Dragon Boat West

I always take Guido's comment's with a grain of salt... but does anyone know if this is true?

I'm not sure why Victoria teams don't like the Alcan race.. it's not like we need to quickly hold the boat right after we cross the finish line, worry about float plane landings or sit in the baking sun to wait for that car ferry to finish loading and unloading.  Don't get me wrong, I love racing in Victoria.. it's one of the nicest venues around, I just don't see what the fuss is about since if you can deal with all that stuff... what's so bad about Alcan?

As for Vancouver teams boycotting Victoria, it's almost the case already as many teams would rather go to Kelowna than Victoria just because of transportation issues.  Ferry costs for a team including cars is pretty much equal to the cost of registration to the festival.

Victoria is a fine venue.  The course has it's quirks, but that's a good thing.  The only thing they need to do is increase the number of teams, which won't happen.

Coming to Vancouver could be expensive for the Island teams.  Especially if they need to be in Vancouver on Friday night for Saturday morning.  More expensive than mainland crews going to the Island?  I don't know.

Actually if you were in Victoria last year, you'd see that Capital Iron is pretty strong too.. of course that was last year and everyone pretty much starts on a clean slate at the start of the season...

Gorging even comes over for the Richmond race.. I don't see why they would miss Alcan..

Hmmm...new to this site, so I'll have to be careful.  The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the Gorging Dragons and the Dragonauts will be at Alcan.  I'm pretty sure there are a couple of other teams coming from the GRPC, but cannot confirm that.

Don't know where you heard that Victoria teams don't like racing in Vancouver?  I like it just fine.  Yes, it is a bit costly, considering the ferry and accomodation, but it is the highest level of competition currently in BC.  One thing to keep in mind regarding the number of teams coming over from Victoria is that our local festival is not until August and many local teams don't start training for that event until the beginning of May, which really does not leave much time to get ready for Alcan.  It's my opinion that only the handful of competitive minded Victoria teams come to Alcan and most just stay put on the Island.  We now have a festival in Nanaimo as well, and with the Vancouver Island Dragon Boat Championships (which is only open to island teams) the weekend before the Victoria festival, that's 3 festivals for local teams to attend without leaving the Island.

There.  My first post.

Welcome to the Forums, butter.  
I've actually heard that same rumor about some Victoria teams not liking Alcan as well.  I know it's all heresay but the major thing they were complaining about was that the festival was poorly organized or something like that (I don't know how much better organized you can be when you're dealing with 180 some-odd teams).  They wanted to have two marshalling areas, one in the racers village and one by the loading area.  Also, they wanted to be lead from the first marshalling area to the second marshalling area much like what happens in the Victoria Festival.

Cost-wise I think it's relatively the same costs for Vancouver teams to race in Victoria and vice versa.  Of course I'm not sure if the hotel costs in Vancouver are the same as those in Victoria though.