Dragon Boat West

I'll start off by saying that at the 2nd Annual Taiwanese Festival dragon boat races I had a pretty good time attending..

Races, in general were on time, if not running ahead of schedule.  I have heard from many paddlers during the weekend that the Festival side of things was viewed as better than the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival.  Biggest reason given was that there was more of an authentic/exotic feeling to the events, food and merchandise. Racer's Village was disappointing but at least there was a patch of ground for the racers.

The races themselves were just as most of us expected.  Many were disappointed with the size of the competition. To pay $700 to race against 27 other teams seems rather expensive.. especially when Richmond was $200 cheaper and had a total of 42 teams competing. I suspect the 100 free entrance tickets to each paddler had something to do with the high cost. One plus this festival had over Richmond was the strength of the competition with a larger representation from upper Rec teams. The racing itself was fine, once you accepted the fact that you would be racing in slugs and bathtubs.  The teaks weren't that bad and had brought back memories for some of the older paddlers that had started their dragonboat lives in these boats.

In terms of predictions for the event.. Links Team Success and Scotia were pretty much a given to come up on top... The only real guessing was where the team put together last minute from paddlers from various teams from around the Creek would place against Scotia. The weekend did have some surprises from #4 on though. Team MPower proved Guido wrong and raced to a 4th overall finish. I would also like to congratulate both Just Dragon Along (1st in A Consolation, 5th overall), Saints Preserve Us(4th in A Consolation, 8th overall) and Yellow Submarine (1st in B Championship, 9th overall) for doing so well considering their age (the majority of Just Dragon Along will be attending their first year of post-secondary today...) and competition, beating out teams like Team United, Swordfish, TD Lightning, BC Hydro/Eye of the Dragon, Mercedes...

From what I saw there was only one collision (I could be wrong) and that happened on the Saturday morning... There were no sinkings even thought the waterline on the teaks was closer to the gunwhale than most paddlers are used to out here.

I was quite amused how the rumor that the finish counted at the tip of the flag rather than the head of the boat had spread across racers village over the weekend.  This lead to some great pictures of "Titanic" poses with flag catchers doing "Superman's" with the flags.

The Synergy teams continued to do what they're known for... waterfights. Ask them what coliform counts are and they will just splash you with their paddles. Someone from their boat actually swam to shore after being thrown out of the boat by his teammates after a race (at least that's what the announcer said...)

One of the great moments of the weekend was after the A SemiFinal race on Sunday morning between The Lil' Boat That Could, MPower, United and JDA. There were paddlers in this race that were on the original Just Dragon Along team from 10 years ago... also involved were some paddlers from United and MPower that were part of the old Apocalypse team from five years ago. Over the years these teams viewed each other as their closest competition and would gauge how successful they were by comparing themselves to each other. It was great to see all the paddlers in this race hi-fiving each other as they walked off the docks since there is quite some history between these teams.

All in all... it was a great weekend of racing. Definitely more of a fun race than a paddling clinic.

Group A Results
The Link's Team SUCCESS
The Lil' Boat That Could
Scotiabank Dragons
Team M-Power
Just Dragon Along
Swordfish
Team United
Saints Preserve Us

*sniff sniff* that was touching Chaos...(wtf am I saying?) What kind of sappy ass crap is this? :lol:  You getting soft and man? :roll: *ok I admit I maybe on thin ice after saying all that, I could be band from dbw, or team could get black listed, and from now on, at all Alcan festivals...crappy lane, crappy boat! (yeah chaos has connections!  msn(:|) )*

Anyways, it was interesting to see the teams listed in that particular A semi-final.  I'm surprised you didn't go a little deeper, and trace people further to their roots hmm...would get very confusing! *S* the glory days of Apocalypse! Wouldn’t it be nice to resurrect that team...nah

hahaha nice to see where your loyalty still lies :D

Very ture though, and thanks for pointing that out, chaos... these teams are connected on so many levels that it was nearly impossible to not make the competition friendly. There were 3 paddlers that I coached 2 years ago who were on Lil' Boat That Could, and I was honestly proud for them... even when they beat us.