Actionasia Adventure Race

Yesterday I went down to help out at the Actionasia adventure race as technical crew. I had to wake up at 5am, took the first bus to Marina, and walked to the Promenade park. No one was there still, and I napped. When I woke up a while later, this was what Shenton way looked like then -

As with the race in year 2004, the organisation of the race was in a mess. We waited a long while to get any word from the technical director, and finally (after much decisions and revisions) I was assigned to man the fixed lines across the Sheares bridge pillar to the park. A safety boat transported us across the water to the pillar, how cool! Out comes my handphone to snap pictures from the place -




It was a busy day at the river - there were the usual dragonboats and duck tours going in and out past the bridge, but also lots of leisure crafts and sail boats! One had a mast that almost touches the bottom of the bridge. I have no idea what made them turned up there, but it sure made the river really crowded.


The other crews are here looking at the setup of the lines. A tyrolean traverse is usually done to connect to high points, with the user pulling themselves across the line with the aid of pulleys. Here the racers have their back on the water when they pull themselves over, anchored to the line with their safety slings.



It isn't very clear, but the picture below was meant to show the ziplines anchored to the water from the bridge. On the other side of the bridge is the abseil station, where racers abseil down to the end of the rope, which ends a few meters above the water. It is endlessly fascinating for me to watch them make their way down the rope, pause before the end, and suddenly you hear a snap as the end is fed through the device, the racer pauses in midair for a split second, before they make a splash into the water below.


All in all, an interesting day lah. One female racer was yelping out in delight constantly during the swim after the abseil drop, and said to us "I feel so sad that you're not doing this!" But well, I love to stay dry and see others enjoy themselves like this ha. Haven't been doing technical rope work for so long already, want to jump onto any opportunities to do so.