MUSCAT (Oman) — I was standing on the trampoline of a catamaran, my far-from-sea-worthy legs struggling to find purchase.

I was not really paying too much attention to balancing anyway — all my attention was on a curled-up, burly man who was shouting instructions at me.

“Remember to keep your legs up because we’ll be running across here,” shouted SAP Extreme Sailing Team headsail trim Mikkel Rossberg, gesturing while assuming the foetal position.

“So I don’t trip anybody?” I said, feeling a little clever that I’ve managed to stay one step ahead of his instructions. “No, no, so we don’t step on you,” he replied. I detected a semblance of a grin.

And that was my welcome to the Extreme Sailing Series, a stadium-sailing competition in its seventh season this year. A stadium-sailing competition is one in which spectators can get up close to the action.

With eight different locations worldwide to visit, Singapore is the second stop in a race best described as sailing meets Formula 1.

Returning to Singapore for the first time since 2011, this year’s race takes place at The Promontory@Marina Bay. But before the boats arrived in Singapore, I got to wet my feet in the Gulf of Oman.

I had never sailed on a proper sailboat before, and here I was being thrown into the deep end on a sailboat that’s built for speed, even in low winds — the Extreme 40 catamaran is a bigger and badder version of the Tornado sailboat used in the Olympics.

I lay down on my spot, a tiny black mat laid out on the trampoline — the nylon netting that connected the two hulls of the catamaran together. I curled up, tucked my legs in, my fingers in a vice-like grip on the nylon ropes. It was my first time on a sailboat and I didn’t want it to be my last.

A buzzer sounded and the race began, the five members of the SAP team sprang into a hive of activity. That was when Rossberg’s warnings became clear, and suddenly I was wishing that I had skipped having that extra potato during the breakfast buffet.

The boat sliced through water, and the next thing I knew, my world had gone askew — one of the catamaran’s two hulls was flying, having lifted more than a metre off the surface. It was all white-knuckle action as we went head-on into the waves, bouncing and splashing hard.

I was recording the action with cameras on my head, but that didn’t last long — the boom struck me and they flew off my head in opposite directions. That seemed like a good time to have my first heart attack, but my prayers were answered as none of the cameras fell into the sea. I managed to reach for one, life was too precious to reach over for the other.

And after what felt like forever (slightly less than 15 minutes), the race was over.

One camera around my neck, the other salvaged by a crew member, I made my way back to the holding boat, wearing drenched clothes and a smile on my face. Despite how emasculating being curled up like a ball while being tossed by waves can be, my experience was pretty smooth sailing.

Others returned with bruised knees and elbows, and a colleague even came back with ruined and torn pants. Maybe I’m a sucker for torture, but when a chance to give it another go presented itself, I dove right in.

The memories of being on the open sea off the coast of Oman showed just how exciting the short-course sailing races could be — positions and winds changed constantly, adding a dimension of unpredictability to the races (freshman team Team Korea even won two races in Oman).

And with the action up close to the audience, it is likely the Singapore leg will float your boat too.