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Welcome to Dragon Boat West

Dragon Boat West is an interactive web site delivering dragon boat news, events, race results and a discussion forum for the growing community of dragon boat paddlers in Greater Vancouver and its surrounding regions. Our goal is to provide a venue for dragon boat paddlers, organizers and volunteers to discuss anything that relates to the sport of dragon boat racing. This site will be the place where you can get race news, announcements, results and other information with a focus on BC and the West Coast.


Idle dragon boats in Vancouver

Race Video


2008 Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival
Jun 22, 2008
Competitive A Championship
Credit: BlueStreak

Final Results
1 Lane 5 1:55.15 FCRCC Mixed A
2 Lane 6 1:55.92 Mauna Hale
3 Lane 4 1:56.84 Kai Ikaika Paddling Club
4 Lane 3 1:59.28 Gorging Dragons
5 Lane 1 2:00.59 Pemberton Bald Eagles
6 Lane 7 2:00.63 FCRCC Mixed B
7 Lane 2 2:00.92 Los Angeles Racing Dragons Black
8 Lane 8 2:01.56 Edgewater Casino - Without Warning


Dragon Boat West News & Announcements
xx FCRCC Outrigger Clinics - Saturday August 23
July 26, 2008, 12:38:43 AM by paddleBOT
HAVE YOU BEEN WANTING TO TRY PADDLING OUTRIGGER CANOE OR IMPROVE YOUR STROKE?

Here’s your chance!

False Creek Racing Canoe Club Women’s Distance Program presents:

Introduction to Outrigger Canoe
Saturday August 23, 12:00 pm-2:00 pm

Learn to paddle six-person outrigger canoe in a safe, fun and informative environment in this beginner class instructed by National champion paddlers.  No experience necessary.  All canoes will be steered by experienced paddlers.  All equipment provided.  Personal attention guaranteed with 1:4 instructor to paddler ratio.

Cost: $60/person.  Register soon!  Class size limited to 20.

Outrigger Stroke Improvement Clinic
Saturday August 23, 2:00 pm-4:30 pm

Improve your outrigger stroke with water instruction and post-paddling video review.  Former outrigger experience required.  Personal attention guaranteed with 1:4 instructor to paddler ratio.

Head coach will be Kamini Jain, two-time Olympian and coach of the 2008 Canadian Team for the World Outrigger Sprints and the 2009 Canadian Open and Mixed Premier Teams for the World Dragon Boat Championships.

Cost: $80/person.  Register soon!  Class size limited to 20.
 
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To register for either clinic please email Kamini at kejain@hotmail.com with header “Outrigger Clinic Registration”.

Support local paddlers competing against the world.  Proceeds will assist the FCRCC Women’s Outrigger Team attending the World Distance Championships in September.


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xx 2008 Team Ladder Rankings
June 08, 2008, 03:41:26 PM by BlueStreak
The new Dragon Boat West 2008 team rankings has been posted at http://www.dragonboatwest.net/index.php?page=13.

As rumored, we have a new ranking system replacing the points based standings system of the past couple years. The new system includes all teams that race in festivals and regattas in the BC lower mainland, Vancouver Island and the surrounding region. This new system was developed in conjunction with the Alcan festival ranking team – they came up with the idea and logic behind it, we developed the software that would run through the calculations and produce the results.

How it Works
Other broad ranking systems work based on race time performance. Due to our situation here in BC where we have differing boat hulls and tidal conditions, it is pretty much impossible to accurately compare teams based on time. Instead, this ladder ranking system works on the premise that you can positively compare teams by comparing them to other teams they’ve directly raced. To do this, we look at a single heat, from the lowest placing to the highest placing and compare the two lowest placing teams (last and second last). Then we compare the higher placing team to the team that placed above it (second last and third last). We do this until we get to the top two teams in the heat. Each pair of teams has a “winning” team and a “losing” team. If the losing team is on the ladder and is in a higher rank than the winning team, the winning team simply moves up to the losing team position, pushing the losing team down one spot. Teams that are new to ranking and don’t beat any existing team on it, are added to the bottom of the list. Repeat this comparison for every single heat and for every race, and this is how produce the ranking.

Caveats
While the new ladder ranking system is very comprehensive, there are some quirks which would cause it to sometimes produce unexpected results. An example of one quirk is when a high division team has a bad race (or mid level team having a good race), resulting in a middle level division team taking a high position in the ladder. If that team, by luck, doesn’t race any other higher division teams for a while, it will stay in that high position on the ladder. There’s also the issue of comparing mainland teams to island teams. So far this year, there hasn’t been very much “cross-pollination” of teams between mainland and island races. That will soon change after the Alcan festival but for the time being, comparisons between mainland and island teams won’t be entire accurate, although relationships amongst teams on the same side of the Georgia Straight will be pretty much correct.

All in all, it comes to the amount of race data. The more race data available, the more accurate the ladder ranking system will be.
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xx 2008 MEC Paddlefest
May 09, 2008, 12:21:43 AM by paddleBOT
2008 MEC Paddlefest

Join us for Paddlefest 2008, hosted by all MEC stores. Paddlefest is an urban celebration of canoeing and kayaking. The festival will feature learning opportunities on water and on land. Paddlers of all skill levels are welcome.

Direct link to MEC Paddlefest

DBW comment: Paddlefest is hosted by MEC stores in major cities across Canada.  The goal is to promote paddle sports, with an emphasis on canoe and kayak.  This is a great opportunity to learn more about other paddling disciplines.  Check the listing to see what is offered in your city. 
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Dragon Boat News From Yahoo News

Hanna doesn't dampen Dragon Boat races (Pawtucket Times)
PAWTUCKET — Chinese Dragon Boats hail from an ancient legend of a poet named Ch’u Yaun who was exiled from his kingdom and consequently threw himself into the Mi Lo River.

A race fit for dragons (The Providence Journal)
Peter Lew, of Newton, Mass., steers the Wellness Warriors to the starting line of yesterday’s annual Dragon Boat race in Pawtucket. The Wellness Community Dragon Boat is made up of cancer survivors. Lew is a volunteer at the Wellness Center.

Five Live: Get Out (The Oregonian)
1. Portland Riverfest The10-day series of events celebrating the Willamette River continues, with kayak and sunset bike tours, a river cleanup, dragon boat races and a cruise on the Sternwheeler Rose. Friday-Sunday, locations vary, most events take place at Waterfront Park; www.portlandriverfest.org

SPORTS SHORTS (The Bay Area Citizen)
From Bay Area Citizen staff  

Low water hampers Dragon boat practice (Thunder Bay Post)
Paddling practice came to a quick halt Thursday for a group training on Boulevard Lake for an international Dragon Boat competition.

Cross-Straits charter flights scheduled for Mid-Autumn Festival (China Economic Net)
Passengers can take 16 round-trip charter flights across the Taiwan Strait during the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese feast, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced on Friday.

Breast cancer walk, festivals, close some roads (CTV Toronto)
Updated: Sat Sep. 06 2008 1:22:14 PM ctvtoronto.ca

City in running for '10 International Dragon Boat Festival (myKawartha.com)
The Peterborough Survivors Abreast steering committee will know this month if it has been chosen to host the 2010 International Dragon Boat Festival.

New local MS centre offers sense of hope (The Sudbury Star)
Members of the Sudbury chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society intend to use the new MS Centre of Hope as leverage to lobby for an MS clinic in Sudbury. Sudbury is a "hotspot" for the debilitating disease, says the society's Laurel Ireland, and there are no MS clinics [...]

Hanna comes howling (The Providence Journal)
Forecasters predict between 3 and 6 inches of rain from the tropical storm and issue a flash-flood watch.
Weather