Dragon Boat West

Has anyone heard anything about the "other" races done at Kelowna? We were in the Silver division and are trying to find out our result. We won our 1st race Sunday, but without being able to run the last one, we don't know where we stand.

Thanks -
Bonnie - Gift of Life

We were also in Silver but I don't think it's fair to use just the semifinal results to determine the winner.  We placed 3rd in our semfinal, but we raced Gift of Life on Sat. and beat them by 7.5 seconds.  We also raced 2:16 in a very competitive second heat on Saturday and placed 5th, where we probably would have been 3rd or 4th in any other heat.

agreed...however, every team can have a bad race and as it showed on Sunday, Weather played a huge factor also.  Just because you beat Gift of Life in one race on Saturday doesn't make you the stronger team in the end.  They might of had a bad start or lanes problably played a factor.    They could of had a better second race, like your team, which made up for a bad first race.  Who know's...bottom line is both your team and the Gift of Life were placed in the Silver Division for a reason.

Besides, all she asked for were the results as most teams knew it was going to be up to the KDBF committee on how the medals were going to be distributed.  I'm sure whatever the committee decides will be fair...

Well, that's racing.  Considering the circumstances, there wasn't much else which could be done.  Unless, you want to go back to Kelowna the week after  :think:

To the Gift of Life team....

Congratulations on being in the Silver division.  Really well done! 

Paddlerboy - she was only asking if anyone knew what the final results were - I didn't read anything else into it.  Neither should you...  :-)

Congrats to both teams - Silver division is a great place to be :-)

I was only trying to prove the point that it might not be fair to use the semis as final results.  No offense intended.  Everyone in that final worked hard and deserved to be there.   :D

Perhaps the best way to determine if any medals should be awarded could be based on total combined races done. Since most teams (if not all) raced 3 times for the same distances throughout the whole weekend then an accumulation of the 3 races could be the way to go here. Any thoughts on that? So if you had a really bad first race but then you had a really good 2nd race then the times accumulated should be of help to any team once you add in your 3rd race which would have been your semi. At least I think it would? Lucky for me I don't have to do the calculations but I am sure the time keeper/race grid guru at the finish line will have all those results. In fact I know he does. But it really is not up to us, the race management team, to determine if medals should be awarded. I think it will be up to the Kelowna Dragon Boat Festival people (like someone already mentioned) to decide if they would like to hand them out.

I hope they do decide something soon for all the other teams in the A finals that did not get to race on Sunday. Heck they already have them so why not give them away?  :)

i hate this part. i participated in the penticton fest. the week before kel. the weather came up, and it was nasty for some. personally i loved it. with a few minor problems(steerers falling in, flipped boats)the officials so to speak. did a great job. the officials in kelowna sucked. and it wasnt just sunday. it was sat. also. to many people with those blowhorns telling us to many things. and the wrong things. back it down, go to the left. go to right, hold, back it down again. jesus. there are a some great steersman out there. these guys act as if they are in the boat steering it. the fact is they are so busy telling others what to do they forget what they should be doing. the womens platinum A division start was a joke. officials again. and it wasnt even bad weather for the steerers that were out there. mana wahine walked away without even a challenge. and it wasnt the only heat that was ruined as a result the officials. as a commercial fisherman i am here to say that i totally respect weather to the point that i rely on it. that also means i am open minded to change. these guys wouldnt take any advise from the people that live and practice on the lake. there are many reasons for venting in such a matter. i wanted to let the people know that not one lady on my boat complained about the weather. or how wet they were. they were there to to race. after all, they praticed hard for it.

Ah, don't you just love racing? we didn't even get to race in the Women's final, oh yeah, it gets better... we were the boat that bumped into another boat, trying to line up! then the officials said no lanes, and all the steerspersons were yelling at each other. then the race started and our 'fill-in steerperson' told us to 'hold the boat' and we did! for the 250 sprint, our time was like 2 minutes....something! Holy MOly, talk about establish a reputation! Our team was churning... and i'm not talking about the water! It was an ODD end to our first race season, but memorable.  In the end, racing is important, but safety is first!  We LIVE TO RACE AGAIN!

The medals are not dated , they could save them for next year,, lol

Geez Ian! I knew they were not dated.  And I chose not to bring that up because it would make them look, uh, a bit cheap. Especially if that is what they decided to do. I mean do they think they are going to save a few measly bucks this year and p*** off teams who are rightfully owed some bling?? Me thinks the risk of not coming up with a decision ASAP about the medals could result in teams not coming back to Kelowna next year period! I truly feel that they will ask the guru with the race times of all the teams' races to give the results to the organizers and they will probably mail out to the top 3 teams in each division. Just my 2 cents worth of course.

Funny how 2 teams in the same final experience two different things. I couldn't disagree with you more..about the Platinum A final, anyhow. But, I do agree with you about the yelling to steers for too many corrections. Although there were glitches and problems, our team had fun and were happy with our standings at the end of the weekend. Our biggest complaint would be the dock officials pulling our 7 year experience steersperson off the boat before the Women's platinum a semi..and screaming at us like we were deaf children from the dock. Yes, we heard the f-bomb several times and they assured us that if we didn't come back we would be disqualified. It was quite frustrating. Luckily, our team is positive and has integrity, and everyone kept their chins up and raced. Oh..did I mention that they sent us out to race the heat by ourselves? lol Ya, the semi wasn't so organized..but the final was much better compared to the alternative! :lol:

Bernman: Accumulated times only works if conditions in each race were the same for each participant (ie. Sat AM, Sat PM, Sun AM).  Sunday AM was really bad at 8am and okay paddling by noon.  Although the wind did not change direction, its speed certainly did and same with the waves.  Unless you want to use Power Demon's method of median race times versus statistical deviations... then see teams complain.

dabits: A captain's meeting was called at 10am Sunday to explain the situation and the "new rules" of how they were going to run the rest of the festival.  They explained the open lanes, 225m course, etc at that point.  Why official boats are there, to make sure boat run a safe course.  Believe me, it is different in Ontario, and there are more complaints about it.  Unless you feel the officials made you do a 1000m zig zag, chances are the waves and wind was pushing a boat into the other boat's line.

paddlerboy: So what, that were the rules.  How many top tier tennis players get knocked off because of their advancement system.  The only system that would work (assuming calm conditions) would be held starts (docks people holding on to the rear of the dragon boats) and everyone racing at the same time.  Not going to happen, at least with open festivals like this.  I may work with invitational only events (like the nationals).  Heck, if I bring up a sore subject, even FCRCC grabbed the wrong flag in the Vancouver Taiwanese, and they let it go.  It's a part of the race, which makes it fun.

Propeller: Sorry to hear about your sterner.  I would of thrown him into the water, but that would make me into a poor sport.  Did you ask why he held the boat?  Were you able to re-race, since they were going by times instead of placement as some boats did in the Sunday morning heats?  Although being an @ss, wouldn't your manager lodge the complaint?

For all the faults of the weather, the organizers coped well with the circumstances and went with it.    My team did not stick around to round 4.  Medals should be given to teams that raced and earned their medals.  For teams that decided to call it a day before the race, why should they get the bling?

ps. I would like to see the results for round 3 & 4.  It is still not up yet.

Thanks to the people sticking up for me. it was only a question, after all! And thanks for the support, we were quite happy overall for our results in kelowna.

A small tip to some members - re-read before you post and think about how it sounds BEFORE you hit enter.

Thanks folks- see ya on the water!

Are these results official?

http://www.kelownadragonboatfestival.com/results/2007/mixedF/mixedFp1.shtml

Looks like they figured out the placement for the other race finals.

Let the complaining begin (again)!  :P

Anyone want to enlighten me as to how final race times were determined for teams that didn't race any finals?  My team had some lightning fast time for our "4th" and "final race" even without racing a 4th race...

EDIT: ah i see what they did now.


Interesting.  The "platinum B" results.  Does this mean we get ribbons?  :lol:

1:54.25?  that would have gotten you 5th place in the grand final in mixed a week ago.   8))

Huh?   :eh: My guess is that for those who did not get a final, they totaled the times for the 3 heats that were raced and averaged them over the distance raced, then prorated over 500m. I only have one example with my team since I can't see the race 2 results

Example: Blu By U (my team)

Race 1 - 500m 2:14
Race 2 - 500m 2:10
Race 3 - 250m 1:06

Total - 1250m 5:30 => 500m 2:06

Assuming others can prove this with their own race times, it is a reasonable explanation.

Don't like it much but mainly because it pushed lower that I thought we should be :(...But then again I would have loved it if it pushed us up.

That's racing folks

Damn straight, let the complaining begin. And I'll be one of the first.
First off, it took them 2 weeks to decide this? And then they can't take the time
to tell us HOW they got to these results? Why can't anyone access the results for Mixed Division Race 2?

I am VERY disappointed with the way this was handled. I know they had a tough job, but the results are laughable. We went from first place in our 3rd race, competing against people who are equal in the placings, to 6th place when they add teams that we would have NEVER been racing against in any final because they are that much better.
So yeah, I am p***ed. The first day is about proper placing, and nothing else.

I love the Kelowna festival, the atmosphere, the competition, but this certainly puts a damper on that enthusiasm.
Bonnie

 :lol: world class times, not bad for a "re-build year" eh?  :lol:  Nothing like a good time and a little creative interpretation to help with the sponsorship proposals!  :rofl:


 :angel: :whistle:

WOW...That's pretty crazy with how they came about with the results.  I believe Monk is right with how the came up with the final times...they took all three times and took the average...

So, quote me if I'm wrong, teams that may have finished 4th - 6th in there semi-final heats could have placed 1st to 3rd overall in there division because of their overall average??  It's pretty dissappointing and I feel for all the teams that it may have affected but either way "that's racing". 

As I said before...whatever decision the KDBF committee makes is fair and I'm sure they have reason behind their decision.  We can not blame them for anything as this was a very tough decision to make considering the circumstances that happened that weekend.  Every race matters folks!!!

First off, no matter what was decided there will be people not happy.  The only way to really know is to have had the race. 

I was one of the people who discussed how to come up with a method to determine what your time is.  After a few discussion this is what was decided:

a.  Sunday's race decided what final you were in, top 3 teams from each semi final went to the A final, all the others went to the B final.  Exactly the way it would have worked if we could have had 6 boat semis.  Even though you may have only raced one team on the water your place was based on the other teams originally in your semi final.  You had to do well in your "race" to get into the A final, jsut like any semi final race.
b.  To determine the times of the finals, only look at Saturday's results as Sunday's weather and conditions were too variable to be fair, sometimes wind, sometimes not, different boats, different length, etc.
c.  What does this mean?  If you ended up in an A final (i.e. medal round) you would have been racing in a BuK so your final time was based on you Saturday BuK time.  If you were in a B final then your time was determined by your 6/16 time.
d.  To eliminate some of the variablity on Saturday, some teams raced earlier than others, conditions changed etc. a formula of taking the standard deviation of your race and then adjust your time by that value.  For example, if the standard deviation for your BuK race was 5 seconds and your time was 2 minutes then your final race time will be 1:55.00.  Does that mean it would have been that, probably not but it gave everyone a time to be used in the final.

In the end, some will not be happy but the only way to make a person/team happy would be to have the race and that is what we all wanted but in the end it was not safe to do that.  It was unusual circumstances that was beyond anyone's control and everyone did what they can do.

Hope that explains the method.  Bash away, get your fustrations out but remember everything was done with the safety of the teams in mind and this is the best anyone can do without racing.

Til next year, happy paddling.

If my pro-rated average theory is correct then these times kinda make sense, since these teams would have gotten a 250m sprint for their third race, which gonna be faster per meter overall. This of course would skew the average....a lot! The Sudden impact time is on a par with the this years worlds Open finals, way to go guys you are smokin'  :wink:

A better way might have been to call the 'semi' the 'final' for the bottom three in each semi heat and rank them according to time on the semi. It is reasonable to assume that the water conditions on back to back races would have been similar enough for a race time comparison to be valid. I personally would have liked this idea due the three places it would have earned us.

We did make huge leaps forward this year  :dance:, so who am I to bitch over a couple of places?

I was kidding about the ribbon thing, but low and behold i just had a call from the organizers, and the ribbons are on their way! go figure!

My thanks to alcanranker for explaining how the results were done. I don't agree with them, but at least someone told us. That info should have been sent to the teams before the rankings were posted, however. Live and learn.

Disappointed Dragoner - Bonnie

They are sending the explanation with the medal/ribbon package.  Just wasn't quite fast enough for the teams/people, that is why I posted here.

I don't think the weather can get much worse next year.  Here is to a bright, sunny, wind free 2008 Kelowna Festival and finals for all :D.