Balance is the key

If fate had taken a different twist, Kimberly Lim would not have been a sailor, much less a world champion.

Instead of wetsuits, life vests, sunglasses and sun screen, she could still be donning tutus and pointe shoes now instead.

The CHIJ (Katong) Primary alumnus and Tanjong Katong Girls' School student said: "I started learning ballet in Primary 2 as part of the school's programme, about a year before I tried sailing because my elder sister Samantha was already doing so.

"I was doing both for some time and, at one point, I was going to stay on in ballet and not sail anymore."

The fact that she was initially scared of being alone on a boat out at sea didn't help as well. But Samantha, who is two years older, helped calm her nerves by accompanying her in an Optimist dinghy in one session, and Kimberly never looked back since.

Her achievements include the Optimist Australia Championships girls' title (2009), Asian Games Girls' Optimist silver (2010), Asian Optimist Championships Open and Girls' title (2011), before she was crowned world champion at the Optimist World Championships in Napier, New Zealand, last Monday.

Her latest victory makes her the first Singaporean to win the overall title in the Under-15 class of boats.

Griselda Khng clinched the girls' title in 2007, but finished second overall to Germany's Julian Autenrieth.

All these, for someone who used to be an "indoors kind of person".

Kimberly said: "I like art and drawing, and I would draw for fun when I am bored.

"But I also liked the times my parents took me and my sister to hike when we were staying in Canada and Australia."

She was about two when she spent a year in North America, and then the following one Down Under.

Between travelling for competitions and her studies, Kimberly splits her leisure time between family and her close pals, mostly fellow sailors.

One of them is schoolmate Savannah Siew, whose first encounter with Kimberly was in Primary Two.

Savannah, also 15, said: "I picked up sailing at about the same time, but I was from Tao Nan School and we've always had an inter-school rivalry.

"I knew she was a competitor who needed to be beaten, and she seemed to be scary in a sense because she was in the national squad, so I would keep a distance."

"But after I got to know her when we came to the same secondary school, she's just... funny," added the daughter of former national sailor Siew Shaw Her, chuckling after finally ending her sentence.

Following her victory, Kimberly will "retire" from the Optimist boats soon and is likely to start training with the 420s next month, with the O levels beckoning at the end of the year.

Further on the horizon are the Isaf Youth Sailing World Championship and the Olympics.

Asked if she would have continued with ballet if not for sailing, she said: "I think so because I liked it, perhaps I would do that or something similar, like dance.

"But it seems so weird now because that is the total opposite of sport!" she said, laughing. Ballet's loss, but a big gain for sailing.

This article was first published in The New Paper.