Dragon Boat West

This was my first Longboat and it was great. The weather was sunny, very calm in the morning with a slight wind in the afternoon. The format with the beach start, turns, and two beach landings was a lot of fun. Highly recommended for paddlers who want to try something different.

<_< It's also one of the most frustrating races if you expect to actually win. I'm not sure about the community heats, but the students races were definitely a fierce dogfights with just about every single dirty tactics being employed. :lol: Where else can you purposefully ram into someone else's boat and cause them to spin off-course, dock right in front of them at the baton beach to prevent them from getting off the beach before, and a few other things?

We Magnums have been on both giving and receiving ends, and ended up disqualified on our semi-final, right on the finish beach when we tossed the baton to our runner... and it ended up landing into the water. <_< We still thought it was on the boat but five minutes later, it's drifted pretty far away from the beach. Again, that's for the student heats so I'm not sure how the community races tend to go. It's definitely fun to go for a little change of scenery or to finish off the season. :D

I paddled with Dragon Hearts Beat and we were disqualified as well because there were too many people on the beach where we get the baton (I still think that was mostly my fault but anyway...) I agree that it was really fun and definitely worth trying again. I like the playfulness of it all. And I love beaches and nice weather too :) so the day turned out pretty okay even though we only had one race for our money. I wish I could say the same about it being the tail-end of the season but there's still Cranberry. Who's goin'?

At least it was better than Taiwanese  :x

Glad to say the Scaly Bytes FC brought home the boaty medal thingy, actually way nicer than a normal medal, in the men's community final and the womens community final. We thought we were going to get the hat trick when Philly's Revenge pipped us, man was that boat was stacked to the gunnels:)

All great fun and highly recommended, my advice to any teams for next year is get into outrigging, it helps a whole heap. The dragon boat guy's and girls' had good sprinting ability as you'd expect but couldn't keep up on the extended runs.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XR3o8sdHEB0

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=JLBRPKGRGYk

<_< Actually, I still enjoyed the Taiwanese races a lot. Hard to decide which one's the better 'fun' races, because while Longboat was definitely different on its own, certain dirtiness can turn people off. (I know I was irked when we got trapped on the baton beach by the last-place team and forced us to play catch-up for the second half) As well as some rather strange ranking/advancement/divisional system. (Seriously, by end of the first day there were already four teams in the CoRec CWD final, long before the semi-finals were even decided and that basically means you have to come first place in your semi just to make the final.) :wtf:

Taiwanese is... well, Taiwanese.

Double post.

Certain decisions made my certain individuals... was the cause of my resentment toward the Taiwanese festival this year. I'm sure it doesn't happen every year and I'm glad other teams had a good time. I think it was more of a personal thing between myself and others, rather than the festival as a whole.

I agree longboat has a bit of a certain dirtiness, as you put it. Some things are allowed for some teams, and other teams are disqualified for the same reason. Also, I had just arrived on the Sunday to see Magnum during their final race. I wasn't sure what was happening but it seemed like a traffic jam, from as far back as maybe 30 metres! Then again, I didn't have my glasses with me. What happened?

Oh, we just have a rather slow start compared to our usual DB races, and quite a few sideswipings on the way to the beach. It was enough to keep us in the middle of the pack, but after we get on the beach and head for the baton, the last-place team proceeded to merrily beach right in front of us and blocked it. We had to push the boat back and then paddle around them, costed us as much as a minute or two. By that time, we were like, second or third-last place and spent rest of the race playing catch-up. Eventually we did catch up to third or fourth place, then comes the finish-line baton toss. The baton beach tend to be the part were even the slowest team can horribly slow down another team just by firmly parking in front of them, and we just happen to get that treatment. *shrugs* We probably had a chance to do that to the teams ahead of us, but we didn't.

(Honestly, this kind of tactic just might as well as be highly encouraged because it's the easiest way to block a faster team without the effort or risk of spinning off course like in Magnum's first race, where a team tried to block us in the middle of the second straightaway and we just... paddled straight through them.)

All in all, it was very much Longboat in spirit. :P Even more of a gong show than Taiwanese.

The UBC Long Boat race is lots of fun....

It's bumper cars in boats...  They all have to paddle 50m to converge at a single point to make a right turn from the start, then head East.  Teams that don't make the turn have to turn around, and go back around the yellow float.  Steering is important.  Knowing when to let it run, let other teams pass you, then turn and  take an inside route is strategic.

The Men's Community teams all posted great times under 13 minutes.  Gung Haggis ran a boat with only 8 men and 2 women.
Some of our paddlers have raced in this event since 2004, when we first helped out the Tacoma DBA.

In our first race, we got stuck on the beach at the midpoint to grab the baton.  In our 2nd race, we jumped out too early, and lost time running through the water.  Sometimes you never know what is going to happen when you come into the baton pick-up beach.  We had just seen boats cut in too early, and get hung up on the sandbar - which we purposely avoided.

Try entering the community division where you can paddle in both a MIXED and a MENS/WOMENS team, for four 2km races in a single day.  8 km is the equivalent distance of 16 500m dragon boat races.  Big Stu and I recalled our first races in 2004, when we thought we would die... exhausted after paddling 2km.  But the 2nd and 3rd races were easier that day.

Congratulations to Scaly Bytes who won both Mens and Womens Community divisions.  It's been great having Ron, Big Stu, Sarah, Kristine and Art paddle with us (half of our team last year!) in past years when we did the races with Tacoma DBA, and as Gung Haggis last year.

Congratulations to TD Lightning for again helping to train all newbie paddlers in the paddle clinics and always providing a friendly competitor to chase after.

Big Congratulations to all the Gung Haggis paddlers for showing lots of heart, and running a good race coming third to Scaly Bytes and TD Lightning and always making it interesting with good turns, getting passed by boats at the beach, then passing other boats down the final stretch.  You made up lots of time, and we almost caught up to TD Lightning.

Read our teams' race story on http://www.gunghaggis.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/28/3905485.html (http://www.gunghaggis.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/28/3905485.html)