Dragon Boat West

Amazing number of womens teams entered this year. Almost more than the mixed teams! Weather looks like it will be great. Should be another fun filled weekend!

http://www.nanaimodragonboat.com/pdf/2010racewelcome.pdf

"7:00-10:00 AM Shriner’s Pancake Breakfast"

3 hours of pancakes for 2 days  :shock:

I think Puppy Love might be a dark horse tommorow.
Tides and wind made for an interesting saturday!
Dragonauts, Xtreme reach, Blu By U, Puppy Love are top boats today.

Great Showing PUPPY LOVE ~ way to represent "False Creek" ;) (jokes)

And again Nanaimo brings the 'festive' to festival. woo hoo!  :D

Other festival organizers.. Please tear a page from that book!

Great festival as always.  Huge thanks to Blu-By-You for the first aid kit.  One point though for whomever;  Was it necessary, given the 42 mixed teams, to have two Platinum teams in the same heat?  In race 3 I think it was, Fluid Motion, last year's 6th placed team, found itself in lane 4 next to BBY in lane three.

You're welcome threesea...

soooo...

The qualifying process is what put fluid motion where they were.

At Nanaimo it is points based from your first two qualifiers. That is, a ranking based on points earned (based on heat placement) in your first two races. Once that ranking is established, teams tied on points are then ranked based on cumulative times for those same races.

now that being said, the first race you had with BBU was an exceptionally fast race, so the cumulative time for Fluid Motion pushed them up the rankings relative to teams with the same points. from there on the semis are predetermined based on ranking at that point.

clear as mud?

Excuse me but I wasn't clear on my post.  In Fluid Motion's first race on Saturday, they raced against Blu-By-You.  FM finished 6th overall (Platinum) in 2009.  Based on their 2009 result, I'd expect that FM would have been seeded in lane three this year in their first race on Saturday, non?  I understand that it all came out in the wash for Sunday, but it was a luck of the draw that FM did not race their second heat against one of the top 5 (Navy for example) which may have pushed them down into a lower division.  Make sense?

I see what you mean... Based on some of the other pairings on the initial race grid I would suspect that lane 3 was the only seeded lane. Under normal circumstances there are more teams to win both of their qualifiers than there are places in the platinum. Not this year however.

Thats OK tho... two races with FM = more time to flirt with gwen (or is it guen?)  :D

Guen

 8))

While we are on the spelling topic its - Blu By U  :lol:

...hard to read the name on their shirts when they are so far ahead.

:P Just to Clarify Puppy Love=Collection of Alcoholics with a Paddling Problem, no superstars or FCRCC paddlers. Mostly drunks and one homeless guy..!
Thanks to BBU for the great Care packages and hosting (the Sausage rolls were a nice attempt to fatten up the team and slow them down so I ate 1/2 of the bag myself (its all about team!))
Great Weather as usual (if only a week earlier for Nationals....sigh) and as always the best (albeit shorter than usual) beer garden (adjustments to compensate for more teams? Some of the women in the last race came off the water not being able to get a beer on Saturday ..Sacrilege!)

Hats off to Dragonauts for nipping our butts in the last 10 meters (I think we have to practice.. :lol:) and to Navy for keeping us honest in the finals.

And talk about a fast tide....funny to see boats stuck on the sand bars.... :P

I think next year we have to change our team name..... :)

Well Lethal, maybe if Blu eats less of those sausage rolls and you eat more, we might get those 2 seconds we needed. I'll get shannon to bake an extra large bag for next year! :P

 :D

Some chicken Wings and yam fries would be nice as well
Beer is quite fattening as well...

Nanaimo was a outstanding well run festival (hats off to organizers !! )
Racing in Nanaimo is always a challenge thats what keeps it very interesting.
My only negative comment is that  I would have to agree with threesea .
Seeding was clearly done by someone not familar with the process , most of it worked itself out but there were a few other teams that should have been seeded based on their past performance ( and some clearly should not have  been seeded based on past performance ) instead of knocking each other out and eliminating another teams chances of advancing to a higher level and advancing lower ranked teams into a higher level where they are clearly outranked . Based on the teams in this event it would have been a very easy festival to seed the teams proper which would allow for tighter racing in the finals .

I agree, Nanaimo is great but seeding has been weak. They seem to take the top few teams and spread them out, beyond that it looks like not much thought goes into it.

I think it's hard though, after the top 5 (BBU, Navy, Puppy, Xtreme, Dragonauts) everyone else is 10 seconds back and pretty evenly matched so who do you seed?

The bottom of Platinum, all of Diamond and the top of Jade are very close. I don't see how someone could say Fluid Motion should definitely have been seeded, they were last in Platinum and were 3 boat lengths behind the top 5. FM in Diamond would have been suitable. After the top 5 there were a lot of similar teams: VCKC Grand Dragon, West Shore Warriors, Mentor Mariners, Ancient Mariners, Concord, VCKC First Class, Dog Paddlers, Fifth Moon, Dragon Slayers, PI and Amazing Greys. You can make a case for any of them.

It seems to have worked out fairly well in the end, finals were reasonably close.


 

The Goblin Empire is right in the middle of that pack listed as well (we are still fairly new so tend to be forgotten from lists). yes there were were some hickups but do agree that things works out in the end. It was a beautiful weekend, no races canceled due to wind and everyone had a great time. Thank you organizers, volunteers, and officials for assisting in a great weekend.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the empires "Lil' goblin chapel of love ...and taxidermy" when we went mobile. We carried our podium around and married up random couples and gave them ring pops to exchange. We hope to get all the pictures we took of the new couples online as soon as possible.

Great festival but they were asked by many about the seeding both last year and this year and quite frankly Scarlett they don't give a damn, lol!   

Thank you to all the festival organizers and volunteers for a fantastic event! I saw lots of smiles on both paddlers and spectators throughout the weekend! This is definitely one of the must festivals to attend on the circuit! I heard great comments about the paddlers party and of course, the beer gardens!!

Other than the occasional boat getting stuck on the sandbar going out to the start line, the sandbar didn't impact any of the races this year! Thank you for taking feedback from last year and implementing a solution!  :D

Can I make a suggestion for next year? How about lane markers at the 250m mark?

Let me throw in my two cents about Nanaimo...

- Instead of 250m, why not have lane markers every 100 metres?  That would stop a lot of the grumbling about people leaving their lanes and it would also make it abundantly clear to the chase boats who is truly at fault during collisions and near-collisions (I heard lots of grumbling about that too).

- Everyone missed Greg in the marshaling area (glad to see you on the dock for the last race!), his presence goes hand-in-hand with the Paddler's Village.  However, a big Hats Off to Peter, the one who shaved his head for charity, for stepping up and doing a great job in Greg's place!

- The beer garden remains the best around, a shining example of how to do it right.  Better beer would be appreciated but that's probably out of their hands (more to do with the sponsor, I suspect).  How about better music though?  First off, someone shoot the horse and the cowboy and send them both off to the glue factory.  We were sick of it when the Iron Dragons had it as their warm-up song and we're still sick of it today.  Second, have it in the DJ's contract that no song is allowed to be played more than once per day, and the DJ will risk a $100 penalty for breach of contract if he/she fails to abide by the rule.

- I LOVE the fact that Nanaimo is a for-charity event!  Kelowna and other for-profit events should learn from this.  It's one of the reasons why their events have become less popular over the years and Nanaimo keeps growing.

Just a small note.......Nanaimo Festival Rocks!   It was great fun, even for old people like me.

Races and conditions were great (for Nanaimo) and it was just awesome.  My team (Amazing Grays) impressed ourselves in the Jade final....truly a good race.

By the way, and no offense to anyone.....it is "ceding" not "seeding".....doesn't really make a difference in the world, does it?

I have been to all the Nanaimo festivals (I am from Victoria) and my partner and I both thought this was one of the best festivals...period!

Thank you all so much!

My last two cents from those who were inquiring about how to seed properly.
You take the top eleven (or how many races you have in the heat) teams from last year and put them in lane 3.  This is the reward that your get for doing well last year and returning this year.  If there are teams that are not returning, then continue on down the list from last year.  And you carry on for lanes 2, 4 and 1.  Whoever is left over, as in there for the first time, well they unfortunately end up in lane 1.  Yes, there will be mistakes, but in any process, someone will be  missed.  And as it happened this year, it’ll all come out in the wash.

Another request I’d like to add as an improvement for next year, seeing as the race course has been moved quite a bit out into the channel and so saving the dreadful lane 1, can lane 1 now be a “more favorable” lane to the outside lane 4?  Lane 4 takes quite a beating now with waves from marine traffic as I experienced having paddled in it three time on the weekend.

Otherwise, Nanaimo rocks!

Nanaimo has quite a bit of space between the markers. If one were to implement lane markers as suggested by Linda and Rob, a narrower course could be laid out, thus minimizing the disadvantages observed in lanes 1 & 4. (they manage quite well at Alcan).

Admittedly, I don't know what the physical logistics are, but IMHO its a pretty simple idea. The only challenge would be to ensure that steerspeople were appropriately experienced.

Lane 1 is not a favoured lane at all, even compared to lane 4.  I'd sooner take my chances with random wake than shallow water down the course.  I felt that sea grass stuff wrapping around my paddle for quite a few strokes near the start of race 3 for our crew in lane 1.  Both outside lanes have their quirks here and there (sometimes boats don't zip by in lane 4 and eventually the tide comes in for lane 1) but it's part of racing, you prepare for what may get chucked at you and then get it done.

Also, I don't think it's enough just to look at the previous year's event to assign teams into lanes, you really do have to look at other events too that are more recent, especially ones local to the teams participating as a lot can happen to a crew in one year and visiting crews may have pick-ups stronger or weaker than their regular crews.  You can't go solely just on how a boat did a year ago.  There were teams that were in platinum last year that were placed in lane 3 for the first race and still ended up in lower divisions, beaten by teams that placed lower than them last year.

I've helped rank teams for festivals before (not Nanaimo) and spent a lot of time looking at festivals all over the west leading up to the event to get a good idea of how teams did at multiple different festivals compared to each other, it was a lot of work but it's really the fairest way to go.  It's also still not fool-proof! 

I agree with rb, after the top 5 the next boat was 9 seconds behind and everyone through the rest of platinum, diamond and top of jade were right around each other with time.  I'm not sure that indicates that too many crews were horribly wronged, Fluid Motion still fought their way to platinum.  If you're a strong enough crew you can still challenge the grid.

Been too busy getting ready for my vacation...
Was also too busy paddling with the Puppys and coaching and calling for my women's team that festival as well......
Saw a whack of people with cameras on the dock so I figure they had had the festival Action covered
Anyhoo, here are a few pics I took on the second day
more can be found on my website
http://lethalweaponphoto.com/Dragonboat
look under Nanaimo 2010

(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/Lethal_Weapon/Nanaimo%202010/N1U2Y0168Large.jpg)
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/Lethal_Weapon/Nanaimo%202010/N1U2Y0195Large.jpg)
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/Lethal_Weapon/Nanaimo%202010/N1U2Y0088Large.jpg)
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/Lethal_Weapon/Nanaimo%202010/N1U2Y0026Large.jpg)
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/Lethal_Weapon/Nanaimo%202010/N1U2Y0074Large.jpg)
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/Lethal_Weapon/Nanaimo%202010/N1U2Y0159Large.jpg)

I think you were too busy partying in the beer gardens! Thanks for the pictures, Lethal Weapon(ugh!)! It was great racing against you in the finals! Hope you're back again next year!