Dragon Boat West

Just curious if you have formed any opinions, now that the season's regattas are over.

Here are some general interest areas of the sport, how many of us agree on them?

Best
1. Beer Garden
2. Food
3. Music
4. Venue
5. Medals
6. Vendors
7. Atmosphere
8. Organizers
9. Water crew
10. Volunteers
11. Bang for the buck registration fee vs. event
12. Amenities
13. Family event
14. Boats
15. Cultural experience
16. Hospitality
17. Security
18. Freebies
19. Accessibility
20. Diversity




Worst
1. Beer Garden
2. Food
3. Music
4. Venue
5. Medals
6. Vendors
7. Atmosphere
8. Organizers
9. Water crew
10. Volunteers
11. Bang for the buck registration fee vs. event
12. Amenities
13. Family event
14. Boats
15. Cultural experience
16. Hospitality
17. Security
18. Freebies
19. Accessibility
20. Diversity

Best medals:

Victoria's because it is shiny and diamond-shaped, a fresh change from a circle.

Best hospitality:

Tie between Victoria and San Francisco. It is easy to marshal on time in the Victoria Festival if you spend most of your time in Racers' Village. It is not like this in San Francisco, but the Festival has been collaborating with the hotel to shuttle the visiting teams to and from the race site.

Best
1. Beer Garden
n/a

2. Food
San Fran because of our host team :D

3. Music
n/a I don't really pay attention

4. Venue
Alcan... can't beat Olympic Village imo.

5. Medals
Hong Kong 2010 teehee..they were as big as our faces
San Fran for 2012

6. Vendors
San Fran... by far

7. Atmosphere
San Fran... they had a freaking fair complete with RIDES.

8. Organizers
Women's Regatta  8))

9. Water crew
Alcan. Efficient!

10. Volunteers
Victoria... by far

11. Bang for the buck registration fee vs. event
Women's Regatta

12. Amenities
Alcan/DZ Regatta/FCRCC Knockouts...any home regatta - Community Center!

13. Family event
San Fran

14. Boats
Alcan. Brand new BUKs debuted here.

15. Cultural experience
San Fran

16. Hospitality
San Fran

17. Security
Victoria

18. Freebies
Women's Regatta ...endless draw prizes that are actually worth money. Not cheap crap that people throw away after a day.

19. Accessibility
Harrison

20. Diversity
Alcan. Junior/Senior/Women's divisions, Open, Visitors, etc.




Worst
1. Beer Garden
n/a

2. Food
FCRCC Knockouts... oysters at a regatta?

3. Music
Anywhere where Puppy is the DJ

4. Venue
Dash for Charity - small, no parking, marshaled way too far in advance, and all boats have to dock a certain way then turn around

5. Medals
Dash or Harrison

6. Vendors
Dash

7. Atmosphere
Dash

8. Organizers
San Fran - 1 hour marshal, extremely late or extremely early races (really gets to me as a paddler)

9. Water crew
n/a most were decent.

10. Volunteers
One of San Fran's marshallers was an a-hole, but I can't think of any terrible volunteers other than that

11. Bang for the buck registration fee vs. event
Dash

12. Amenities
n/a

13. Family event
Knockouts

14. Boats
HARRISON!! Barney (and all his friends) live on.

15. Cultural experience
Dash

16. Hospitality
n/a

17. Security
Women's Regatta... unfortunately. If I were to direct it another year I'd work on this.

18. Freebies
Alcan! Y U NO give us free shavers anymore?

19. Accessibility
San Fran... 10 min ride to Treasure Island which is fine. 60+ min ride out, plus at least 60min wait for shuttle. Viewing area and docks were very small.

20. Diversity
n/a

I will never forget the Women's regatta.  I got called all of the racial names in the book, on repeat, after I bounced someone out of the racers' village.  :shock:
Can still remember some of the faces of passerbys smiling at me as they walked by.   :P

hey Mandachan

Barney , humpty and dumpty and all the other old 6/16`s have not been used in Harrison for 5 years!
this year 2012 was the d2 , previous to that, buk`s supplied by waters edge

If you miss them so much maybe we can find them in a race just for you ? lmao

Worst boats:
In Victoria, half of the foot braces broke in one of the D2's.  We were made to race in it for the Open exhibition, not even allowed to wait for the next heat of boats to come in.  I'm sure it got worse for other teams the next day

Worst water referee:
- Victoria. We were told to cross when a race was happening  :shock:.... The person who guided us at the start line is also a joke. Very pushy. Probably never steered the damn boats before. It's a long ass boat, not a Smart Fortwo. The starter was not much better.

Worst boats:
- Victoria. We were forced to race in boats with broken foot braces. Either no leg drive or skip one bench and the last bench got all tight up together with the steer.  :(



Best water crew:
-Alcan. Know exactly what to do and when to do. Never pushing the steer. Kim and co is obviously legendary. It's a treat to race in any race that have Kim as starter. :D

Best boats:
-Alcan: New BUKs.

I've gone to Harrison for 4-5 years and it was all good until 2012. It was like one step back. haha


Oh I would just love that. <3  :lol:

Sounds like Vancouver politics running amuck again   lol 

Worst....Booking hotels @ the Portland Marriott Downtown - it took way too much time

-rooms were booked incorrectly - they would book some of our rooms, but not the others
-we kept getting bounced around on the phone for booking the hotel rooms
-we got charged for cancelled rooms even though we had a cancellation number
-the charges on the bill is not what we got charged on the credit card (ie. they charged 2 cars on one person's credit card instead of charging each car to the separate person)

We will not be booking with the Marriott again for our team.  Not sure why they are so incompetent.  I've never had such trouble booking at a hotel.  Very disappointed. 

1. Beer Garden - Nanaimo best
2. Food - Seattle worst, should have stayed away from the taco truck, my bad
3. Music- Nanaimo best
4. Venue - Northshore best, Seattle second
5. Medals- any I won :)
6. Vendors - Nanaimo best
7. Atmosphere- Women's best worst - Dash
8. Organizers- who's in this category?
9. Water crew- G2G 
10. Volunteers- Northshore (gotta say it)
11. Bang for the buck registration fee vs. event
12. Amenities - whats this - toilets??? Pretty smelling hand sanitizer in portapotties?
13. Family event- Nanaimo
14. Boats- BUK's at DZ events
15. Cultural experience- San Francisco
16. Hospitality- Portland and San Francisco tied, our host teams at these events were awesome
17. Security- I don't take valuables ever, but Penticton was scary
18. Freebies- Alcan
19. Accessibility- if this means parking - Northshore
20. Diversity - three diff cultures -I have to go with Northshore

Hard to remember some of them is that good or bad?

This is my first year Dragon boat racing and I have only been to a few races but so far I really liked Steveston as it had 4 races in one day and the amount of teams was just nice, parking was further away but we had a beautiful sunny day so that was good, and we medaled!
We also went to Penticton where wew hung around all Saturday for one race and reportedly that happens more often because of wind in the afternoon, pretty boring.
And Paddle the Nortshore was of course my favorite, well accessible, good atmosphere, great volunteers.

Not that I attend a lot of festivals but here are my thoughts for what it's worth...

1. Beer Garden- best Nanaimo
2. Food - best San Fran
3. Music - best anywhere where Puppy IS the DJ
4. Venue - best Portland, worst Hong Kong
5. Medals - best Portland, worst anyone who doesn't mark Divisions on the medals
6. Vendors - best Rio Tinto, worst - they are all kinda crappy
7. Atmosphere - best Paddle the North Shore
8. Organizers - best Rio Tinto, worst Portland
9. Water crew - best G2G hands down, worst Hong Kong
10. Volunteers - best all of them, where would we be without them
11. Bang for the buck registration fee vs. event - best Paddle the North Shore
12. Amenities - best Creekside Community Centre, worst anywhere that has full porta potties
13. Family event - best Rio Tinto,
14. Boats - best Buks, worst Geminis
15. Cultural experience - best Hong Kong
16. Hospitality - best San Fran, worst Nanaimo
17. Security - best Rio Tinto, worst Nanaimo
18. Freebies - what freebies? I obviously missed out!
19. Accessibility - Best Seattle, worst Hong Kong
20. Diversity - best Hong Kong