Dragon Boat West

Hi everybody, i'm italian, just arrived in this amazing website!
I'm sorry for my english, i know it's terrible!!  :D
I race for a dragonboat team in the north of Italy, and sometimes my team race also outside Italy, the 31 october we will be in Bern (Switzerland) for an international meeting called Armada Cup, someone of you have the crazy idea to come in Europe for race or for training?
Well, let me know if you'll do it!
Bye
Andrea

Ciao paesano! Benvenuto a questo Web site! Spero che convinciate alcuni di noi da Vancouver a venire sopra alla vostra parte del mondo. Buona fortuna!

Ni hao!

For BernMan:
Ciao, saresti così gentile da spiegarmi come funziona questo sito web? Tutti gli utenti sono di Vancouver? O comunque zona British Columbia?
Sapresti anche dirmi se c'è qualche gara di dragon boat lì da voi che valga la pena di una traversata oceanica? Mi hanno parlato bene di una gara in un posto che si chiama Kelowna ma non ho molte informazioni! Puoi aiutarmi?
Ti ringrazio infinitamente!!! Ciao

For Swordfish:
Normally i don't speak Mandarin Chinese, but i can try: Nǐ hǎo, Wǒ jiào Andrea, Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi? Nǐ hǎo ma? Wǒ de Zhōngwén jiǎng de bú tài hǎo.
Ehehehehe  :mrgreen:

lol, Welcome Free Soul to our forum!

I'm sure most of us would love to paddle in Europe, but the cost of travel would probably be the main reason why we cant venture onto that part of the world.

With that said, our local FCRCC team are going to paddle/compete in the World Championships in Europe (Prague) near the end of August.

Buon Giorno Andrea!

Because the majority (probably 99%) of the folks who use this site have no idea what the heck I told you in Italian I will respond to you in English.

Your first question you asked was does everyone who uses this website live in Vancouver or the province of BC? My answer would be no, but a good majority are probably west coast people from British Columbia to California and east a little bit into Alberta. Of course being on the internet means anyone can join so long as they have internet connectivity such as you did. I don't have the stats but the moderators might be able to help either in a new topic or in a PM privately to you.

Your second question was is there a festival/regatta that is worth travelling overseas for in our area. My answer would be most definitely the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival but unfortunately this year's festival already took place. It takes place in June every year. You should check it out here http://dragonboatbc.ca/. It has been a while since a team from Italy came out to our part of the world but it has been done! You mentioned that you heard Kelowna is a nice race to possibly attend and I would say yes it is! But I don't recall when the last time was that a team from overseas came to Kelowna. The races take place on a lake and it is usually nice and warm. It tends to be the last race for most teams that are done with travelling. But there is also a regatta in San Francisco usually the week after Kelowna. If you seek information for Kelowna click here http://www.kdbf.ca/ or for San Fran click here http://www.sfdragonboat.com/. There is also the Victoria Dragon Boat Festival which will take place in a couple of weeks but you will need to take a ferry over from Vancouver or fly directly into the Victoria International airport. This is their website http://www.victoriadragonboat.com/.

The festivals mentioned above are probably worth flying overseas for. And you do have choices. If anyone else has any other suggestons please do not hesitate to post it!

Good luck with your festival research and welcome to this forum!

Cheers!

Bernardo

Thank you very much Bernardo, now i have a lot of informations about Dragonboat in Canada and in USA, i think maybe my team could organize a travel for the next year!

NFW if you'll come to Prague in the end of August and you want to come 1 week before for training in Europe, you could come here in Italy for a training session, we can give you our boats and our facilities for the training absolutely for free; Prague is not far from here and there are a lot of possibilities going there (by air, by train or by bus)!
Last year we gave hospitality to the dragon boat german national team, one of the strongest in Europe!

For everyone of you: we could do a twinning, we have the possibility of give hospitality to your teams, and maybe you could do the same for us if one day we'll come over there!
We can borrow you our boats and our facilities for free (we don't want money), our team is named Remiera Toscolano Maderno and it's located in Toscolano Maderno on the Garda Lake (the biggest italian lake), the place is wonderful and the weather is great most of the year!
Our website is now under construction and is http://www.remieratoscolanomaderno.it/
Our team is not only dragonboat, but also outrigger (oc1 - oc2- oc4- oc6), kayak, canoe, and also voga veneta (venetian rowing, is a particular kind of rowing made in ancient Venice, with particular boats like bissa, gondola, gondolino gardesano )!
We also organize every year (the second sunday of may) an important race opened to every rowing boats (dragon boat, viking boats, outrigger, kayak, ecc.) , the race is named Gardalonga (it's like Vogalonga in Venice), this is the web site of our race: http://www.gardalonga.it/ you can watch it, there are a lot of photos of the race and you can understand what kind of race is! Last year we hosted at our race an outrigger champion, he came from California, and he arrived second in a race from island Katalina to Newport (70 km), you can see him in the Gardalonga's photos, he raced with a Oc1 that our team borrow him!

Well, let me know!
My email adress is on my profile!!
Bye!!!
 

lol, I'm actually not a part of the FCRCC Team representing Canada at Prague. Though I would love to be able to go to Italy or Prague and paddle there someday.

I'm sure that if your team comes here in the future, there will be local teams/clubs here that will gladly act as host msn(u)