the punches. So Carolyn and I manage to eke out some watery fun in whatever manner we can in whatever port we happen to be anchored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Does \u201ceke out fun\u201d sound frivolous? If so, it is because, dear reader, you\u2019re not in cruising mode. For a sea gypsy, smiling blissfully at the horizon is what it\u2019s about. We carry our joy aboard and, if we\u2019re lucky and skillful, our joy never runs out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Which brings us to the charming Changi Sailing Club, where we\u2019re sitting out COVID and where no stink-potters are allowed. Its roots go back almost 100 years. For Carolyn and me, having a sundowner on the palm-shaded veranda is to experience a taste of classical colonialism, set within the diverse cultural rainbow of the ultramodern nation state that is Singapore. Think Bogie and Bacall. While the club\u2019s core membership is Singaporean, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian and Malay, there\u2019s a smattering of imported expats from England, France, Italy, Holland and America as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Singapore is tiny. Land is scarce. Most homes are minuscule. And families often live multigenerational under the same roof. Thus, the British club concept never faded here in S\u2019pore, and the pool, beach, clubhouse and three bars\/eateries teem with family fun on the weekends. You can even rent a chalet for a mere $50 per night if you want a watery getaway from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Changi <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Wind direction favors a port-tack start at the pin end of the line as a fleet of weekend \u00adracers heads for the first weather mark.<\/span>\n Courtesy Gary M. Goodlander<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

At Changi, the focus is on affordable family sailing. The club has an extremely active fleet of big boats in the 20- to 40-foot range, and nearly 100 dinghies for rent by the hour. There are clouds of Optis, Lasers, Toppers and beach cats that flit through the large river anchorage seven days a week. The affordable sailing scene is further buttressed by the fact that a lot of expat sailors from Europe are stationed here by their global corporations for only a year or two, and they tend to buy expensive boats that they then have to sell quickly at a huge loss when transferred to their next high-paying assignment. As a result, boats are cheap in expensive Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

As the pandemic restrictions dragged on from weeks to months, I, of course, could watch the local race boats milling within feet of our 43-foot ketch Ganesh for only so long without itching to be aboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

And compared with other harbors we\u2019d visited, in many ways the Changi Club goes to extraordinary measures to facilitate the racing. You don\u2019t need a dinghy or tender because the bumboats, or launches, run 12 hours a day, seven days a week. There\u2019s a small shipyard and launch ramp if you want to dry-sail. Gear lockers are available for your racing stuff, and after racing, nearly 20 sailors can shower at the club at the same time. During regattas, with three to four 16-foot Boston Whalers powered by 60 hp engines in use at all times, if a small boat capsizes or a larger boat runs aground, experienced assistance can be on-site within moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Best of all, there\u2019s a permanent sea buoy for the leeward starting pin, and race-committee officials work from their own shaded world of flags and horns on the long T-pier that extends into the mooring field at the other end of the starting line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Read More from Cap\u2019n Fatty Goodlander:<\/b> Cruisers Stuck Aboard in Singapore<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

But the most remarkable thing about racing in Changi is the course itself. It teems with freighters, cruise ships, sampans, junks, kayaks, windsurfers, kiteboards, pilot boats, resupply boats, fuel tenders, floating cranes, full-on oil rigs and, of course, the local fishing fleet. If it floats, it is zooming around crazily past the beach at Changi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

But those aren\u2019t the only challenges to yachtsmen. Plentiful numbers of 7-foot-long monitor lizards are common; perhaps that\u2019s what has driven away most of the crocs. And there is a major tide in S\u2019pore, and the ebb current in particular is quite strong. Then, just to make the racing a tad more exciting, rocks and volcanic shoals lurk everywhere. There\u2019s never a dull moment when waterborne off Changi. (For those readers who can\u2019t recall where they\u2019ve heard of Changi before, our current mooring is within sight of the Changi Prison of James Clavell\u2019s novel King Rat<\/i>. Or, if you\u2019re a World War II buff, this beach is where the Japanese slaughtered 10,000-plus Singaporeans at low water so the rising tide would carry away the bodies\u2014first into town, then out to sea.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Yes, Singapore history is rich with blood, sweat and misery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

But all the grimness of the island\u2019s past and the pandemic\u2019s presence is now forgotten as the starting gun sounds. If I\u2019m feeling multihull, I race with the large fleet of dry-sailed Corsair trimarans or swing from the trapeze aboard one of the many Nacra beach cats. If I\u2019m in a one-design mood, it is a Laser with my American pals or a Topper if I want to share sea yarns with the Brits. Last week I helmed an Olson 34 named Sapphire Star<\/i> so that its owner, a Brit named Simon, could sort out his asymmetrical from his symmetrical spinnaker running rigging. Winds tend to be gentle in Singapore, so light-air rags are a must on the downwind legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Of course, Singapore sailors are smart\u2014as befits a country with such a high educational standard\u2014so the races are short and the parties long. And they\u2019re also more civil: At the mark roundings, we politely discuss what \u201cclear ahead\u201d means so that no sailor loses face. Back ashore, the awards ceremonies have so many grinning nationalities involved, it\u2019s like a drunken UN meeting for sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

So, yeah, I\u2019m getting in some laid-back, emphasis-on-the-fun club racing while learning that in the age of COVID, stopping for extended port stays is now part of the global cruising game as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The Goodlanders are spending spring weekends being entertained by the racing scene in Singapore.<\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While waiting out the pandemic in Singapore, Cap\u2019n Fatty enjoys some spins around the buoys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Cap'n Fatty Goodlander","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20210714","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"165","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Cap'n Fatty joins in some sailboat racing with Singapore's Changi Sailing Club","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"3NRYYBQCBBDGJA2EB65ZEA4RGE","arc_website_url":"story\/people\/changi-sailing-club-racing\/","custom_permalink":"story\/people\/changi-sailing-club-racing\/","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[199,197,258],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}