Dragon Boat West

someone explain to me how this happened.... the 2006 PDBA Championship are in MARCH in ARIZONA.  most teams are just starting to gear up for the season and there's a championship ALREADY.  what will a preseason championship accomplish? 

and why is it going to be at the Tempe tournament???? quite frankly, it's a horrible racing venue with quite possibly the WORST dragon boat race organizers out there.  hell, might as well have the third reich run the races in a class 4 white water river.  last year they averaged times across heats to determine winners.  unbelievable.  i believe FMG is going to do the tournament again this year - say it ain't so.   last year, one team was dq'ed for excessive celebration - and terrell owens wasn't even on the boat.  what a freakin' disaster.  maybe our team will win the "most organized team award" this year.  what a joke.

not to mention the level of competition was horrible - the only notable teams were a skeleton team from BAD, a majority of LARD 1st year paddlers, the Gupppies and the very new Space Dragons.  They managed to attract one team from Asia.  that was it.  but hey, there's always the 2 blocks of bars that are down the street....

it was much better when the PDBA championships were held later in the season in Long Beach and San Francisco.  oh, how i yearn for the good 'ole days.

thats something i would have liked to have seen...  what were they doing that was "excessive"?

not sure - i think they were just yelling.  some of our guys got strong warnings for undoing the zippers on their life vest before they left the dock.  absolutely unbelievable.  not to mention that they weren't using numbers to designate heats, instead they used letters.  "Heat AC, now marshalling"  what a joke.

from a pure safety stand point, that makes perfect sense. 

i understand that precaution with new/corporate teams, but our team, and most of the teams we compete against know what they are doing.  from a purely safety standpoint, one shouldn't even get on a boat that is sitting in water....

they're probly just afraid to get sued, it is the states :P

cool, -25 now, for doing nothin~!

question though, if FMG is so bad, why are they still around, who are they profitting off of?

i think they are profiting from small groups w/ no previous experience in throwing dboat races - like cultural associations that want to take their festival to "the next level"... their races are great for corporate teams and the lower end of rec, but it is just horrible for the upper levels of rec and the competitive levels....

or maybe i'm just spoiled - our team's staple races are Alcan, SF, and Long Beach....

even the most experienced of swimmers can drown.....  its not a matter of experience, or "knowing what you're doing".  if someone slipped, smashed their head and fell into the water unconcsious with their pfd unzipped, who's to say that they would stay in the pfd and stay on the surface and not sink below or get trapped under the dock?  sure, its all hypothetical, but weirder things have happened in life. 

they were stepping off of the boat onto the dock - all they did was unzip their zippers and hitler-recarnated started yelling at them.   i understand - right when they unzipped their zippers a huge gust of wind could have ripped their life vests off, throwing them off balance causing them to fall between the boat and the dock....but hey, in that situation it would have been better if the DIDN'T have their vests on because the vest would have kept them afloat between the boat and the dock.  the boat would have likely crushed the poor paddler against the dock.  YOU SEE WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF YOU UNZIP YOUR ZIPPER ON THE DOCK?!?!?!?

how do you explain yelling in celebration after a win dangerous?  wait, let me guess - the yelling could have summoned the mighty dragon boat gods to throw a bolt of lightining at the waterway causing everyone in the vicinity to get fried....

sheesh.

bottom line is that they run horrible tounrnaments, that and the fact that it would be held in March, there's no logical explanation (excluding politics).

(http://smilies.vidahost.com/contrib/sarge/Whatever_anim.gif)
somebody's got some pent up emotions....

how did you know?

i just get miffed when we pay about a grand to participate in a tournament and they treat us like children.

then why enter?

Colossus,

Your argument about drowning is possible but with safety boats etc it is a very small chance, expecially at a dock.

Let's put it into persepctive here.  You are trying out for the FCRCC Mens team, I want you to enforce that they keep their lifejackets on since the gust of wind may come along and lift them out of the boat.  BTW, when on that team do you wear your lifejacket?  I think they would call you a wimp or something.  In fact to make that team you have to go shirtless in Febuary so the lifejacket just won't do.

In the end, common sense needs to be followed and FMG does not have any.  They are terrible to the paddlers, the ones that they are making a profit off of.  I agree why enter but in this case they have to if they want to qualify for international events, I am glad FMG is not on the Wetcoast but then again the forum sure would be busy with complaints and Colossus would know what LARD is talking about :lol:

first of all, i'm not saying that i agree with their reasoning, just trying to bring up what their reasoning MIGHT have been.  i myself prefer to paddle in a marathon canoe and dragonboat without a life jacket on (although i've gotten used to wearing it for added warmth this past winter).  so i'm not going to be telling anyone that they should be wearing a pfd, or i'd be quite the hypocrite, not wearing my own.  as for paddling shirtless, isnt that an RGL thing? :lol:

i agree 100% with needing to use common sense, but that that should go for both paddlers and organizers.