PA Water-Venture centre opens at Sembawang Beach

Channel NewsAsia 6 Jul 08;

SINGAPORE: A new People's Association (PA) water sports club has opened in Sembawang, giving residents in the north of Singapore a taste of seasports.

Anyone can take part in the activities at the new Water-Venture centre at Sembawang Beach, which include kayaking, windsurfing, sailing and wakeboarding.

If you can't swim, facilitators will make sure you have your personal flotation device (PFD) strapped on.

But knowing how to swim is a must, if you are signing up for a certified course.

Calvin Christian, Head of Business Development at PA Water-Venture, said: "We do a swim test for all our certified courses, with the aid of a personal flotation device, over a distance of 50 metres.

"What we look out for is people who are confident in the water, able to tread water, swim around comfortably with the PFD on, especially when they're doing the capsize drills. They have to be comfortable before we actually continue the course with them."

This is the eighth People's Association seasports club in Singapore. The PA seasports clubs have about 18,000 participants each year.

At the Sembawang Beach, there are red buoys that demarcate the limits of all water activities. If anyone were to stray beyond them, the centre's patrol boats will guide them back to safety.

All water activities take place within the line of sight of facilitators and should there be trouble out at sea, patrol boats only need a few minutes to get to the incident site.- CNA/so

Silent Dragons in Sembawang
Straits Times 7 Jul 08;

THEY have named themselves the Silent Dragons, but the 30 members of this dragon boat team are far from uncommunicative.

Eight team members are hearing-impaired, but the whole team knows sign language.

They often come an hour before training sessions to practise signing, said the team's co-instructor Lau Kim Lan, 38.

'We wanted to bring these two communities together using dragon boating as a platform,' she said.

Besides their usual training grounds at the Kallang Basin and Seletar Reservoir, the Silent Dragons now have a new place to paddle, with the opening of the People's Association's(PA) latest water sports centre in Sembawang.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan and Law Minister K. Shanmugam, both MPs for Sembawang GRC, joined 1,500 Sembawang residents at the opening of the Water-Venture outlet yesterday.

Measuring about 7,000 sq m, it is the eighth such centre managed by the PA and will have facilities for sports like kayaking and sailing.

It is the biggest centre of its kind. There are plans for other services, like wakeboarding classes.

It is expected to cater to about 500 Sembawang residents, said its assistant manager Sylvester Sim.

The Silent Dragons, who performed paddling displays at the opening, are excited about this possible new training ground.

'We're very interested in doing some kayaking exercises here that will help with our dragon boating skills as well,' said Ms Lau.

HONG XINYI