Every year, we send three team members to handle the work onsite during the regatta, however, it’s only one of three phases in our work on the RLIR website’s year-long cycle. In this post, we’ll let you peek behind the sails to see what really goes on throughout the year leading up to, during and after regatta week to ensure smooth sailing and timely web updates at the event.

A crash course in the Royal Langkawi International Regatta

Before we start talking about what we do at RLIR, it’s important to get the lay of the land or, uh, sea before diving into deeper waters. Here’s a quick look at what happens at the regatta this week.

What, when and where is the Regatta?

The RLIR is an annual sailing regatta, or series of sailboat races, hosted and run by the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club that takes place along the coast and surrounding islands of Langkawi, Malaysia. Drawing many local and international yachting teams, the regatta is an awesome display of sailing prowess and teamwork. The event takes place in early January (this year, from the 6th until the 11th) when the weather is characterised by clear blue skies, strong winds and scorching heat; the sunshine alone guarantees an epic sunburn for those who didn’t get the sunblock memo.

Regatta week starts with a practice race around Kuah Harbour (pictured above) which is just off Langkawi island’s biggest town, Kuah. For the 5 remaining race days, the teams compete on different courses in various locations around Langkawi’s coast and other nearby islands. Most of the evenings have organised dinners at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club which is also when the awards are presented for the most recent races. The week culminates in the final awards and grand prize ceremony on Saturday night.

How do the actual races work?

Good question! At each race, the crew is meant to sail the predefined course in a bid to finish the fastest. The skipper, the boat’s captain, has to guide and instruct his crew to manoeuvre around the course to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. As for who’s competing, the regatta is open to six different boat classes, roughly characterised as different types of boats. However, the races themselves are class specific which means that in one race, only boats of the same class compete with each other. That day, the same racecourse will be used by all classes with each class being flagged off at a different start time.

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In theory, the scoring is pretty straightforward: whoever finishes the race in the shortest time wins and the higher up you are in position, the better the score. However, calculating the winner is a little more complex than that. Though the races are class-specific, a time corrector known as a rating, and sometimes called a handicap, is also used to allow different boat classes to compete with each other despite differences in size and speed. At RLIR, the IRC rating rule is used to calculate the time corrector, known as a TCC rating, based on a boat’s measurements such as length, weight and sail area amongst other things. At the end of each race, the boat’s elapsed race time is then multiplied by its TCC to calculate the vessels corrected time. Whoever has the shortest corrected time is declared the winner. At the awards ceremonies, crews are then recognised as winners for each class as well as with a rating-corrected time.

So what does Stampede do for RLIR?

Our team has been involved with designing and maintaining the regatta website for years! 2020 is actually RLIR’s 18th year running and Stampede’s 15th as part of the landlubber digital crew. The bulk of the work usually involves maintenance and making sure that the site is technologically up to date and timely in its content. 2015, on the other hand, was special because we redesigned the Langkawi Regatta website to capture and retain the spirit of the event while making sure that it had longevity. Here, we’ll tell you a little about how the team planned and executed the redesign and how the rest of the maintenance work is otherwise split into three distinct phases: Before, during and after RLIR.

Redesigning the website

The current website was redesigned in 2015 and yet the look, feel and features remain relevant and fresh 5 years later. Our team’s design decisions were informed by a need to recreate the aura of the live event in addition to using data from the website and feedback from the RLIR team to inform its functional elements.

The team created the design from scratch, taking care to deliver the highlights and excitement of the race. This time, we also chose to give a rare glimpse of the people behind the race itself: from the yachts themselves, crews, race officers, volunteers all the way to the organising committee. Since the regatta is an annual reunion of sorts for the international yachting community, it was important for us to convey that sense of genial familiarity, synonymous with the Langkawi Regatta brand, to its online presence. Powered by WordPress, the regatta website is also geared to support fast and efficient updates as the event happens. This includes a live Newsfeed wall for everyone to watch in real time.

Other essential design considerations were data-informed. Based on the Langkawi Regatta website analytics (above) for multiple years, it’s clear that the vast majority of our website users are aged 40 and above. A large chunk of our users also look at the website on their mobile devices. Equipped with this data, we designed the website to ensure that everything from navigation through to font sizes and notifications is optimised for this demographic and for mobile viewing. This is a classic case of using available information on your users to inform design decisions and make meaningful and relevant experiences for them. As a result, we are still using the 2015 design today!

Before the Regatta

We usually spend the six months leading up to the race updating the RLIR website in preparation for the main event. This involves making sure that items such as SEO and plugins are the most recent. The website is a central hub for the participants and media to learn more about what’s in store so it’s imperative that we put up the information promptly.

Our standard practice is to update important information in less than 30 minutes from the time that we receive it. Vital information such as the regatta dates, crew availability (a listing page which shows people looking to crew on a boat) and banner images are some of the items that need to be done straight away followed by enabling the entry forms for participant registration. Other critical items like the schedule, sailing rules, scoring, penalty system and fees also need to go up so that participants can start planning their strategy and media can begin writing about the event. On the other hand, less critical updates such as updating the hotel rates, entrants list and unofficial press is updated within 2 hours. The pace of updating picks up considerably in December as it’s a month before the start of RLIR. This is when we receive the most content updates from the RLYC team.

During RLIR

This marks the most exciting and hectic period for us and the RLIR team. What sets this phase apart from the others is that it requires our team to be at RLYC and updating the website live. Besides the updates coming in thick and fast, sudden changes sometimes need to be made. The website’s traffic peaks during the event so it’s important that the updates are made swiftly by the onsite team so that web visitors can get the latest news.

The Team

Every year, we send an RLIR team that consists of two Front End Developers (FEDs) and a Designer. This year, we’ve sent our Senior FED Iwan Hakim and FED Sani Halid along with and Saiful Hamdan, UX Designer, to handle the event. Iwan, is the team lead and an RLIR veteran with more than a decade’s worth of experience. Besides having valuable knowledge from working on so many Langkawi regattas, he’s also the linchpin of our team connecting many participants, committee members to race officers and returning volunteers. He’s even rubbed shoulders with some of the VIPs! Since he has an established relationship working with the RLIR team, he can then manage the workload and delegate which allows the team members to focus on execution.

The work assigned to each team member is based on their areas of expertise. FEDs are assigned to update the site during the event which includes daily results, highlights, videos, photo gallery and email newsletter while the designer is assigned to process the images passed to us from RLIR’s photographer. The team also sits in the media room where they can have access to good and stable internet for the updates.

A day at the regatta: Round the clock work

A typical day at the regatta actually requires continuous work from early in the morning until the wee hours. This is because news, updates and pictures come in at different times and need to be sent out throughout the day and before the next day starts. The first thing we attend to is putting up vital information and last minute instructions onto the website. This can happen as early as 6 am so that the participants get a chance to read it before they head out to the racecourse at 7 am.

After breakfast, the Stampede team starts actively looking for content that can be used on the website’s RLIR timeline page. This page provides a summary of everything that happened on the day and includes results, information, highlights and much more and will need to be updated throughout the day. Meanwhile, the other team members will start preparing the day’s race results which are released around 12 pm. Once we receive the results from the race officers, they are updated on the website as soon as possible so that everyone can access them on the mobile friendly site. Once the results are finalised, they are printed and displayed on the notice board at RLYC for our media partners.

Throughout this process, it is crucial that we ensure that the results are accurate before they go up on the site. We also try to get all the latest information, especially the race results, up before everyone gets back from the day’s races. This is so the participants can see them and celebrate immediately. Prompt updates and a stable website are especially helpful for participants as they can quickly check the results and file a protest if necessary. A protest is a formal submission made within a specified time to the jury by someone who noticed when a team or individual violated the rules of the race. If found to be true, the protest could lead to a change of results.

When the evening rolls around, we can start processing the rest of the day’s content updates. There is usually a lull after updating the results as the official photographer can only pass us the race images around midnight. This is because they are out at sea all day taking photos and need to shoot the evening awards ceremonies after. However, once the photos are passed to us, our designer can then go through the images, select the best ones and then optimise them for website use for the photo gallery, email newsletter (also known as an EDM) and highlights. We also add items to the RLIR Timeline including social media posts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to give the website visitors a peek at the day’s events as well as behind the scenes to hype up regatta. This makes it easy for everyone to find out everything quickly and from one place.

The last item we need to prepare and send out before calling it a night is the daily newsletter blast that gives an overview of what happened that day and contains videos from our media partners. The newsletter is especially important as it’s the main source of news for the people and family members who couldn’t attend the regatta. Our Mailchimp analytics also show that since it’s sent late at night, it becomes the first thing they open in the morning to view yesterday’s photos and videos to catch up with the race before gearing up for the day.

All in all, working all throughout the day and then waiting to upload the day’s photos at night which means long hours and sleepiness in the mornings. Needless to say, this can all be pretty gruelling. So how do we beat sleep? Well, we don’t just use tape to hold our eyelids open! To make sure that everyone gets enough rest, we rotate the team members so that someone is always working while the others sleep. We find this works pretty well. We also directly inject, I mean drink, our fresh coffee in the mornings from the Starbucks nearby to give us a kick start. Sometimes Shaza, our UX Principal who lives in, Langkawi actually makes a Starbies Javachip Frap delivery to the team before returning to Mission Control to monitor the website.

What we get to experience at RLIR

It’s not all work and no play though. Regatta is an incredible experience because we get to meet new people and learn about the world of sailing. There are always opportunities to connect with new people at events and RLIR is no exception. For example, we work closely with volunteers where there tend to be new faces every year so we get to meet a wide variety of people every time. In comparison, the media teams tend to have less turnover so we get to see familiar faces so each regatta is always a big reunion with lots of old friends.

Most people also don’t get the opportunity to watch the race up close but we’re lucky to be able to do so. At least once during regatta week, our team hops on an RLIR charter boats which zooms out to sea so we can watch the race up close. The most interesting part of the race is watching when the yachts are turning around a buoy. It’s always a moment where the crews have to work together and move around in synchrony to make the turn. Truly teamwork at its best!

We’re also lucky to have the RLIR personnel and volunteers onboard with us who answer our questions and tell us about what’s happening. By working the event, we learn a lot about sailing. From the terms to the boat structure, racing rules, scoring systems the list is endless. Learning about this also helps us do our work since we understand the lingo and can talk to others within the sailing community. Overall, it’s just an awesome getting to watch the teams in action from the water with the wind in our hair and sunshine on our face.

After the Regatta

Once the regatta is done and dusted, our priority is to notify web visitors that the event has finished. We update the site with a congratulatory message to the winners and a thank you to the participants and sponsors while displaying the full result on the homepage. We then convert the RLIR Timeline so it’s of a past regatta. By doing this, web visitors who missed the proverbial boat can still find out what happened during race week. Compared to our work during the regatta, this period is a cakewalk with the fewest updates and the least work.

RLIR is an exciting and challenging opportunity for our team to plan, coordinate and execute a year-long web campaign. Much like when the boats go round a buoy, we need to work with each other closely and communicate with the RLIR team before, during and after the regatta to make sure that the website and event is a success. We wouldn’t be able to make it through one night of the event without having a clear process and posting schedule nor a sleep plan! It also requires attention to detail and seamless delivery while maintaining the flexibility required to deal with sudden changes. Thankfully, we have the opportunity every year to meet our users and hear their ideas for how to improve the RLIR website further. Nothing beats a reality check like talking to real sailors and sailing enthusiasts.

To find out what we’ve been talking about this whole blog post, raise yer sails and head on over to langkawiregatta.com for our team’s real-time web coverage! Keep up with our scurvy team on our Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter.

The post Avast! Behind the Sails at the Royal Langkawi International Regatta appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Last Friday (25th November 2016) marked the first time Stampede got together, physically at one place, and at the same time. If you didn’t know already, we at Stampede work remotely from various places around Malaysia along with other parts of the world. For instance, we have Viki from Hungary and Tony from Indonesia. Both flew down to KL just for this meet-up.

While we have met Tony before when he flew down last year, this marks the first time we were meeting Viki in person. She flew all the way from Budapest to meet us.

Viki arrives in Malaysia!

The reason for this get-together was to attend the JomLaunch 4 in Kuala Lumpur along with having Stampede-related meetings and just plain having fun together. Stampede was invited to JomLaunch 4 because of the voluntary work we did for the JomLaunch team. We designed and build the entire website.

The first thing we did as a team was to have dinner, which we did at Bangsar, KL. We ordered a variety of dishes and everyone dug in to their heart’s content. The tom yam soup was particularly good.

Stampede Dinner with Thai Food!

Once we had our fill, we proceeded to the condo that Shaza booked for us via Airbnb. This location was in the heart of KL and you could see some great sights at the height we were at, floor 41. We dropped off our luggage and got the needed rest for the following day’s event.

One the highlights of that night were the fresh shrimps that Iwan caught himself and prepared for us. You won’t find it any fresher and more delicious than this. It was definitely a great snack to have to produce great dreams that night.

Fresh cooked shrimps by Chef Iwan / Viki taking that honorary food pic

Event day, JomLaunch 4

Saturday happened, and we woke up extra early so that we could get first pick of our seats before the crowd moved in. The sun rose earlier that day and we could see it glowing behind the tall buildings of the city. It was a great sight.

We woke up to this the next morning!

Hopping into two separate vehicles we arrived at the venue earlier than expected. The event staff were still setting up so we had a moment for a quick breather to look around. When the event opened, there was an influx of people getting themselves registered to collect their goodie bags. We noticed that the JomLaunch team had their hands full, so we decided to help them out for a bit.

Shaza & Viki helping out at the reception

Once the crowd had finished moving into the event hall, we followed suit and took our seats. Here’s a quick explanation on what JomLaunch is about. It is an event where participants showcase their awesome ICT (information and communications technology) idea. This can be an explanation of how their system works but most participants brought working prototypes to the event itself. Some of these were ready for public usage. In total, this year JomLaunch 4 had 18 participants. The event started at 8.30 AM and completed by 5.30 PM.

The crowd at JomLaunch 4. Can you spot the Stampede team?

The presentations from each team varied from malware protection to a 3D education game. Here’s a list of what was presented during JomLaunch 4.

1. Eraxen Endpoint Protection – malware protection
2. MMS – motorsport / cub management system
3. RunCloud.io – competitor to ServerPilot.my
4. Bytetuta – AI bot for muslim lifestyle
5. Mytix – venue ticket sales management
6. MyClinic2U – clinic management
7. Ninja iDempiere – plugin for Idempiere
8. Splate – Laravel SaaS boilerplate
9. Soding – talent search and headhunting
10. WhatsTivity – social media platform
11. Telebuzz – telegram bot
12. CerdikApp – communication and monitoring tools for students, parents and teachers
13. MInD Automated Vehicle (MAV) – automated guided vehicle (manufacturing)
14. RobotJualan.com – bot for sales
15. EksploRazi – 3D education game
16. Terapi.my – Uber for home spa service
17. GO.my  – travel assistant
18. HireMe.my – platform to build and share resumes

In the end, the event was a success with every participant getting their time to showcase their ideas. The winner of this year’s JomLaunch was RunCloud.io who’s team built a platform for easy server setup. They were awarded RM 1,000 in the form of a check.

Meeting people

Another thing we like to do at these events is to meet up with other people from the industry. After a year or two, you’ll start to recognize many individuals, start-up founders and their key team members. Sometimes we bump into people who are fond of the work we do and want to get to know us better.

This is Fachrul (left), who got us together for a wefie

It’s really great to know we’re appreciated for the work we do as we put a lot of effort, thought and heart into our work culture.

Close-knit community

It never ceases to surprise us how close-knit the JomLaunch community is. The presentations of each team were well thought off and presented rather casually. This can be seen in the past 3 JomLaunches as well. The organizers did their best to brighten the atmosphere by inserting a joke or two in-between presentations. As the day was a long one, many present were feeling tired at the end of the day, but those jokes helped perk them up again.

Serious vs Freestyle

The closing night

After the event was over, we were very hungry and on our way to dinner. That was when the JomLaunch team caught us off-guard by inviting us out for steamboat. We replenished our tummies and shared a bunch of conversations with one another. Thanks JomLaunch, we look forward to what’s in store for next year!

JomLaunch and Stampede having an awesome dinner

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Shaiful, Tony and Zana catching some waves.

Going to Kuala Lumpur

I begun my morning with prayers, resisting the urge to get some extra sleep and making some final preparations before leaving my house. Understanding that my flight departs at 10:58 AM, I wanted to get to the airport early. Using GrabCar, I got picked up from my place and arrived at Soekarno Hatta Airport at 8:30 AM. All that time in-between meant that I could catch up on my downloaded anime. When it was time, I boarded the airplane and traveled across the sea to Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Hanging Out with Shaiful

My flight to KL was on a Saturday and the following flight I would need to take to get to Langkawi was on a Sunday; this meant that I had one day in KL to explore. Shaiful offered me a place to bunk in during my stay at KL (thanks master!). We spent some time at his place talking about Indonesian and Malaysian topics whilst munching down ‘pisang goreng’ (banana fritters) and sipping hot tea prepared by Shaiful’s mother. Later that evening, Shaiful drove us to Aimar Corner to indulge in ‘char kuey teow’ (a noodle dish). That was my first time having it and two plates were finished before I realized it. Once we got back, we did some work on the Langkawi Regatta website.

Initial Thoughts About Langkawi

The following day, we took a flight from KL to Langkawi. I was amazed by how similar the island looked like when compared to the south side of Bali with its numerous cafes, motels, hotels and foreign travelers. I found the vibe very good and started liking this country more!

My Awesome Team

My involvement during the regatta was to update the event website’s timeline on all the action that occurred from morning up to the evening. This also included popular social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The updates came in fast, by the minutes in fact. During midnight, we would prepare the timeline for the following day’s events. Teamwork was key here and without it, things wouldn’t have gone smoothly.

Before we proceed any further, a small introduction to the team:

Dahlia, Zana, Shaiful, Tony and Iwan ready for what’s in store!

1. Iwan. The leader of the team with the most experience about regatta among us. Hence why a lot of people in the club knew him.
2. Shaiful. My master, who gave me his advice regarding all matters on updating the timeline. His role was to update the website.
3. Dahlia. The project manager and designer who helped prepare all the visual assets that were used for the event.
4. Zana. The social media manager, who prepared all the content to be sent via social media.

We were like the Power Rangers!

I had a good time in Langkawi while working in the yacht club and hanging out with Dov and Shaza (thanks for the BBQ). The guys and I spent a lot of time talking on various topics, one of which was an old Indonesian song that both Iwan and Shaiful knew. It was interesting to find out that they knew quite a bit on Indonesian music, at times they knew tracks that I never knew. These talks happened mostly while working as well as in the room where we all crashed for the night.

On the Race Days

During the yacht races I did not really know what was going on, but I think it all went well judging by how fast the yachts were skimming through the seas. Obviously the one that was going the fastest had to be winning.

There was a heavy downpour on Thursday and that could have been the cause of why Friday had such small winds while Saturday had almost nothing. Because of that however, the race had to be cancelled and due to its cancellation, on Day 4, the team with the lead position would be crowned the winner. It was a pity that some teams lost the chance to catch up due to the cancelled race day.

On the 4th day of the race, the yachts sailed very closely to the marina. Iwan mentioned that this was the first time it was happening and it looked beautiful. It was also that day where I got the chance to enter the sea with Shaiful and Zana. Shaiful prepared anti-seasick medicine but we couldn’t drink it because we had to consume it at least 1 hour in advance, something we only noticed 15 minutes before. On the boat, I told myself mentally to just keep looking ahead and not the side or the back to prevent myself from turning over. I didn’t want to become a spectacle if it happened but surprisingly I didn’t feel anything even after reaching the shore.

On the last day, Dahlia had to rest because of food poisoning. It was a pity because there was a lot of food that night. I had a lot of delicious satay which had a different flavor from the ones I was familiar with in Indonesia. The event closed in a fireworks finale and the guests and participants invited themselves onto the dance floor.

Farewell Langkawi

The final day had arrived and it was time for me to return back home. It was a Sunday and my flight was booked at 11.25 AM. Shaza picked me, Shaiful and Zana up from our lodging and we left at 10 AM to go to the airport. Shaza shared with me a myth which mentioned that someone who travels to Langkawi will return back to Langkawi (and she proved it!). As for myself, the next time I’ll go to Malaysia/Langkawi with my own little family.

Thank you everyone at Stampede for having me at this event. See you next year!

The post Royal Langkawi International Regatta 2016 appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

If you are feeling seasick, look to the horizon because that is the only thing reasonably stable when you are on a boat. But how boring it is to be stable all the time, no?

Running Social Media

Aside from providing real-time race updates via web, of which Syazwan and the boys had been doing for the previous years, we are also tasked in providing updates via RLIR’s social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

On top of the existing platforms, we decided to introduce something new – a brainchild of our Creative Lead, Shaza.

Behold, the beautiful RLIR 2015 Timeline – providing the Regatta updates by the minute.

Constantly updated with the latest embeds from multiple social media platforms and fully responsive to boot, which means everyone can browse on their mobile devices, our Timeline had garnered close to 4,000 visitors within a week and had been the talk of the regatta!

Faces of Royal Langkawi International Regatta

I look forward for good races, good show and good souls.

Because we are not easily satiable by just updating social media, we came up with the idea of having Faces of Royal Langkawi International Regatta.

Injecting a bit of human factor to this year’s regatta, we conducted quick 2-5 min interviews with the folks around the Regatta- merely a quick chat on their hopes, dreams, fears and what made them who they are today.

So we went round the yacht club, armed with a camera and a little bit of courage to talk to people. These amazing people – they were the employees, the volunteers, the sailors, the media, the visitors, anyone who were happy to chat. They were even more ecstatic to be told they were going to be featured in social media. Some would quickly tag themselves for their family and friends to see when their photos were up.

This project is yet another talk of the regatta!

A new Foxy Lady in town

On the final day of the race, I was approached by Wicky Sundram, the ever delightful Regatta Director – and was introduced to Bill Bremner, the skipper of Foxy Lady VI.

“Would you like to go racing with Bill and his team onboard Foxy Lady VI tomorrow?”

I quickly said yes without thinking further. I have never sailed before. The night before the race, it was a mix of being ecstatic and feeling terrified. This is going to be a race, no, two races – not a leisurely stroll. The most extreme sports I have done was running, back in the chilly mornings of London. Now, not so much.

Luckily, Bill and his team were ever helpful. A cool team who knows how to have loads of fun while being thoroughly focused while racing, we started out to the sea listening to Deadmau5, Black Keys and Pnau. I was given a detailed briefing on the inner workings of a yacht, the terms and we had some light practice before the race. Basically all I had to do was move to the port and the starboard during the race, in times of changing directions of which the sailors call ‘tacking‘. It sounded nothing much, but in the midst of sailing and everyone was in full focus, you have to take care of yourself and not get in the way of the team doing their best job.

And The Foxy Lady VI came first in the IRC1 class in the Regatta. Yay!

My observation: The Foxy Lady team is an absolutely amazing team, with a strong team dynamic. The level of precisions and details given into the preparation is just mindblowing. Their teamwork is rock solid and coordination is on point. Just the perfect team.

It was great fun, and definitely this will not be my last time sailing. Thank you for trusting such a sailing n00b to be onboard, Bill and team!

The Stampede team

I know I have mentioned this time and again, but have you met my team – my wonderful Stampede team?

I, and each other, could have never achieved things above and beyond without the unbridled support of each other. Seven of us, juggling the tasks of live web update, providing live social media to four different platforms, interviewing people, taking photos and transcribing the recordings later on and make everyone look and sound good – these tasks were nothing piece of cake.

Yet in between all the noise and the traffic and the bustle, we could not resist including in some little harmless trolling.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, they say? We defy that and we play and work at the same time.

It gets even better when I receive random messages in my inbox congratulating our team for a job well done, on top of the verbal praises we received while on the job. We could not stop smiling.

Conclusion

I think I speak for the whole team when I say this is the best Royal Langkawi International Regatta, yet. As always with Stampede, even though we often aim for the moon (and more than often we land higher than the stars), we will often aim for an even greater heights the next time round. Also, have I ever told you how therapeutic it is to work overlooking the gorgeous Andaman Sea?

So mark our words, next year’s Regatta is going to be even more spectacular. See you again!

(And Mihalis, I hope to see you too again next year 😉 )

While you are at that, check out these RLIR2015 links:

• Web
• RLIR2015 Timeline
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

(Foxy Lady VI photos credits go to Icarus Sailing Media & Sea Yachting.)

The post All Good Things: Royal Langkawi International Regatta 2015 appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Me attempting the soul grind technique

During the weekends, I spend most of my time inline skating with my friends. We are part of an official inline skating club established in 2010 based in Langkawi, Malaysia called SKROLS. Most people thought SKROLS is a combination of the word ‘skate’ and ‘rolls’, but it actually stands for Sukan Kasut Roda Langkah Sukar.

Anatomy of an inline skate

If you must know, there are several types of inline skating:

• Aggressive
• Roller hockey
• Artistic
• Freestyle slalom
• Downhill
• Recreational
• Speed skating

When I first started skating in end of 2010, I chose to start with recreational skate. Recreational skate is a basic skate method with flat setup where all wheels slot are filled with same size wheels. Skating method with flat setup have more stability and speed compared to banana setup. As a newbie before, I played recreational inline skate a lot on a flat surface, just as a way to build up skills.

After about 1 year recreational inline skating, one day I decided to attempt to play freestyle slalom. Turns out that I liked it.

If you must know, freestyle slalom skating is a highly technical field of skating that involves performing tricks around a straight line of equally spaced cones. Freestyle slalom uses full rocker setup, a.k.a banana setup. This makes skating much easier to turn and also easier to perform tricks but it lacks in the stability department. Just like recreational skating, the best place to attempt freestyle slalom is a location with a flat and smooth surface. It is definitely not recommended for a newbie because it is hard to maintain balance while attempting it.

After about 2 and half years which is about last two weeks, I attempted to try aggressive inline skating. I have to learn basic movement again using flat setup. It would be completely different to turn and build speed from using full rocker setup, and I fell many times trying to get the flow before I finally was able to master it. It was all worth it.

Different types of skate wheel setups

My next goal would be to attempt much more complicated inline skating methods, probably roller hockey or artistic? We’ll see.

Like many other new things to try, inline skating requires a lot of courage to start. I guess it is safe to say that to play inline skating, skaters must always be prepared to fall many times, being laughed at by friends and at times, get injured.

If you have been inline skating before, what skills have you mastered? Comment below!

(Sources for reference and images: Wikipedia and Inlineskating.about.com)

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