Dragon Boat West

 Over the next week the crews from FCRCC will be heading to Australia to race in the 2007 IDBF World Dragonboat Championships and will form Canada's Premier Mixed and Open teams .Some will also be racing w/ the Senior Open ( mens) and Women as well the Grandragon teams

 Wish us all luck and we will try our best to bring it home for Canada !

 The offical website for the Worlds is

 http://www.dragonboat07.com.au/

 hopefully they will have a results page up shortly so that you can follow along .If some of us get near a computor we will try to update the site to let you know how we are doing

gunna be FUN!  8))

for those people who practice voodoo....   we're racing against these guys.  you know what to do.
(http://www.dragonboat07.com.au/websystem/readwritedel/webcontent/images/Profile_Slovak_Premier_Open.jpg)

Good luck all you lucky boys and girls!  Show the world that Canada's westies are just as fast as the Easterners!

Does anyone have a list of crew members (names and clubs/cities) of our teams heading to Australia.  I couldn't find anything on Dragon Boat Canada.  Heck, even the Slovakian teams has names, stats, pictures and seating position.

Best of luck at the worlds.

if you look on the website, the premier women have listed their crew members.  They're known to be a GTA based crew

as for premeir mixed/open, its been stated over and over that its a predominantly FCRCC crew. 

 The open crew is made up of paddlers primarily from the FCRCC A crew with a few from Gorging , Jerico , Mayfair (TO) ,and a Aussie from the Pacific Dragons ( he has dual citizenship )

 The Mixed is primarily the FCRCC A crew

Should be fun!
I see we're in the tent right next to you (grin).

Watch out for the Hungarians... they're impressive.

  Just a note to let everyone know that there are more than 40 paddlers from FCRCC representing Canada in Australia. The over 50's are: Alan Birtles, Jake Rempel, Pat Pawlett, Tony Pawlett, Sydnie Digby, steersman Ron MacDonald, Manager Betty MacDonald. 

 aussies on 1 side and the you guys ( USA) on the other .......this is exciting !! The racing will be soooooo close .

How do the tents work?  are ALL the canadian teams under one tent?

 yep....we're going to be 1 big happy paddlin family !

cozzy....

 the tent plan and lay-out of the teams and booths and general overview can be found on the World website

i saw that.    ....barely.   the site is SUPER slow to load here at work.

We have a great tent location.  Clearly Canadian had the the tent that the Australians are using.  We are close to the indoor washrooms of the main building, as well as the Kitchen.  We are on a hill so you can watch the races easily.  The grandstands are beside us so it is easy to slip over there if it is too crowded in the tent.

The race grid is now out:

http://www.idbf.org/events_sydney.php

Good luck to all of those on the National Team. Do us proud and clean up over there!

My mom has asked if someone could please look out for my brother Paddleboy and make sure he meets only nice girls. BTW, it will be his birthday on Sept 19, so he'll be celebrating down under.

Thanks and kick ass big bro!!!

K.

To all on our national team!!!  Good Luck and kick some A$$!!  Do Canada proud!!

I hope all our Canadian teams do very good in Australia but especially our members from FCRCC.

If anyone can tell me how to put a picture on here - I'll show you the actual course and were your tent is.  Went with the Clearly Canadian team. 

It's a great venue. 

I can't figure it out ... not computer savvy enough ...

this might be easier if your interested in looking at the race site

http://www.suddenimpactdbteam.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=53

http://www.suddenimpactdbteam.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=54

Here ya go:

(http://www.suddenimpactdbteam.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_1044.bmp)

(http://www.suddenimpactdbteam.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_1046.bmp)

thxs swordfish ... could you PM for future use?

Sites to see -

1. Opera House

2. Manly Beach ... way better than Bondi Beach plus you'll find the best deals at Manly - cheaper than anywhere else excepts Paddy's Market.  Trust me I went all over Sydney on my last day ... I mean all over and I should have stayed in Manly ... best deals period - I put that too the test!

3. Sydney Inner Harbor

4. Australian National Zoo - if your into that kind of thing ... rather spend time on the beach

5. Kings Crossing - ok ... it's the red light district of Australia but you have to check it out! I don't think they go to sleep there at night! 

When Travelling -

I'm not sure how long you're going to stay but if it's for more than 5 days then get a week's train pass ($56?).  It allows you to go on the trains, buses, and ferries.  People complain about the transit system there but I thought it awesome.

Note you will not be able to use the same pass when going to the Airport (had to pay an additional Charge $11)


Expensive -

It cost a small fortune to go to Sydney!  A 2 litter bottle of water will cost you at least $3 ... When we asked why it was so expensive we found out that it has more to do with wages (no minimum wage) than hiking up the costs.  A Waitress in Sydney will make $17-$25 an hour.  Tips are not expected and many places charge you a gratuity fee so don't feel obligated to tip ... that said if she was really good looking ... damn I wasted a lot of money  :twisted: 

Also you get charged for everything!  I got fish and chips in Bondi and I had to pay $1 for ketchup and $80 for tartar sauce!

If you go to a restaurant and they allow you to bring your own wine ... ask how much they charge for corking fees.  We thought $2 for corking a bottle was fair until we got the bill and found out it was per person ... we got two bottles = $28 for CORKING 2 BOTTLES!!! 

Also get a phone card ... it was around $11 for 1000 minutes ... saves you a small fortune in long distance bills.

Race Site

If you take the commuter train in the morning take the Country Express = less stops.  You will race in Penrith and if you want a great place to eat go to the Pub across the street from the station - great hamburgers.  The actual race village is a ways away from the station so have transportantion set up if not provided.  You can take a cab but they have this strict rule that you can't have more than 4 people in a cab even if they have space.

Overall -

Sydney was awesome ... the people were great!  Tons of people walking around from all over the world.  Meet people from Spain, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia all within the first few hours of walking around.  I would go back again but hopefully some of these pointers save you a few bucks. 



 

DiggerPig, once again you astound me with your vast wealth of information.  And Swordfish, thanks for helping with the set-up of the pix.

Good luck to Team Canada at the worlds!

Thxs Backwards -

Also going to Telstra Stadium (Olympic Stadium) to watch a Rugby game was cool. 

Last thing I forgot to mention ... the course was man-made for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.  Very little breeze and currents play zero to no factor.  The lanes are clearly marked and color coded correctly ... I think the last 200 to 150 m is marked with purple cones.  I had the opprotunity to paddle with Clearly Canadian at the Australian Nationals (invite team only) and with Fresh Impact at the Canadian Nationals (festival racing only).  Although both were run very well and both Calgary and Penrith did a great job of hosting ... Australian course and venue was fantastic!

          Our first Draw for Thursday, sorry it's hard to read.:

                       International Dragon Boat Federation                        
                    8th WORLD DRAGON BOAT RACING CHAMPIONSHIPS                        
                        
BOATS:   A            PREMIER OPEN 1000m         
RACE:    8                     
                        
10:25      Lane 1        Lane 2   Lane 3    Lane 4     Lane 5   
         New Zealand Canada   Russia   Germany   Taipei   
HEAT 1                        
                                 
BOATS:   B            PREMIER OPEN 1000m         Tail Race Plan.3
RACE:    9                     
                        
10:35      Lane 1   Lane 2   Lane 3          Lane 4        Lane 5   
          Hungary    Macau    Philippines   Slovakia    China   
HEAT 2                        
         
BOATS:   A            PREMIER OPEN 1000m         Tail Race Plan.3
RACE:    10                     
                        
10:45      Lane 1     Lane 2      Lane 3    Lane 4   
         Australia  United States Great Britain Hong Kong   
                  
         First 2 crews in each Heat (6) direct to the Semi Finals at 1335  (R23/24).                 
         The Rest (8) to the Repechages at 1200 (R17/18)                 

Premier Mixed 500



 lane 1      lane 2     lane 3     lane 4      lane 5   
   
Japan      Australia    Russia    Germany   Philippines                       Heat 1



 Chile        Ukraine      Canada   Maacu     Taipei                              Heat 2



Hong Kong   Hungary   USA       China       New Zealand                    Heat 3

 Here is the link to the results page that will be aval for all to view and see how we are doing


 http://www.dragonboat07.com.au/index.php?page=race-results

Good Luck people - do us western paddlers proud!

I didn't get a chance to talk to all of you guys last night at practice.  Just wanted to wish all of you guys and girls good luck and kick some serious ass over in Australia!  I will be following the race results very diligently at work.

:lol:

thanks SB!  a whole bunch of us are taking off tomorrow evening and arriving between 6 and 7am on Saturday (Aus time), followed by an OC6 paddle around the harbour.  going to be a blast!  8))

have fun and good luck to all paddling in Kelowna!

Thanks everyone for your support.  In case anyone wants to know which countries to look out for, here is the medal counts from all the World Championships:

http://www.ausdbf.com.au/Portals/0/IDBF%20Champs%20History.pdf

Good luck!

Send us updates.

Sitting in LAX right now, waiting for my connector flight to Sydney.  Man, flying into LAX was REALLY cool.  The city is HUGE!!!  approaching, it was like a glowing entity on the horizon with all the lights. 

Here's a couple of peeks at the locations: the race course, the site of WDBC Opening Ceremony (I think, if I interpret the stuff on the Oz web site correctly), and the overall area spanning both.

These are from Google Earth.

Sorry, I haven't been able to figure how how to post the GE "location" files (*.kmz) for these - they are binary thingys.

But if you run GE, you can punch in the place names shown in the pix ("Sidney International Regatta Centre",  and "North Parramatta, NSW, Australia") to the GE FlyTo box, & you'll get these (the WDBC O-C site is down near the bottom of the Parramatta view).

Not real-time of course.  But pretty cool.

Sure wish we had a race site like this one, somewhere here on the Left Coast!!!   :doh:

D

Race site
(http://members.shaw.ca/dto_db_stuff/SIRC.jpg)

WDBC O-C site
(http://members.shaw.ca/dto_db_stuff/WDBC%20Opening%20Ceremony%20site.jpg)

SIRC & N. Parramatta
(http://members.shaw.ca/dto_db_stuff/SIRC%20&%20N.%20Parametta.jpg)