Dragon Boat West

Our first race is on Saturday August 22.

We're first up against

Mofos (OHDBC)
Half Row (H20 Playground)
Phoenix ETS - Fireball (22 Dragons)
Sudden Impact Black

I know OHDBC - Mofos ... don't know Half Row and Phoenix ETS are.  Either way should be fun.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/135730/thread/1249995777/last-1250187979/Nationals+Predictions (http://www.network54.com/Forum/135730/thread/1249995777/last-1250187979/Nationals+Predictions)

People on the East coast have already started making predictions.  Good luck, hope you show them what the west has got

I believe there are only 2 teams representing the West: SIB and EDBRC (Edmonton)

I know FCRCC Worlds are busy with Prague, but what about the other FCRCC Mixed team?
Not enough paddlers to field a team for the Nationals?

In any case, Good luck west teams! :D

Yeah, FCRCC can't field enough paddlers for Nationals. A couple of them are with SiB for Nationals, though.

Good luck with the races, show them some taste of the West Coast. :D

Montreal is going to be interesting.  Good luck to the teams from the west.  Gotta Represent!

S.I. you guys are going to do just fine. Good luck on qualifying, and show them that the west is always wild, on and off the water.

@ DiggerPig

Half Row is the 2nd fastest of the H2O Playground teams, and Phoenix ETS Fireball is probably the fastest university team in the east right now.

Your real enemy though is the unlucky lane draw for your first race.  Depending on where they line up the lanes, it might not be bad or it could be a bit of a killer.  Mofos will be dangerous out of lane 1.

Good luck in Montreal.

Isn't this held at the Olympic Basin where the water level is all the same (no shallow spots)? I've raced there before and can't remember if one lane is better than the next, I thought they were pretty equal. Very nice as well as they are bouyed the whole way down; you can still ride wash but it is very evident if you are hugging the bouy lines.

 Sis .......you have a bad memory  !! :roll:

 The montreal basin lanes on the outsides are shallow ,the inside are much deeper  . In the outside lanes you can touch the bottom from the boat w/ your paddle......On the inner lanes you can't .

 The east side of the lanes ( by the scoreboard ) are more exposed to the wind that comes down he course as well

Firstly, let me say how pleased I am that there are some Western Crews coming out the Nationals next weekend. It's no small time and financial commitment to do so. All indications are for a great weekend of racing.

As for lanes etc, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it. The course is being rigged for Canoe racing with what I believe will be only 4 relatively centrally located lanes with ghost lanes in between.

With the conventional 6 lane setup for Dragon Boating they use for the Montreal IDBRF cross winds, depending on direction can help/hinder lanes one or six. Hopefully this will be less of an issue given the 4 lane setup. I am sure they are very sensitive to making it as fair as possible.

On top of that, since there will be a Preliminary and a Semi before the Final, all teams really have two chances to position themselves favorably/make the final. If there is any lane bias due to winds etc, then a team that gets a less favorable lane in the preliminary will still have a chance to recover from that in the Semi. If a team cannot make the top 8 from any given lane then it's a tough sell that they would be top 5 in any case.

On the other hand, if a team were to get a favorable lane in the preliminary, then they would still need to back that up with a top 2 finish head to head in the Semi to make the final.

Best of luck next weekend and don't be strangers. When do you fly back? Some of us are staying over Sunday night to... ummm... go sight seeing or something ;)

Some of us are staying over Sunday night to... ummm... go sight seeing or something ;)

Le ballet? ;)

Just checked the back east web forum ...

Looking through festival results, I noticed that SiB never medalled in their qualifying events. Namely Whistler and Harrison, and Whistler had them beat out by... Pemberton Bald Eagles and Dragon Hearts Magnum? Ain't those just a bunch of kids?


hmmm ... they sure don't paddle like kids  :twisted:

Who's joining SiB from the FCRCC team?

Two of our girls paddled with the FCRCC women's team all season.  We have one of their girls - C.P.  I've had some experience paddling with the men's team last season as well. Our paddlers are experienced and we'll see.  People often make prediction.  My prediction.  Get ready Montreal!  Either way people are going to hurt after all of this.   

:lol:

And Lethal Weapon will be there to capture the pain on everyone's faces!
Lets hope for good weather!

Go SI!
"Represent!"

Here's a photo of teams preparing for a start.  People are on shore holding the boats.

(http://members.shaw.ca/paddlebot/images/2009/Montreal/2009_Montreal001s.jpg)

Final race results are in:

http://www.dragonboat.ca/node/116

I see SiB won their C finals in both the 250m and 500m categories. Does this mean they get to represent the West now? Or did you need to win in the A or B finals? Gosh there seems to be some pretty awesome times though...

So based on total points, the 5 teams that can go to Macau are SRP Scotia Rouge, Verdun Adrenaline, Commerce Court Big Fish, Team Chiro, & Hanalei right?

What are the club points for?

I believe two sets of points systems were in place.

1st for Nationals rankings that used 250, 500 & 2000 metre races
2nd for Club Crew qualifying that used 250 & 500 metre races only.

As for Bernman's question:  "I see SiB won their C finals in both the 250m and 500m categories. Does this mean they get to represent the West now? Or did you need to win in the A or B finals?..."

Only in Bizzarro world,..... each county can only send 5 teams from each class, and SI Black was 9th in their class on the Nationals system, and out of the top 5 on the Club Crew system (the non-qualifiers aren't ranked but they were 15th in the two qualifying distances), so unless about 10 teams ahead of them opt not to go, then they won't be going to Macau next year.  

Here is how the point system works.

Points for CCWC Entries are established from the 200 and 500 metre distances only
CCWC points are awarded as follows:
4 points for 1st place
2 points for 2nd place
1 point for 3rd place
Medals will be awarded for each race class; burgees shall be awarded for each race division
Points will be awarded as per the IDBF point system

The official results page uses a differing point system than the above quotes:

Points - 1st-10, 2nd-5, 3rd-3, 4th-2, 5th-1

I thought Canada was going to send representatives from the West, Central and East and that was why I asked. But maybe I am wrong. I hope my question wasn't all that stupid? I just thought we needed to have representatives from different parts of Canada. Can someone clarify please?  :?

It's just the top teams in Canada as a whole

Yeah, it never mattered where the teams came from, as long as they show up, race, and win.

That's not quite true as I remember it used to be that there were regional raceoffs for teams in the West, Central and East where the top team would be go to the Club Crews and then the last two spots were then awarded to the two teams at the Canada Nationals.

This was changed where now the 5 spots are awarded to the top 5 teams in the Nationals.

Thanks Tim! I thought it used to be that way. Now I know. So there are no guarantees anymore which means all teams have to train hard even if they are the only one in their region competing.

I just want to say that it was nice to see that the West teams cheered on each other.  I know that there wasn't a huge west representation, but it was nice to see that we can all get along. haha

The new system in place for selecting the 5 club crews to represent Canada appears to be structured to find the "best 5 teams"... however, it is a tough thing to expect all the top crews from a region far from the Nationals sire to finance a trip to qualify, and then have the funds to finance a trip to the World Club Crews the following year.

Having said that, does anyone know when the West will next host the Nationals in a year that is also World Club Crew qualifying? Or has nothing been scheduled that far in advance yet. 

I did see that the west will be hosting next years nationals, but given that world club crews are only every second year, then that means it won't be a qualifying year.  Will the powers at be let the west have Nationals two years in a row in order for us to have a better change at having a significant number of our crews attempt to qualify for worlds?

Nationals for the CCWC qualifier will be in Ontario/Saskatchewan in 2011.

Ontario/Saskatchewan ????

Are they going to have two qualifiers, one for East one for West?

Really?  I heard that it is going to be in Whistler

That's 2010

I just want to say a big THANK YOU to the western teams that came out east to play (SiB & EDBRC).  You guys had at least one eastie (former westie) cheering for ya.  Too bad EDBRC open missed out on the last open spot in the race off.  Would have been nice to have some company from the west in Macau.  Either way, both western teams were classy on and off the water.

The next CCWC qualifier will be at the 2011 Nationals.  And based on the regional rotation system, it will be back in Central Canada, which means Ontario/Winnipeg (is Saskatchewan Central or Western Canada?).  Hope to see you all again and maybe even more western teams in 2011.

Cheers and thanks again!

So can I assume with an Eastern/Central/West rotation that the next CCWC qualifier in the west is in 2013 for the 2014 CCWC ?

That's for the Worlds.


Yup, should be 4 more years before we have a CCWC qualifier in the West with that logic...an awful long time..