Dragon Boat West

Kalamalka Lake is a bee-you-ti-ful site for the inaugural Vernon Dragon Boat Festival.  I went barefoot in the sand for most of the day, and I was helping load and unload team from the beach.  Every now and then I got to steer, drum or paddle for a team.

Saturday morning was beautiful Sunshine - very appreciated after the rainstorm on Friday.  I drove in Friday night, found the race organizers and volunteered my services - they are the Alberta Dragon Boat Race Foundation - an Alberta equivalent to Water's Edge or Foundation 2000.  Turns out I will be meeting them in San Francisco for combined Men's and Women's teams... very cool!

Calgary's Dynasty boats were used.  I met the developer Gary - He explained that compared to Gemini boats - teams have more rooms per seat and it helps to maximize a team's reach and potential.  The deeper gunwale is good for rough weather - as Saturday morning the wind blew up and the race organizers sent the teams out in white caps.  Kelowna and Penticton races have postponed races due to whitecaps.  But give the teams credit for rising up to the challenge.  Before the first race was called, the wicked wave action knocked one drummer into the water.  And another team came in and exchanged their steers for the services of the race director himself.  This first set of morning races were technically "Orientation Races."   Timed races took place in the afternoon, and they set up the seeding for Sunday.

Pacific Reach was the only team up from Vancouver (I didn't have enough paddlers to run a Gung Haggis Fat Choy team - but one of our paddlers joined a local Vernon women's team, and she is thrilled with this race).  Magic Dragons came from Calgary as a conglomerate of Calgary teams including Golden Dragons, Draco Dragons and one more.  Just Add Water  was the top Kelowna team, Desert Spirit travelled the length of the Okanagan Valley from Osoyoos, and Extreme Current came from Kamloops.

Top teams were:
1. Pacific Reach (Vancouver)
2. Extreme Current (Kamloops)
3. Magic Dragons (Calgary)
4. 100% Juiced sponsored by Sun-Rype (Kelowna).

Top Women's teams was:
Extreme Curves (Kamloops)
followed by...
I forget...

A cup was awarded to the overall best team -
no surprise - Pacific Reach.

After the finals - there was a FUN race!
All top fastest 4 times...  and everybody was agreeing to stacking a team to beat Pacific Reach... PR said "Bring it on!"
Ended up being Kamloop's Extreme Current with some paddlers from Magic Dragons + me as drummer.

I will definitely be back for next year!

Bonus... "Paddle Boy" introduced himself to me!

I can think of more worthwhile bonuses than that  :lol:

Did they have 3 monkeys manning the finish line or were they already booked for Richmond  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

Seriously, another festival to add to the schedule for the next few years.  Not sure I want to paddle a dynasty boat from what I have heard but the Okanagon in July, hmmmmmm

:silenced:

Was it Pacific Reach or that stacked team? I seem to think that Gunghaggis said it was the stacked team but Paddleboy seems to say it was Pacific Reach. So which is it please?

Also did you get a good feel for the boat Paddleboy? Do you think it was well worth it to get the "extra" practice races in for the real important ones coming up?  :wink:

:silenced:

Pacific Reach WAS the dominating team at the inaugural Vernon Dragon Boat Race.  10 seconds faster than any other team in the timed races.

I approached the top teams and the race directors early Sunday morning about the idea of stacking a team to give PR some challenge - and they all liked the idea.  In actuality - merging different styles sometimes doesn't work, and teams want to keep together as a "tribe".  Basically we kept to the original idea of the teams with the 4 fastest times.  We did have some Magic Dragons paddling with Kamloops' Extreme Currents - so the 2nd and 3rd fastest teams combined.  A men's team concept failed to manifest.  But along with Kelown Dragon Boat Club's "Just Add Water" and Exteme Curves women's team - everybody had LOTS of fun for that last race.

After THE RACE, Extreme Currents was paddling alongside Pacific Reach.  From the drummer's seat I threatened that instead of splashing PR, we were going to kidnap their steersperson.  It was actually a replacement steersperson they had - whom some PR paddlers told me that he really doesn't steer that well.  He grabbed the bailer and started tossing water at us, and promptly lost control of the boat - and PR started heading towards the swimmers.  Thankfully the team is very experienced and water-wise, they stopped their boat, and harrassed their steersperson (whom I shall not name for reasons of confidentiality). :lol:

PR did indeed pull up a water skier.   Anticipation built as the skier sat in the water getting ready.  When PR took off, a long rope slowly uncoiled.  The skier stayed crouching struggling with her balance for what seemed like a long time.  Finally, a great roar of approval from the people on the  beach and dock was heard, sustained clapping too!  

This new race in Vernon will be wonderful.  The Calgary organizers did a great job overcoming a resistant community very protective of Kalamalka Beach, and challenging wind conditions on Saturday morning.  Sunday water conditions were flat.  Almost ideal for stacking a team just to see how fast a Dynasty boat can go.  The Lake at the beach end is shallow enough that poles can be mounted in the bottom for exact positioning.  This would be ideal for a flag race with tethered starts and flags to grab for determining the winners.  False Creek is too deep with too many currents to set the flags in the bottom. :wink:

The more we have Vancouver players working with Calgary players the stronger the Western region of Dragon Boat Canada will be.  I had a good talk with the Calgary DBC people who would like to build a Western circuit - but travel and costs really put us at a disadvantage against Southern Ontario teams.  Calgary players also LOVED the idea of the dragon boat barrel races.  Look for them to introduce dragon boat "Chuck Wagon" races in Calgary soon.  Allow me to be the first to coin the phrase "DRAGON BOAT RODEO!"  :lol:

Even though I had to buy the entire PR team beer. Lucky for me the price of beer dropped before I had to buy.

What a dumb bet, oh well it was fun.  What a bunch of great people those PR folks are, really good sports.

I think that the lunch time demo's where the spectators got to go and have a fun race in a dB were fun and will do great things to get more interest next year.  Thx to PR for helping out with that.

I really think that Vernon will have at least double or triple the number of teams next year.

What Magic Paddler?!?!

You had to buy a beer each for the PR paddlers?
Is that why the price dropped from $4 to $3 - just after I bought my drink?  If you had the bet with PR - too bad we didn't run a men's team to give them a good run.

The Beer Garden at the Vernon DBF was nicely set up with a great view of the finish line + the music stage.  Too bad you had to use the 8 foot high fencing that made it feel like you were in a cage.  The 3 foot fencing at Alcan Races is much more view friendly - but then it is a public beach in the very conservative Coldstream suburb of Vernon.

There were 22 teams at VDBF this year - Double is 44.  I think 48 would be a good limit.  Don't want to overwhelm Coldstream too much.  I think 66 might be too big a jump.  Some of the organizers were run pretty ragged on the weekend, adjusting to the weather, the public beach crowd etc.

hey magic

 Welcome to the site !!

 I should have warned you about betting beer but I thought ....hey if he's willing to bet I was willing to accept .

 I'm glad you 2 enjoyed your time on the boat and it was great meeting you

 see you next week...........think of a new bet I like free beer,lol  :wink:

We do have the Beer Cup for the keg in Calgary on the Friday night.  Come on down,  I will make sure you get one after the Magic Dragons win it again.

Does anyone have the full results from the festival? Just want to do an update on the rankings/standings.