Dawn (right) with her fellow SMU team mate in Team Sailing

It all comes down to a 4-letter word: team.

25 athletes and 14 officials made up the massive sailing contingent – one of, if not the biggest group that Singapore had sent for any event. As Pattaya, the venue for sailing, was away from the main SEA Games venue in Korat, we were pretty much removed from the rest of Team Singapore.

I have been to a lot of competitions in my sailing career, from local regattas to world championship events. The SEA Games, however, is something special. Things heat up during the Games in a very unique way. Despite the fewer number of competing countries this year, the pressure was unexpectedly high. The sailing event took place over a week, with 12 races scheduled in total.

Our team managers had a simple recipe for success – routine. Control the variables that can be controlled, and everything would fall into place. So we fell into a comfortable day-to-day pattern that ran like clockwork by the time racing began. A good thing too, since it was easy to keep things together with an 'autopilot mode' to fall back on when the pressure grew high.

What stood out to me, though, was how close-knit the team was. Bonding a team of 10 is difficult enough, even more so with 25. It was therefore amazing how very much it felt like being in a family at the Games. We played together in the mornings, joked over every meal, hung out in each other's rooms after training to relax and chill. I can safely say that our sailing team had the strongest team spirit and morale of any country there – it showed.

And paid off. Racing turned out to be a struggle. The expected strong and consistent breeze failed to blow in, leaving us with shifty, uncertain wind where anything could happen.

Team Sailing in a huddle before the competition               Dawn (front row, first left) with Singapore's other gold                                                                                    medallists in 4 sailing events

But we persevered and did our best to knock in solid results, and in the end … 4 golds, 6 silvers, and 3 bronzes – a medal in all but one of the categories we entered. The results speak for themselves, but I cannot say that it was any one person's particular triumph; rather, the result was something to be proud of as a team, because we all helped each other get there.

Ultimately, the SEA Games experience was one that stretched beyond the mere fortnight I spent in Pattaya, Thailand. The spirit of camaraderie continues, and I can only hope to experience it first-hand again as part of yet another wonderful team in another successful Games campaign in the future!