How many people get to go to three of these things? Not many, that’s who. We got bronze again, after UWA (standard) and USA (newcomers). We could have beaten USA – shitty umpiring – but shitty umpiring is part of teams racing at most levels and you just have to accept that over multiple regattas it will even out. IMO we were lucky to beat Melbourne to make the top 3, they were very strong, so really it all worked out. There were 11 teams so almost double last year, which was awesome. It’s like doing a real sport!
Team drama? yes, can’t have AUGs without drama. But not as bad as some teams, or even us last year. We had a weight issue – we were always going to be very light, so prior to our first weigh in, I sculled nearly 2 litres of water. Aaaand weighed in at 58 which is what I was normally! Based off everyone’s results it seemed that the scales were about 2kg off. Towards the end of the regatta, some of the boys were playing around and found that if you stood at the very front of the scales, they read correctly. Too late!
If you’ve never force drunk water, it’s not fun, especially when the Adelaide water doesn’t taste very good! Our team drank a lot, one crew just to be allowed to sail – the officials decided to enforce the rule that more than 10kg under is not allowed. Oh, and they made everyone wear shorts to weigh in. It’s one thing making people take their phones and wallets out of their pockets, but a lot of us actually wore jeans that day as it was quite cool, so we were all running around swapping shorts with each other. Like…. your scales read low. You must know this. How about not also being ridiculous?
Anyway…. this is the sort of riveting thing that goes on at a sailing regatta!
The best thing that actually happened at the club was the pie floater contest. The canteen & volunteer ladies were really lovely and when we had a few hours break with no wind, they cracked out the South Australian specialty. It’s basically a meat pie floating in a bowl of mashed peas/pea soup. Not a bad thing to eat, slowly, when you’re hungry. To eat very fast, after drinking heavily for several nights in a row? Let’s just say it was too much for some. I think NSW won, in a team effort after the first eater sprinted off to find a bin.
There were no photos taken because people were too busy having fun, which is kinda awesome.
The rest of the week was just sailing and hitting the nightlife of Adelaide – every night this time. It’s better than it sounds. We didn’t get a lot of sleep between getting home at 3 and being at the sailing club at 8am, this is where teams racing is very relaxing as you just sleep between races 🙂
I had serious post unigames depression for a week or two, glad it’s cleared up now. Hopefully, I will get to go on exchange next year and this will be my last AUGs. If not, going to number 4 would make up approximately 5% of my disappointment at not doing exchange! My dream would be to play rugby 7s and be a reserve for sailing, but they haven’t had girls 7s for the last couple of years owing to lack of entrants. The whole Olympic thing is meant to be making it more popular so…. you never know.
Mistakes We Needed to Make 