The 18-year-old Yishun Junior College student's only aim was to avoid embarrassing herself against the many seasoned sailors in the field.

Likewise, when Dunman High School (Senior High) sailing captain Goh Shun Jie competed in the A Boys' Laser, he deliberately 'made a bigger round' at the turns to avoid getting in the way of the national sailors.

Tammy finished 24th out of 28 sailors. Shun Jie, 18, was 27th in the 31-strong field in his event.

Yet, despite finishing near the bottom, the duo were pleased with themselves.

Reason: They were novice sailors competing in the championships for the first time along with their respective schools.

Tammy and Shun Jie learnt to sail only last year when their schools introduced sailing as a co-curricular activity.

Yishun JC started their sailing club in October while Dunman High launched their sailing programme in February.

That explained why Tammy was a nervous wreck at the event. She and 13 schoolmates had just six months of twice-weekly training sessions before the meet.

'It can be embarrassing competing against the national sailors,' said the JC2 student. 'We're the same age but at very different levels when it comes to sailing.'

Said schoolmate Seah Siu Ngee, who is also in JC2: 'We just wanted to observe the more experienced sailors and learn from them.'

Naturally, Beverly Low, the teacher-in-charge of sailing at Yishun JC, was proud of her sailors even though most of them were among the last to finish.

It was a year ago that the former school sailor was tasked by Yishun JC to start a sailing programme. She spent six months working on getting funds, looking for a coach and sourcing for rental boats before her students finally got their chance to sail in October.

'More importantly, the students saw that this was something worth investing their time in,' she said.

'They even taught their peers how to sail when we held a camp for the school in February, even though they had all just received their Level 1 proficiency certificates.'

Today, Yishun JC's sailing programme has 30 sailors and an annual budget of $30,000. The money is used to pay for coaches and boat rentals.

It is a similar story at Dunman High.

Thanks to the school's support, Shun Jie and other like-minded students who were interested in learning to sail finally got the chance to do so.

There are now 19 sailors in Dunman's sailing programme. The school pays $650 a month to the National Sailing Centre for coaching services and the use of the centre's boats.

The Co-Curricular Activities Branch reimburses Dunman for the cost of at least one training session per week.

'Other than coming up with about $60 to buy our own shoes and lifejackets, we students don't have to pay a single cent,' said the Year Two student.

'That helps us draw in more people and open the CCA to more students.'

To take the sailing programme a step forward, Shun Jie and his schoolmates opted to compete at the championships.

And although they, like the Yishun JC sailors, finished near the bottom in their races, they were happy.

'We didn't have anything to lose racing against the national sailors,' said Shun Jie, who is hoping that Dunman will expand the sailing programme to its secondary school section.

'It gives us more experience and helps me to better prepare the next batch of sailors.'