Continue reading]]> It’s the Annual BananaShip Dinner.. everyone looked great! We took over the entire FU Lam restaurant!

It was a great night seeing everyone together again. Old gossip, Old drama.. Little Helen, Britt and Samie prepared secret christmas cards for everyone. Weee! It was our secret mission while Little Helen would take all the cantaloup and dig through the fruit salad. You knew she passed by when there was no more cantaloup in the fruit salad.

It was Pui Sum’s birthday! We gave everyone their cards except Pui Sum, made her stand up and all sang Happy Birthday!

Continue reading]]> All team members walked into the competition.. saying ” WOAH…!!” It wasn’t Summer Splash, it was 20x bigger. There were over 160 teams present from all over the world. The rookies were very excited but also very stressed out.

Phil’s Femmes Fatales cheer was “Be a man!.. Do the right thing!”
Razor Lemon cheered “Razor Lemon! We’re full of…Vitamin G!”
And the rest, “This SHIP is BANANAS! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”

Every year, the announcer cheers for us, this year was no exception. Atiba, Jennifer, Sunny, Dan, family, friends from everywhere came by to cheer for BananaShip.

In the qualification race of Competitive, we raced against DCH, one of the best teams in the festival. Samie lost control of the boat because of the wave that was sent to her. It was probably the first time her confidence got shook so much. Competitive was no longer able to get into Premier division. Samie got extremely scared because she had to get ready and steer for the men’s team.. on the exact same lane at the exact same place. Broke a dragon’s tail in the morning, she got run over by another boat in the afternoon, then lost control on her steer right after.. the day wasn’t going well at all.

Lawrence steered for Phil’s Femmes for the first time, he was nervous, but handled it extremely well. Especially in the 6th lane. The second he was able to do it, nothing was impossible. Merica steered the Extreme boat, surprisingly, Extreme’s level increased dramatically from the Summer Splash placing them in a solid Final B Rookie.

Sarah and Samie spent a night on the phone with Jennifer telling them how she should’ve tackled the wave and how to avoid it next time. It calmed Samie down but she was still very upset by her performance.

On the second day, it was time for the finals, All BananaShip teams were placed in Final B in intermediate and in rookie. There was a big chance of getting a medal and a trophy. Izzy, Sheldon, were very hyped up about winning the category, everyone was.

The day ended with Silver, Bronze. Gendered Teams were placed in the 50th percentiles.
Razor Lemon made it very very close to 3rd place, it was a photo finish.
Extreme was doing just so well, the energy was unforgettable. For the first time, there was really strong chemistry.

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Continue reading]]> It was a quiet competition, not many teams yet. On a friday afternoon, everyone came, ready to roll. Amalo and Samie worked through the rosters, we didn’t know whether to use the competitive team and extreme team or simply play strategy and try to win as much cash as we can. We also found out Hong Kong Trip did not include the plane ticket, so we didn’t stress for that first place too much. Surprisingly everyone made an effort to be there.

Everyone was very stressed out, the next 3 days were going to be intense. The rosters were set up, we were called. The first race went great for both teams, the second race became more tricky. What did we want as a club? we went for the money. Because it was a student competition, it was not reflective of how we ranked in general. Winning some cash would let us buy our tent for Ottawa in 2011 which was much more beneficial.

We won 3rd in Hong Kong Cup and 1st in Final C. Those were great results.

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Sarah felt a little disconnected because she missed a couple of session due to work and school. She was really overwhelmed. Xiao, Merica, Britt and Samie decided to make a BBQ before Montreal Festival. That night, everyone seemed stressed out. It wasn’t like before anymore. Lawrence, King, Izzy, Sheldon, everyone was a little depressed, or nervous rather. There were expectations in the team, we won gold last time, so this time, there has to be something. Tatiana made a lot of cup cakes for everyone, it was yummy.

Helen, Samie and Xiao decided to make a flag for Bananaship, it was raining that day. Xiao was wearing running shoes and he was all wet!
The sun finally came up the moment we finished making the flag.

It was fun, except Britt wasn’t there with us. Helen and Britt became great buddies very quickly, they went to side walk sale and got themselves “I LOVE BS” tattoos and bought a random speaker. They also made a Banana trophy with the help of Britt’s aunt and her momma. The two always had cute ideas for BS. Just strange that Helen spoke french to Britt and Britt spoke english to Helen.

Continue reading]]> After the gold medal at Summer Splash, the team became a bit more confident ..actually maybe a bit too confident. Samie had to put them back on earth and decided to put a bucket behind the boat, made things very very tough. That training after the win was painful for everyone. It wasn’t time to slack off.. July’s Montreal Festival was our biggest worry. Although most of the team were rookies and did not know how big Montreal Festival was compared to the Summer Splash.

Xiao, Merica, Allan, Amalo and Samie had a talk, we were worried we would become a team with drama, group separations. The stress was brought into the next few sessions, It was worrisome, the 5 weren’t feeling too well. Most importantly.. team selection was a big problem, everyone wanted to be on the Competitive team but Samie had to choose based on the techniques, the attitude and the team spirit each member had. She was having a lot of trouble figuring out the roster with weights, heights, strengths and how to make the fastest team possible.

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