Dragon Boat West

Now that the final festival in the Lower Mainland is done, let's provide some feedback about this weekend's racing for the Taiwanese Dragon Boat Festival?

IE: Did you like the race grid?
    Was the racing fair and equitable?
    What would you change?
    How was the water officials?
    Did you like the marshalling?
    What would you do to improve this festival?

Please provide constructive feedback.....


Thanks

i think overall, it ran quite smoothly with few hiccups.  so few in fact that i didn't notice any myself.  only real "problems" were the pleasure craft running through the course every now and then, and one of the boats leaking (i know that boats shouldn't take on water on their own by just sitting in them). 

Was it your team that yelled "our boat is leaking!!" when the starter asked if there was a problem? :P

A few little delays but things ran pretty much on time. Certainly much better than last year. The intimate venue continues to be a big positive for me. I thought the volunteers were friendly and efficient. And who can complain about free beer?

Great volunteers, great venue, altho' yukky False Creek water is always a turn off.  Still it was big fun and competitive racing despite a 36 team field.  This isn't really a complaint as I know it's just the luck of the draw...however, last year our team have 4 races in teak boats before a flag catcher final.  This year, we had 4 races in a flag catcher and only 1 in a teak.  It would be nice to have more of a balance.  Silver bling was our reward and we can't complain about that at all!!!  Too bad there was no final "swag" to go with the bling as there was last year!

Overall I thought the races ran smoothly. I was particularly impressed with the fact that when they did run a bit behind they quickly made that up. The only thing I would recommend is to get one more chase boat/safety boat out there near the finish line. Then that boat can keep a lookout to catch/stop/warn any of the pleasure craft boaters who are totally oblivious to the simple fact that there is a race going on so that they don't cut into the race path. I swear some of those on pleasure boats didn't keep a proper lookout as to where they were heading down the creek. How can they not see all the buoys out on the water? Or the flags that were at the finish line and not realize "hey I think there is something going on here?"

As for having good racing with comparable competition I thought the teams were fairly spread out as far as where they should finish off in the grand scheme of things. I thought pretty well all teams that ended up where they did in the various divisions deserved to be there. One thing though that I noticed was that there was a lot of paddler swapping or lending among some of the teams at the races. Although most of that occurred with teams in the lower divisions. I don't recall any of the higher ranked teams, IE: A or B division teams that borrowed paddlers from other teams during the weekend. At least not to my knowledge.

And of course on the festival side of things the food was fantastic! The dim sum and the various foods that I knew of were very tasty!

Congrats to all teams out this past weekend!

My one bit of feedback is somehow to broadcast the fact that there was a new race grid out.  I stuck with the one from Aug. 30 and didn't realize until Sunday afternoon that there had been a new one printed out on Sept. 3.  Posting up a notice by the results and announcing over the loudspeakers would have been nice.

Another minor thing is that the walkway to the spectator zone was cluttered.  Part of it was because quite a few people were watching the final (that's good) but also because 2 teams set themselves down right in a major pathway.  False Creek was on the stone walkway (a little further back) - but my main issue was that there was a team who planted their tent right in the middle of the main walkway to the prime viewing spots.  When I opted to avoid the tent and duck under the "CAUTION" tape, I was quickly shuffled out and had to make my way through the rocky outcropping instead.  I noticed a pregnant woman doing the same too, which was very bad.

In general though, extremely well-run festival.  My paddlers tended to enjoyed the atmosphere of this race more than the Alcan extravaganza.

Here is my constructive feedback:

1) There should be a racers official tent who tells guest and paddlers who is racing, where race results are, and any other administration stuff. There was allot of people asking questions and it was hard to find race information.  

2) Award medals to the 2nd and 3rd place teams in the Men's and Women's Division.

3) Disply/show race results for the fun races (BlindFold, Noguard and Barrel Races)....possible even awarding some "fun" prize or see point 11.

4) Junior Division, award them something (doesn't matter what it is, just something)....

5) GET RIDE OF THE RIBBONS...they look cheesy...give the entire team a Plaque our cup,should be good enough....found ribbons lying on the floor, after the festival was over.  

6) Awarding teams BEER is not a good idea. I don't think you want to promote drinking.... Beer should not be one of the prizes. In addition, the liability issue that may come out of this, may not be good. Have the beer company provide something else as a prize. (BTW, what if a junior team won, would they get BEER???)

7) Middle lane markers are required, so that teams can steer in a straight line. It was hard to see the flags at the finish line.

8) At one point, two separate heats were left on the starting blocks for at least 25 minutes...in the SUN.....they should have communicated better with the teams on the delay.

9) Separate the FUN Races, from the Sat and Sun racing....place the fun races on the Monday or put the fun races at the end of everday....some teams were too POOPED to do the "real" racing and the "fun" races all in the same day.

10) Because you set the precedence from last year, with all the "BLING BLING" prizes, there was some questions, what were the "BLING BLING" prizes this year? This can be very dangerous....you want to hold a great festival, but you don't want this festival all about the "TOP" teams.  Keep the "fun festival" format and acknowledge all teams, as best as you can....

11) Interesting way to welcome the teams, with a fruit basket.. not sure how everyone felt about it.

IE: Medals to GROUP A, B, C, D  (1st, 2nd and 3rd medals).... (Only Group A, 1st place should get a perpetuating cup)

     Upper consolation winner (Perpetuating Cup)
     Middle consolation winner (Perpetuating Cup)
     Lower consolation winner (Perpetuating Cup)
     Junior consolation winner (Perpetuating Cup)
     Fun races (one cup, with winners time and race format) (ie 2006 BlindFold 2:13:33 False Creek Racing Canoe Club
                                                                                       2006 Noguard 2:11:34 Strathcona Dangerous When Wet
                                                                                       2006 Barrel Race 2:44:15 Draco Dragon Boat Team

LOL, a Jr team did win a division I believe. I think it was a team from synergy in the D division.

Hey puppy. The beer was not actually an award from what I understand. I believe it was for all teams that entered into the races. All teams would receive 25 beer tickets. It was like a thank you of sorts. I personally did not have a problem with the beer. I also think it was a good way to soak someone up at the end of the day by shaking those cans up good!  :P Especially after being soaked by a nice bucket of cold water what could be better than a nice soaking of beer. Right???  :lol: Although maybe the order should have been beer first and then ice cold water to wash the smell away. Oh well there's always next year....

I heard some interesting critiques for the weekend:

Another Chase/safety boat is important.  The DBA boat cannot handle the extra weight, it got swamped and had to be rescued on Sunday afternoon.

Leaking boats:
The boats need to be in the water for at least 2 weeks, so that they can be properly suited for racing.  Wooden boats absorb the water, and the wood expands, creating water-tight boats.  Some of the boats were only put into the water a few days before the festival.  This is not acceptable to have leaky boats,  not ready for use.

More dock volunteers - there was a definite deficit of dock crew.  Francis is doing a good job, but he needs help.  Race Director Richard Mah was there helping too.  It is much harder for teams to volunteer their paddlers, when we have 5 races in a day.  It would have been great if teams that didn't have enough paddlers to enter, could come to volunteer, or be part of a paddler pool.

More audio speakers throughout the Racer's village area, down to the far southwest end.   The South West end had a great view of the finish line - but no speakers, and no grand stand for spectators.  When I was on the DBA/ Race committee, it was originally the view of the Taiwanese Cultural Festival that the audience would watch from the steps of the loggers dock - but this is not practical, as most people want to watch from the shoreline.

We had good positive feedback about the race commentators.  On Saturday, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre provided the race commentors.  The emphasis was to keep it fun, make jokes, and involve a community organization.  On Saturday, race commentators were people from the dragon boat community, who had a lot of first hand knowledge about the sport, as well as the teams and individuals involved.  Special Thanks to Kim Tomkins and Ian Paul who joined me for race commentary.

The dragon boat race is growing slowly.  There were 36 team, up from 28 in 2003.  It is now attracting more attention outside the Lower Mainland.  Calgary showed up again.  And while Tacoma skipped because of US Nationals, The Phillipines Youth Rowing Society came back to Vancouver to try this race out.  More out or town teams will make this festival interesting particularly because of the Long Weekend for travelling.

With more teams, there is more competition for medals.  The races could easily have supported 3 medals each, in 6 divisions.  As well as medals for 1st place in each of the FUN races.

Paddler swapping.  It has been known in the past that paddler swapping was allowed because the emphasis of this race is FUN.  paddler swapping should be allowed to a maximum of 16 paddlers.  If you don't have 18 paddlers for your team - then paddle with the minimum allowed - otherwise it penalizes the teams that have brought 18 paddlers.  A team is defined by who you brought on your roster. 

About the beer.  I believe it was a "sponsored" thing to help promote Taiwan brand beer.  This was the Taiwanese Cultural Festival anyways.  Lots of Taiwanese culture and entertainment.  A lot of paddlers probably wouldn't know the difference about Taiwanese dragon boats and that Taiwan has a distinct and separate history from China, if it wasn't for this festival.  A special thanks for the Taiwanese Cultural Festival in bringing over the six Taiwanese dragon boats as a gift from the government and peoples of Taiwan, to the people and city of Vancouver.

Teams also need to keep their perspective.  This is a FUN festival with FUN races.  It's not the IDBF, Worlds, or regional championships.  Protesting a FUN race is not in the spirit of things.  We really need to be thankful that Vancouver can host another major race event and cultural festival in the dragon boat season.

There were a number of other snags.  I suggest to people to send their suggestsions to DBA. 
I am not on DBA anymore - so please don't send to me.  Send to Richard or Wing.

To stand corrected, I could be wrong, but the beer was an award for the 2nd place team in Group A, B, C and D...and in addition free beer for each paddler.

I guess giving beer out freely should not be included in the sport....if teams want a drink, let them go to the beer tent on their own...

But I acknowledge and respect your viewpoint too....

My only problem is the poor starving children...will somebody feed this kid?!  It's pretty sad to see children begging for food ;)

(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/1076/sept06050mk9.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

please feed starving children before they run off and "make girls cry".

i dont think its relevant whether its a fun race at the taiwanese festival or a race at the club crew level.  if a team has a valid reason for protesting a race, so be it.   yes, i realize that this weekend's race isnt on par with alcan in terms of competitiveness but i would still like the race to be fair.   this is a fun festival yes, but there is still pride and medals etc. on the line.

also, i would imagine the race organizers would want fair races as well too seeing their reputations are at stake. 


btw.. i had a great weekend.  very big thank you to dba and everyone else involved!!  great job!!

Please feed the starving children before they eat all the fruit baskets! 

blizzy: It was our team that yelled "WE HAVE A HOLE IN THE BOAT", when asked if there was a problem. Officials responded with something like "well then bail your boat"...

Which race was this?

I believe it was our second race in lane #2 on Saturday.

agreed on pretty well all points.  Re medals: not only because my mens crew would have gotten silvers if this were the case, but more importantly, a women's crew which came to this festival from out of town thought they would be taking home some hardware... and discovered during the award ceremony that wasn't the case.  again, recognizing this is a fun race and all, but this is what makes or breaks the reputation of the festival... why bother having gender specific races if there is no incentive for competition?  There were only 4 teams in the mens, and only 2 as of saturday at 1pm when I registered my crew, and the fourth registered on sunday morning i assume as they were pencilled onto the grid.  And lets face it, when a team like FCRCC puts a men's team in, there is no competition... While I'd like to think we gave them a run for their money, reality says they probably weren't showing us their A-game, and still beat us by 9 seconds.

And again, I feel for the women's team that thought they had bronze to take home... they looked really disappointed in the beer garden after finding that out.  they're a good crew with high spirits and i'm sure they'll come back, but that doesn't exactly look good for the festival.

That aside, overall a fun festival, I enjoyed it

Overall it was a great Long Weekend and good times had by all. 

Kudos to the organizers for getting Dragon Boat team Captains - Todd Wong Gung Haggis and Ian Paul Pirates (on loan to Sudden Impact) to help with the commentary on Sunday.  Not only did they do a good job on calling the races but gave tons of insight into the teams competing.  If anything it helped give the festival a more personal touch. 

My only problem came in our 4th race (first Sunday).  When boat 6 had to straighten out, which caused a wake that pushed us off line.  The end result was they started the race and lanes 4,5,6 all started 2-4 seats ahead before the horn even went off.  Keeping it real - no one was going to beat FCRCC this weekend - we tried but they're the best team for a reason.   

BUT having teams start ahead of you before the race begins is sort of a drag. No harm as we managed to make up the difference and in the end it was a fun festival to attend.

BernMan kudos goes out to you introducing yourself and your team - too bad we couldn't get that finals race against each other  :twisted:

I know Gung Haggis wants us to think this was a fun race but I know all teams were paddling hard and wanting a win.  Good job RGL on taking the Bronze in Group A.  First time we went against each other in a festival and your crew paddled hard.

Final note:  Can FCRCC have the boat that was filling with water next time! 

Now where is MY MP3 Player!  In 2005 it was digital camera and mp3 players for 1st and 2nd place.  3rd place got a goodie bag (I know because we finished 3rd last year) - I wanted a cool camera or mp3 this time - hence one of the reasons we wanted to do the festival.

Those MP3 players were junk! They were a no name asian brand with only 32 mb capacity, used the rare 2.5mm headphone jack size (regular headphones are 3.5mm) and mine broke in about 6 months! ;)  The Sony digital cameras, on the other hand, were pretty decent... they were low end models for sure but at least it was a current model at that time and so much more usable then the mp3 players.

Yeah, I suspected that the increased level of competition at this year's Taiwanese festival was partly due the nice prizes given out at the previous years. :D

i think i still have that mp3 player kicking around somewhere.......    with all of the 4 songs it fit.  :?

to diggerpig:
we did have the leaky boat, twice in fact.   we just spent a lot of time bailing it right before the races lined up.  :?    you guys put in quite the effort in all the races against us, having great starts that kept you beside us for the first part of the race.  if you want, i can try to find my mp3 player from last year, and i'll give it to you?  :lol:

Rumour has it the organizers changed the prizing from last year once they heard of the increase in competition this year. *If* that were true, why bother reinviting the top team for next year as the prize?

getting rid of prizes because of "increased competition" is stupid...  i think the only differences between last year and this year in terms of increased competition, is that teams (over the whole spectrum) have stepped it up inthe past year, and that FCRCC replaced Success as the top team.  they should be happy that more people are joining their festival to participate.

This yrs festival was great fun for me as there was plenty of entertainment for both paddlers(us) and non paddlers(my freinds who came out to support us) and to be honest; we're not in it for the prizes or beer but to try it for the different boats. Yes for once we don't have to complain about the gemini; but to experience another version of dragonboating and the "heaviness" of the taiwanese boats. I quite enjoyed seeing how the Phillipines team "standing paddling " technique would compare to sitting technique.

 If this is a "FUN" festival, does it matter what the prizes are? The dragonboating is just one aspect of this festival but when combined with the richness of the culture and the community; I think we can all appreciate how dragonboating has evolved in other parts of asia and what local influences can contribute to the sport.

It's great that there are more elite teams entering into the festival as that may encourage other elite teams to participate so that the "A" final can be as exciting to watch as the "B" final was. Yes, we all want to win and defend our team pride and I recognize that many dedicated paddlers work extremely hard on and off the water year round to improve themselves and receiving a "prize/medal" is an acknowledgement of that effort; but that can't be the only motivation for a team to participate in THIS festival?

this is just my opinion and now i will go back to my swamp...   :D

I believe that the prizes given out in previous years were donated by Telus....and the prizes themselves I suspect are the surplus of the freebies that Telus gave out to new high speed internet subscribers. Notice the technology themed prizes? The digital camera, the mp3 player and the webcam (1st prize @ the 2004 TW fest)?....  This year, Telus wasn't a sponsor at the festival, hence, no cool prizes.

Yep! That's correct. 

ok, that makes sense.   i personally joined the taiwanese festival as a fun, end of the season festival.  "prizes" would be a nice bonus, but not necessary.  last year, i had no clue about that there were to be prizes before i joined. 

Yes, the prizes would have been a nice bonus... especially since Telus has since been giving away iPods, LCD monitors, and currently, a whole Dell desktop computer to new internet subscribers. Wouldn't that have been a riot to get one of those prizes this year? ;)

Well... here's hoping Telus comes back as a Taiwanese festival sponsor next year. :D

I thought that on the whole the Taiwanese Festival Ran very smoothly. I would like to offer a few suggestions
that might improve the quality of the races even more.

1) It may be helpful to have small public address system speakers attached to the railing behind the start line.
    The P.A. system speakers would allow all the boats to hear the starters commands more clearly, and the
    starters horn would be heard by all the crews at the same time, as opposed to the sound of the starters
    horn having to travel over six lanes from lane six to lane one.( Those bull horns that were in use this year
    tend to get quieter as the batteries wear out.)

2) Perhaps in future events space can be made available for a racer's village, as opposed to what appears to be  a "first come first served" system that exists now.


A couple of random thoughts.....
What are people's thoughts on having to play "dodge the barge" at the finish line????
Is it just me or is the creek getting narrower and narrower????

 

It's great to see a lot of positive feedback about the Taiwanese Cultural Festival and the racing in Taiwanese flag-grabbing boats, and the Hong Kong teak boats.  When the Race began in 2003 - a lot of people went "Huh?"  or "Why bring in other kinds of dragon boats?"

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong teak dragon boats in Vancouver (and the 20th anniversary of dragon boats in Vancouver) - but there has been little fanfare or recognition of this important anniversary, when teak dragon boats were 1st donated to the City of Vancouver for Expo 86 by the Hong Kong pavillion / Hong Kong Tourism Bureau.

As dragon boat racing grows, I keep encountering paddlers who think that anything other than a Millenium dragon boat is weird - as they are unaware of the history of 6-16 and teak boats, that were the standard for so many years.

The Vancouver Taiwanese Dragon Boat Race really represents classic traditional dragon boat racing.  In ancient days, there would be 3 spotters to see who grabbed the first flag.  In today's Vancouver races, you still have to cross the finish line, because with today's modern video equipment, and drift on the Creek, it is the best way to determine who is fastest.  It would be great to set up the Taiwanese boats on a lake where you can really set the flags evenly - and the winner actually can be the team that grabs the flag first.  But False Creek presents too many logistical problems.

RACES & FLAGS
Generally well run - the Flags were all attached to a single line with weights in the middle, evidenced by the even convex shape when the wind blew East.  This kept a relative distance between the lanes, and was much better than in year's past, when each flag was set with it's own anchor, and subject to drift and varying depth in the creek.  Great that all the flags are NEON this year.  Last year our steersperson couldn's see the blue flag, against a blue sky, sitting on top of blue water.

GENDER RACES
Originally the mens and womens races were FREE, and there were no medals.  It was for FUN and PRIDE.  But now they are charging $100 per entry.  I agree that if there should be medals now for 2nd and 3rd place.  This will encourage more people to enter if they feel they have a chance for bling.  Teams were slow to enter the gender races, and there was still room for additional teams.

PRIZES
Prizes really are dependant on the festival and race organizers being able to find sponsors for each of the race finals.  This is really dependant on the organizers of the Taiwanese Cultural Festival, who leave it to DBA to handle the races - but keep the control of sponsorships.  Years ago, Division A winners all got fruit baskets, because that's what the Division A sponsor offered.  Telus was sponsoring Division C (I think), so the hi-tech prizes were a big thrill to the winners.  I think we can let the race organizers know that PRIZES are FUN, and were missed this year.

SPONSORS
Organizing sponsors is a big challenge for any race, festival or team.  02P managed to find a Taiwanese Cultural Festival participant, and changed their name to TAITRA for a $400 entry fee.  (TAITRA is short for Taiwanese Association for International Trade something or other).
Paddlers can really make a difference by asking your team sponsors to participate as a vendor or display for the Festival. or by asking a Festival sponsor if they want a dragon boat team for the festival - then you can ask the DBA for a special "Sponsor's Race" to add to the 5 races you are already doing in a day.   In Year One, 2003, I brought in Telus as the festival sponsor, and matched them up with a dragon boat team when they weren't able to field their own.  The team recieved free entry, free shirts and other other swag - but sadly came 4th out of the medals in A Division.

BARGES
Too bad about the barges and the Star of Vancouver yacht.  The barges definitely created a finish line hazard, even though they technically were not in the race course.  The big yachts at the marina definitely blocked the view of the race starts.  Too bad they couldn't be moved for the day, like in past races at Alcan.

PLAZA of NATIONS
This is a good reminder of what Alcan Festival used to be like, with all the food stalls surrounding the main stage, and everything close together.  It's a cosy intimate site.  False Creek is definitely shrinking with more development filling in the waterfront.  Those barges are definitely putting in pilings that take away more paddling room.  A secure racer's village would definitely be a welcome addition for next year.  But where to put it?  There is great viewing area of the finish line at the South West corner that should also be used for viewing stands for the pregnant women, kids, seniors who cannot climb onto the rocks.  Tents can be set up along the service road outside the gate, behind the Azure restaurant.  But the concrete gets too hot on a hot day.  The trees provided great shade for paddlers camped for the weekend.  While it's important to keep your team sheltered, setting up tents on the path to viewing areas doesn't work for the majority of festival paddlers and spectators.

Overall I liked the Taiwanese Festival.  It's a nice small festival that still felt like a festival (as opposed to Richmond...which felt like a rough practice).  While the Taiwanese boats are tough it's nice to have something different about this race.

Different from previous years...I liked that the there were only two styles of boats used.  While they were two very different boats, it was easier to adjust between two rather than three.  For the most part, the races were fairly smooth running.  Although, there was one time that we sat on the water for about 20 mins before we could race because they had to realign the markers...and then wait for another race to go.  The starter definitely needed an extra speaker or megaphone to project her voice.  I'm satisfied with medals...but extra prizes definitely make it more fun. 

 All that work and no prize....that was too funny . Gawd we are greedy ..lol

On Sunday they had to reallign the markers when a pleasure boat decided it would be fun to cruise between the flags.  Unfortunately - this resulted in moving the flags off-course.

Another reason why DBA needs to have another safety/referree boat on the water - to keep wayward pleasure boats from coming onto the race course.  The race commentators had fun with the mini-kayaks who crossed the race course as a race had started. 

Middle lane markers would really help this.  It gets pretty hard looking into the sun, trying to count which flag you are heading towards.  I like those BIG YELLOW things that Alcan uses to mark the finish line.  Now that would be good for a barrel race.  Or maybe actually float some barrels!

I don't know if DBA was coordinating with the False Creek mini-ferries.  But some of those ferries were coming to the Plaza of Nations dock, while barrel races were going on. And it almost looked like some collisions would happen.

It looked pretty hectic on the dock with Taiwanese boats coming and going, ferry boats coming and going, and trying to send crews out in Teak boats for barrel racing.
Safety has to be a major priority. 

No collisions - only the swamping of the red DBA boat, as a temporary casualty.  That's pretty good considering the skills needed to paddle with the skinny steering oars on both teak and Taiwanese boats.

Hey - at least there was nolightning storm like the first year!

 Lightning storms make it way more exciting  :ashamed: ....I think in the future if there is a storm acomin we should attach rods to the boats to make it a game of survival as well

bonus, swim with sting rays in FC or something

that avatar is so offensive its funny...

 yeah it is but it looks likes the site crashed ........its now a still,lol....too many downloads

Great festival, good spirit and good competition.  Really appreciated efforts by the announcers to tell the spectators something about the teams.  This was so much better than Alcan where the announcers didn't seem to have any information on the teams or even know much about dragon boating. (At one point in Alcan the announcer said, "boy there must be something magic about that number 5 lane--all the boats in that lane are winning."  Duh)
Taiwanese festival really showed how it improves the festivals when there is some educated commentary.

Agree with those who were puzzled by the race grids which seemed to quietly change, but all in all the organizers did a great job with very very few people.

About those tethers.  What is the point?  Didn't seem to add much to the race organization and in one of our races the tether hit the pilings when the steersperson threw it and bounced back snagging the boat--Hilarious "RoadRunner"  start but it cost us about 2 minutes.

Finally, many apologies from the Saltspring team for clogging up the headland.  We arrived early on Friday evening at a pretty much deserted site , asked organizers if it was okay to set up under the trees and were told yes.   But we should have moved when it was clear we'd snagged prime real estate in the viewing area and were obstructing the view--(we weren't actually on the path. )  We'll behave ourselves next year. Promise. 

Heh, sorry for bumping old posts, but I increase the length of this festival into a bit of a vacation and I am now back at home.

This is the second year that my team from Calgary has attended this festival and it fits in well with us, as a more "fun" festival considering the state of our rebuilding team, and the fact that we only practice on water from late May until September.  While I'd love to paddle at Alcan, there is no way our team would be at all competitive.  For now...

Many of the issues with the Taiwanese festival have already been brought up and several of those are above the power of the festival organizers.  Of course the water quality is horrible, and the barges provide a rather in-your-face reminder that you may cease paddling at the finish line.  There is also only so much physical space to work with for viewing the race, so not much room for spectators.  Not sure if anything can be done to stagger the water ferries so that they don't all show up at once at the dock and plug up the course.  I saw one unfortunate team have to navigate around one of the ferries during their barrel race, while the ferry waited for two others to unload/reload.

I felt that the races themselves were generally quite well run overall.  We were able to find our next race times in short order to make sure that our teammates did not drift too far away, or embed themselves too deeply in the beer patio.  The ladies on dry land did a great job getting teams to the boats on time, and I felt very sorry for the few on dock helpers.  The older fella (can't remember his name now - I must have had a few too many beers) was less enthusiastic this year since he didn't have too much help.  I guess it's tough to find dock volunteers, but it would be nice to not have people out there for the entire day.  They looked tired, thirsty and sunburnt.  Hopefully more volunteers show up for future events.  The races were well marshalled for the most part, but we had one race where we had to wait for quite a while to get started.  On another occasion, I believe that the tether that our steersman was supposed to hang onto was actually broken, but I believe that issue was resolved quickly.

Again our team found ourselves being well taken care of by members of several teams.  Various people shared space, food, drink, paddlers and general goodwill with us and Draco appreciated it very much.  Some of us even liked the Taiwan beer!  This is one of our favorite festivals and we will probably come back, given the opportunity.  Come see us in Calgary next year, and we'll probably see you around at other festivals too.

   Hi Darwin.  Saltspring apologized somewhere on this forum for hogging the view.   But the pregnant woman?? that was actually the intrepid Saltspring team manager who insisted on rock climbing despite our entire team constantly saying --"Jeeeeez Nicole!, be careful " all weekend.