Dragon Boat West

The first annual San Diego Dragon Boat festival since 1983 is taking place on October 23 and 24th of 2010 at Mission Bay in San Diego, California.

Come on down to sunny San Diego for a weekend of awesome racing. In addition to the traditional 20-man boat races, we will be organizing the first ever 10 man boat races with cash prizes going to the winners of the division.

If you’re interested in bringing your crew to San Diego for some good competition and fun, visit our site at www.sddragonboatrace.com.

(http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/1638/raceflyer.jpg)

and if you win... you can yell "I'M GOING TO SEAWORLD!"

LOL Mike's comment! And the San Diego Zoo!! PANDAS!!!!!!!! :P

It looks like San Diego is sweetening the pot....They have put a challenge out to the Canadians. They feel that the Canadians had an easy race off in San Francisco. At this year's San Diego race, the outrigger teams will be fielding their best crew.

http://www.sddragonboatrace.com/racing.html

First Canadian team to contact me (PM), will get free entrance to the San Diego Dragon Boat Race on Oct 23 and 24th.

Somebody, please represent us and we will provide you with the Canadian Flag for the award ceremony. Magnum, Pond Scum or even Jet Start????? anyone??????

CASH for the winner in the 10 men boats

Saturday, October 23rd
Corporate Races - only on Saturday
College Division Races - only on Saturday
Mixed Division II Races - only on Saturday
Open, Women, Mixed & Masters Division I Races - on Sat. & Sun.


Sunday, October 24th
10-Man Boats: All Division Races - most on Sunday, out of town teams race on Sat. too
Cancer Survivor Division Races - only on Sunday
Open, Women, Mixed & Masters Division I - Finals on Sunday

If only vacations days grow on trees lol

How about throwing in the airfare also, I could afford to go then.

LOL who are you? =P

Yes, for poor students like a lot of us are on Magnum, more notice is needed =[

I'd go if they get Danny Ching and he puts on a stroke clinic for us afterwards :dance:

Consider it a deal if we get free airfare, free hotel, free entrance, free beer, and free outrigger clinic! :lol:

All I could swing was free entrance fee.  Let's see if we could put a strong team together and win some cash. If you do, then that should cover some of your cost. To field a ten men team is easier than fielding a 20 person team.

I would like to know as well. pm if you're shy.

Good luck with finding ppl Kerry!

Perhaps a certain "Chairman" of ours can put in a couple vetos.

All hail the great one! :dance:

Here is the current teams racing in San Diego. I wonder who's going to take the cash prize for the 10 men/women boat???

 San Diego Dragon Boat Race - Divisions

Open:   
                 Splashing-Thunder
                 BAD - Bay Area Dragons
                 LARD   
                Team DPW


Women:
            Wasabi   
            LARD   
            UCSD   
     
   
Mixed Division II:
              USC Dragon Boat
              Killer Guppies
              Rogue Warriors
              Splashing Flyers
             NAC Dragon Boat Team
             UCSD DB Alumni
             UCSD Dragon Boat - Blue
             IMUA Outrigger Club
             Arizona Gila Dragons
             KP Dragons
             AeroDragons
   
Mixed Division I:
               LARD A   
               LARD 1   
               TDBA - Destiny Dragons/Draco
               Space Dragons
               CAUCI Elements
               Seattle Club Sake
               BAD - Bay Area Dragons
               UCSD Dragon Boat  - White
                 
   
   
Mixed - 10 Man:
                 LARD   
                 Arizona Gila Dragons
                 Team DPW
                 L.A. Thunder Dragons
                 Space Dragons
                  Hot Sake   
                 NAC Dragon Boat
                 Seattle Club Sake
                 IMUA Outrigger Club
   
Out-Of-Town
               Arizona Gila Dragons
               Hot Sake   
               Seattle Club Sake
               BAD - Bay Area Dragons
               Wasabi   
               LA Thunder Dragon

Corporate:
      Team DPW
      Splashing Flyers
      Seo Consulting Waves
      Physical Plant Operators
      Sanyo Corp.
      Crime Fighters on the Water
      KP Dragons
      Women of Color
      TBD II   
         
Open - 10 Man:
      USC Dragon Boat
      Killer Guppies
      Team DPW (1)
      Team DPW (2)
      Rogue Warriors
      Space Dragons
      Electric Dragons
      Lanakila   
      BAD - Bay Area Dragons
      SD Lifeguards
      Women - 10 Man:
      Killer Guppies
      Team DPW
      Splashing Thunder
      Space Dragons
      NAC Dragon Boat Team
                       Electric Dragons
      BAD - Bay Area Dragons
      Wasabi   
      Kai Elua   
College:      
   USC Dragon Boat   
   CAUCI Elements   
   UCSD Dragon Boat - Blue
   UCSD Dragon Boat - White
      
Mixed - 10 Man:
      Electric Dragons (1)
      Electric Dragons (2)
      Lanakila   
      BAD - Bay Area Dragons
      Wasabi   
      LA Harbor Dragons
      AreoDragons
      Team Vio
      TBD IV   
         
Cancer Survivor Exhibition Race:
               Team Survivor San Diego   
               LA Pink Dragons      
               NAC         
               

hmm.....those familiar with the outrigger world will recognize Lanakila Outrigger Canoe Club as Danny Ching's home club, his dad Al Ching is the founder :)

Not sure if Lanakila is coming with a stacked team or not ... they are sort of 'freshly' back from an 8th place finish at Molokai.

Congratulations San Diego on a successful race weekend! Although the weather didn’t cooperate completely, the venue was beautiful, and it was nice to see so many teams participate. For my own team, it was nice to squeeze in one last race this season and we were fortunate that it was a close enough location that travel wasn’t as big an issue.
For those who attended, what are your thoughts? As San Diego’s first race in nearly 30 years, there are inevitable (re)growing pains, and the organizers would like to know about them. Constructive criticism, observations, ideas, all welcome as this will help the race for next year.

Did you like the 10 man race day or should it have been combined with the 20 man events? Did you like the race course? Were issues resolved? Post away.

Personally, I thought it was a refreshing event, and it was nice to go to a new location. I’m chewing on my own thoughts and will post if I think of anything worthwhile. But for now, I’m still in that familiar post-race buzz, wishing I were still at a race and that it’s not a Monday after. I had a wonderful time and look forward to next year! Thank you to the organizers (Puppy, I’m still amazed you never lose your voice), the volunteers, and the San Diego Dragonboat Team for all the tireless work in making the race happen again!

Other than the Saturday light rain, the event is fun with many close races.
As always, Kerry's team keep the races moving and on schedule.
The volunteers are great, they gave us a clean boat for every race.  We appreciate that.
With only 3 10-men boats, yes I would agree that it should be mixed with the 20-men boats for faster turn around time.
May be the event needs more publicity, as there are very little spectators, even on the sunny Sunday.  (Limited parking spaces??)
The shallow depth may be challenging during the low tide in the afternoon.  :D

Quick thoughts--

* The slight embankment from the marshaling area down to the boats was tough for some of the teams.  One of our team members has a blown knee and he had trouble getting up and down.  I noticed other teams with similar issues.  Wasn't a big deal, but a minor inconvenience each time.

* Starts were rough for the morning heats on Saturday.  Rolling starts, uneven alignment--a lot of it likely exacerbated from trying to do alignment from the shore/dock despite the large distance to where the 500m starting line was.  Once it shifted to the chase boat things went far more smoothly.

* As mentioned before, the addition of more 10 man boats would of greatly aided in keeping Sunday moving smoothly.  That or a mixture of 10/20 man on both days.  I personally really liked having a 10 man exclusive day, as the sheer volume of close races made for some excellent spectating. 

* For the 20 mans, I prefer race bracketing where initial heats are used for splitting off into divisions versus a self-elected div 1 and div 2.  Granted it was tough as it was on the organizers with a nebulous race grid as team sign ups (as gauged by the web site) was uneven.  As the event matures and team count stabilizes, it'd be great to have multiple brackets, including the opportunity for more teams to compete for hardware rather than just overall stack ranking.

* Chicken and the egg problem, but more vendors would have been awesome.  But more vendors will be tough until there's more of a stable base of spectators above and beyond the participants themselves.

* Would love, love, love to see a Guts n Glory type race added.  Not familiar w/ the bay as much or if the rather dramatic tide rise and fall that we witnessed would make this an impossibility--but it looked like the islands in the middle of the bay would have provided an opportunity for a circular-ish race course for a long distance race.

* Puppy and staff did a great job of officiating and emceeing.

* The staff and volunteers were friendly and super awesome.  It's a shame there isn't more of an infrastructure of local teams to do a hosting type situation, but in the absence of, the volunteers deserve a huge pat on the back for assisting all the teams with whatever they needed.

* It's nice to have paddler's parties on Fri and Sat, but as the event grows, it would be nice if, even in an unofficial capacity, there were some form of post event on Sunday, especially for the travelling teams.  I know a lot of the LA teams packed up and headed home immediately, it would still be nice to have had that option to celebrate and unwind together, especially w/ all the pressures of competition now behind us all.  Ripple Effect's party this past year in TI pulled in probably a good near dozen teams from around the US and Canada--I'm sure as the body count grows for the festival, something like this would be equally popular.

* When the weather cooperated, the course itself was quite picturesque.  The wind was rather difficult though.  In the span of 2 races I swear we went from head winds to tail winds to cross winds (which caused a good number of close calls and an ultimate unfortunate collision during the BAD vs BAD vs Sake race)

* A single designated racer's village area might be a better logistical choice.  What we ended up w/ were a bunch of teams set up as close to shore as possible in an almost hobo tent city type of fashion.  I'm not sure the public at large would have even known *where* to sit to spectate had they shown up in large numbers.


All in all, I know we had a great time.  Would love to come back, though it's timing sure did cause us issue as it came in quite late in the traditional race season for us.

First Ever Kai Elua Dragon Boat team @ the San Diego Dragon Boat Festival. 1st Place Open Women
[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe3Q3D0okKo[/youtube]

Here are the final Results



SATURDAY
http://www.sddragonboatrace.com/saturday-race-results.html


SUNDAY
http://www.sddragonboatrace.com/sunday-race-results.html

I have to agree with all the comments.  Great venue to end the season with even though the weather was not cooperating the way we would have liked. I enjoyed the 20 and 10 paddle boat races throughout the day on Saturday.  Would have been great to have extra 10 man boats for Sunday rather than waiting around for the 3 boats to come in after each heat.  There wasn't a lot of vendors on Sunday especially for food so I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with weather or something else.  Trash bins kept getting over flowed but the teams tried to be as tidy as possible.  Tough starts on some of the races on Saturday as it didn't appear that the blow horn worked for some races which caused some confusion on the race course.  There was one race on Sunday for the ten paddler boat that one of the teams lost control at the start and as the teams was approaching the finish line was then told that they had to redo the race.  I'm not sure why it wasn't called at the beginning instead of towards the end.  Maybe Puppy can clarify.

It was great to hear Puppy once again commentating and providing the enthusiasm that he always brings to the teams.  I would definitely encourage teams to go next year but believe that the Las Vegas and Houston Dragon Boat Races may be within a week or two before San Diego.  This may pose a challenge for teams to decide which one(s) to go to for the season.  There was still a great turnout for this venue.

Puppy--Don't forget you owe the Electric Dragons and Gila Dragons Beer at your next visit in Tempe  :Cheers:  We're all holding you to it.   :dance:

What are the results?

In the incident that you are referring to 808QT, it was the mixed semi final race. It was Lane 1 Hot Sake, Lane 2 Bad (1) and Lane 3 Bad (2) - 10 Men 250M race.  

On the start, you can see boat 1 and boat 2 were close to each other but not affecting each other.

The gun goes, and the teams race down the race course, within the first 50 meters, Bad 1 lost control and they tried to hold their boat but could not slow down in time. As a result, Lane 2 Bad 1, collided with Lane 1 - Hot Sake.

As soon as the collision, I called the race down. Unfortunately, we did not have an effective radio system/speaker system to communicate with the chase boat. By the time, the race was called down, the teams were 50M away from the finish line. Don't forget, this is only a 250M race.  

At that time, our Race Director and I made a decision, to re-race the race and access a time violation to Bad 1. The re-race was awarded because the collision occurred within the first 50 M. In normal situations, we would let the next race go first, then the re-race. Due to the limit of 3 boats, we sent the same group back to the start.

As for the time violation, we assessed the time violation of 2 seconds based on the fact, the steersperson did not stop his crew as soon as he lost control. Safety is paramount. No one was hurt.  We understand that Bad did try to stop so no disqualification was required.

Note: BAD had borrowed a steersperson but the steersperson was unfamiliar with the power from BAD 1. The steersperson did feel bad about the situation but as noted, no one was hurt. San Diego will be implementing some changes for 2011 (Better Radio, Better speakers on the chase boat and a better starting system)

Here is the IDBF rule we followed:

R7.7   Collisions.   In the event of a collision between two (2) or more boats the Umpires must report the circumstances to the Chief Official, who may disqualify the offending boat(s) or, if the result of the race has been materially affected, order one or more boats to re-race, before the next round of the competition. When in the opinion of the Chief Official one or more of the crews involved could have avoided the collision by taking corrective action, for example, to stop paddling, but did not do so, then the crew or crews concerned will be disqualified from the competition class concerned and may face disqualification from the whole competition .

Hope this helps explain our decision and judgement  

Here are the final Results



SATURDAY
http://www.sddragonboatrace.com/saturday-race-results.html


SUNDAY
http://www.sddragonboatrace.com/sunday-race-results.html

Congrats to the San Diego Squad for putting on a good race!  For a young event, it went quite well…and we have all been to those races where we vow never to return.  This is not one of them.  In fact, I can see promise in this race for the future, attracting more and more competitive teams.

What a fun race.  Thanks to Les and the rest of the SDDBT for all of their hard work.  It was great seeing Puppy in So Cal.  Perhaps we can get him to come to that other So Cal race in July? ;)

As for positives - 99.99% of the time at races there will be faster lanes and faster boats.  The challenge is knowing, acknowledging AND accounting for it.  That was done in SD last weekend.  The pre-race seeding was pretty much dead-on. 

As for things to work on - the starts could have been better.  As stated previously, it's difficult to line boats up from shore.  But hey, it's also difficult to line boats up on a chase boat.  Also, it would have been great to get the race grids out a bit earlier so teams can get things in order earlier.  Finally, the PA system could be improved (perhaps the rain was reeking havoc?).

What a great race, hopefully, this will be an annual event we can return to year after year.

FYI - I posted a few images on - www.readyandreach.com.

This was emailed to me and i'm just adding it to the forum:

 
A lot of these have already been addressed so I may not mention them at all or just include them in a short summary of points already made and not going into detail on them.  I'm probably forgetting something but figured I'd send it out sooner to get your thoughts about the race before they start to feed.


So far I have:
+ Puppy did a great job emcee'ing
+ all the staff and volunteers were very friendly and helpful


- Puppy (or whoever had authority to call off the race for a collision) should've been on the same frequency as the start line or the start line.  The chase boat having an air horn might've helped as well.
- chase boat should've been following races the the whole weekend (it wasn't most of saturday) and warning boats that didn't stay in their lanes
- mid-point and finish line lane markers being different colors and bigger would have made them more visible and made identifying the lanes clearer
- longer steering oars for the 10-man boats.  Its hard to get leverage and makes steering harder than it needs to be
- if they lanes are going to be shifted away from shore b/c the tide goes low, boats should be told before they head out.  having to shift over a lane within 15 meters of the start line and not all boats know in advance causes unnecessary confusion right at the start line.  Better yet, set the race course on the assumption that the tide will be low and don't shift lanes around at all.
- a ramp from the grass to the sand at the marshalling area
- hard to hear starter from the shore




Lastly, great job racing and good times hanging out this weekend!  Except for the light rain on Saturday (brrrr), I had an awesome time this weekend.