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Dragon Boat Canada


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Canoe Kayak Canada

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[gorowandpaddle]

2011 Save On Foods Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival
Saturday, July 8 - 10
Nanaimo, BC, Canada

Teams from all over BC and the US will take part in the 9th annual Save On Foods Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival -- a weekend of competition, camaraderie and celebration on Nanaimo's waterfront. The event is made that much more meaningful to the community because its purpose is to create awareness and raise money for the fight against cancer locally.

NEW WEBSITE - Registered teams to date: www.nanaimodragonboat.com
The event is on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ndbfs#!/event.php?eid=184785861545300

Produced by the Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival Society.

GO is please to supply the Race Management and Millennium Dragon Boats for the Festival.

--
GO Rowing & Paddling Association of Canada
250-658-6333 | 1-866-658-6333
Sign up for the GO eNewsletter at www.gorowandpaddle.org - It's Free!
Follow GO on Twitter – www.twitter.com/gorowandpaddle
Find GO on Facebook - www.facebook.com/gorowandpaddle
Millennium Dragon Boats - www.millenniumdragonboats.ca

---
GO Rowing and Paddling Association of Canada
GO is non-profit Canadian Athletic Association, and Registered Charity, dedicated to supporting, promoting, and advancing rowing and paddling sports in Canada. Check out www.gorowandpaddle.org.

[gorowandpaddle]

The Race Welcome, Schedule, and Round 1 Draw (V1) is posted at http://nanaimodragonboat.com/page/raceresults

See you this weekend!

--
GO Rowing & Paddling Association of Canada
250-658-6333 | 1-866-658-6333
Sign up for the GO eNewsletter at www.gorowandpaddle.org - It's Free!
Follow GO on Twitter – www.twitter.com/gorowandpaddle
Find GO on Facebook - www.facebook.com/gorowandpaddle
Millennium Dragon Boats - www.millenniumdragonboats.ca

---
GO Rowing and Paddling Association of Canada
GO is non-profit Canadian Athletic Association, and Registered Charity, dedicated to supporting, promoting, and advancing rowing and paddling sports in Canada. Check out www.gorowandpaddle.org.

[gorowandpaddle]

2011 Save On Foods Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival
Saturday, July 8 - 10
Nanaimo, BC, Canada

Get your smart phones and mobile devices ready! The Go Rowing and Paddling Association of Canada Race Management and the Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival Society are pleased to announce that we will posting results live to the Internet and Twitter for the 2011 Save on Foods Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival this weekend. With the complimentary Wi-Fi access provided at the venue by the City of Nanaimo, you can use your smart phone for the quickest, live updates!

Live Results Blog: http://nanaimodragonboat.com/page/raceresults
Live Results on Twitter (Hash Tag for Festival is #NDBF): www.twitter.com/gorowandpaddle

For all the information, visit the Festival website: http://nanaimodragonboat.com/page/raceresults

Good Luck to all paddlers this weekend at the Save on Foods Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival!

[gorowandpaddle]

Race Results Summary for Day 2 of Racing at the Save On Foods Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival. Congratulations all paddlers for a job well done. Thank you for participating. Your involvement and support makes this festival truly great! http://nanaimodragonboat.com/p​age/raceresults

--
Race Management
GO Rowing & Paddling Association of Canada
250-658-6333 | 1-866-658-6333
Sign up for the GO eNewsletter at www.gorowandpaddle.org - It's Free!
Follow GO on Twitter – www.twitter.com/gorowandpaddle
Find GO on Facebook - www.facebook.com/gorowandpaddle
Millennium Dragon Boats - www.millenniumdragonboats.ca

---
GO Rowing and Paddling Association of Canada
GO is non-profit Canadian Athletic Association, and Registered Charity, dedicated to supporting, promoting, and advancing rowing and paddling sports in Canada. Check out www.gorowandpaddle.org.

[paddlemonkey]

K I'll be the first to say "Great Festival"...

The Beer Garden always rocks and the racing? In a word "interesting"

Anybody have postive or constructive to add?

[WestCoastFire]

The Nanaimo festival, is my favorite festival by far.  It's always a good time, the beer garden is unmatched (in my opinion).  The themes are always great, and there are at least 1 team that has great costumes.

As for the racing, it's always generally smooth, with boats leaving and coming in.  Normally I find they are ahead of schedule which is good.

The things I think they need to work on is the scheduling of the final races to allow teams their adequate paddlers who are double rostering.  Since the festival allows double rostering, they need to accomodate those who are double rostering.  The problem only ever seems to be within the final 4 races.  I think this would be solved with combining the women's final 2 races together, then the men's final 2 races together (instead of being divisional).

They also need to have a more concrete finish line (not literally lol).  I understand there are staggered finish lines; however, finish lines as far as I know don't stagger over a boat length between lanes in 1 race, then normal in the next.

[PaddlingPM]

Race Festival was awesome, well organized, great flow - moving ceremony for the Breast Cancer Survivors as well.

my complaint falls into the Beer Garden and eating choices...get some actual BEER! - The island is known for some of its great smaller breweries, so the choices of beers were a little perculiar, and for those that were racing in the last few races (Platinum Div etc) the Beer Garden was practically closed by the time we arrived, and running out of beer/alcohol period. And the vendors supplying food were all on grease overload, invite in some small local cafes to bring in some wraps and healthy food for paddling, a bucket of poutine is not the recipe for a happy stomach and happy paddler!

perhaps some trailers with kegs, similar to Rio Tinto, with some local brews would be a better option.

Otherwise, Great festival, great racing, Great Paddlers Party

[Recoil]

They also need to have a more concrete finish line (not literally lol).  I understand there are staggered finish lines; however, finish lines as far as I know don't stagger over a boat length between lanes in 1 race, then normal in the next.

Finish lines are always relative because of water currents that move them. What is more important is to focus on going across the finish line asap! The race officials will either have some arbitrary line to judge when teams cross and/or an electronic solution that will do the same.

Rarely if ever do they judge a team's finish based on the actual bouys.

[haywitch]

Nanaimo festival was great... for me pretty much the first time I didn't have major issues with the seeding. (not only of Nanaimo but any festival I have participated in over the last 9 years).. yes there were some minor things, but there is not much in the way of current stats for many of the island teams.. so all in all very good..sorry cannot make comment on the women's division.

As to finish lines...walk a mile & stand behind the string.... do I understand your difficutly in understanding,  yes of course, but clearly know of what you speak before you raise questions. That is not something that we experienced this past weekend, but honestly suck it up & move on, that is racing, pretty minor in the scheme of things....personally thought the officials, dock crew, marshalling,volunteers, & the excutive were so a class act, I thank them for once again an awesome festival.

And personal shout out to Fluid Motion & Bastion Dragons...woohoo was an awesome final...I so wanna do it again.....coming to Victoria??

FM looking forward to you posting the pics of the stripper pole!!...

..this is a personal opinion, not in any way to be construed to associate with my team.

[badcaptain]

Been to many a festivals and been on many a team...first time to Nanaimo and found it to be a great festival !

The officials, volunteers and everyone associated with this festival did a fantastic job. Thank you ! As far as the lack of alcohol towards the end of the festival....maybe if you were not on such a good team you would get there a little earlier !

As far as finish line goes, I have seen far worse.....it all comes out in the wash ! Just sit in the boat and enjoy the trip ! 

Will see most of you at the next festival...do not know what team I will be on but I will be there.


Cheers

[threesea]

Always love the Nanaimo gig.  Glad to see the course was laid out further from shore.  Paddled twice in lane 1, both morning and afternoon and didn’t notice any shallow water dragging that was common in past years.

Great organization, volunteers etc.  Still don’t get the seeding though.  We ended up in our first race with a known Platinum team and a Diamond finalist even though we finished in Platinum last year.  Oh well, it is what it is and we certainly didn’t prove ourselves otherwise so it all worked out in the end.

@Haywitch:  In eleven years of paddling, that final was definitely a top fiver!  Thanks to your crew and that of Bastion Dragons for an awesome finale to the festival.  Sorry, but we won’t be in Victoria (Harrison and Portland). As for the pole pics…NOT!  You were there…enjoy the memory.

[hoarsewhisperer]

A huge Thank You to all the athletes from both near and far that paddled, steered and called their guts out in our always changing, sometimes challenging, Nanaimo water! Without the teams, there is no point in putting on a festival.

I also need to say Thank You to our always fantastic volunteers!  We simply cannot put on the festival without your incredible contribution each year.  Special thanks to Peter – thank you for your energy, enthusiasm and your head tax!  You raised a lot of money, great job – I hope your voice returns soon!

Thanks also to my fellow board directors, chairs, committee members and Go Rowing and Paddling for all their work in putting together what was, for the most part, a very successful weekend!

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far.  Please keep the feedback coming - both the good and the bad.  While it’s all well and good to congratulate ourselves on our successes, it’s only by learning from our mistakes that we can make things better.

I’ll try and address some of the comments already posted but please note these are simply based on my opinions and experience and in no way reflect the general consensus of the Festival Society Board or its members (who have not had an opportunity to have our post-event meeting yet):
WestCoastFire: You bring up a couple of things, so I’ll try and address them in order – Double rostering & scheduling: This is an issue and this is not the first time it has come up at an event this year.  The race rules do allow women to roster with both a mixed and a women’s crew, but in that same section (2.4) the rules also state “The Festival/Event is not responsible for scheduling conflicts for paddlers racing in more than one divisionâ€�.  Whether you agree with the decision or not, Go (the Festival’s Race Management), to their credit, remained consistent with previous decisions they have made at other festivals this year.  I made the exact same request at the Gorge Super Sprints in May and received the same answer.  The two affected crews made adjustments to make it work.  I have taken note of your suggestion to change the schedule, but I have a feeling that may just move the problem rather than solve it – let me look into that further.  Another solution is to not allow anyone to double roster.  Before the flaming posts start, know that as a coach with 6 women on 2 rosters for this festival, I DO NOT want this to happen.  More work is required here. 
Re Finish Line – There is no stagger in the official finish line (I've seen it).  It is a string line set to a fixed point on Protection Island.  It is before the marker buoys whether the buoys are in a line or not.  If you have questions or concerns about a specific result, please let me know which race and I can try and look into it for you.

PaddlingPM: Comments about food & beer – a paddler after my own heart!  Running out of beer or a least the beer (and other beverages) people want to drink two years in a row is no good; I completely agree!  I can guarantee you that these two topics will be discussed many times over the next 11.5 months.

haywitch:  I can think of at least one instance where the seeding could have been better on the women’s side but the race result did not change so perhaps no harm done. 
And yes, Bastion wants another shot at you guys – not going to the Victoria Festival but maybe at GorgeFest?

Thank you to all the participants for your efforts this year. 
See you in 2012 for our tenth anniversary! If you thought this year was a party...

[Katy]

I don't have anything negative to say, I think all the organizers and volunteers did a fantastic job as usual.  We had fun and we had some very exciting races.  We also had a lot of support for our brand new women's crew who wound up in diamond B (not too bad for their first shot at racing!)

Oh, wait, I do have one thing! 
The same music in the beer garden for the last 4yrs!

I hate that damn "save a horse ride a cowboy" song! 

Minor though! 

The grid was pretty good, my only comment would be for the people that use festival results to set grids for future races down the line.  When you look at teams, make sure you also look at trends with times and not just divisions.  It's definitely easy to get trapped in the grid from festival to festival and there were certainly a few teams in jade that had consistently faster times across the weekend that some in diamond yet it would be easy to seed them lower in later races in the season as at a quick glance they were in a lower division.  Something to keep in mind for all you race seeders as it's quite tricky to beat the grid if you have the eventual 4th place team in your first race and the 1st place team in your second race!    Note, I am not saying I disagree with the seeding at all in this case.   I'm just saying hopefully division isn't the sole decider in where to place teams down the line and that other factors are considered such as the path that put teams in certain divisions.  Sorta off topic but hey, there's my feedback for anyone across the board involved in seeding.

[redlancer]

This was my first Nanaimo festival and I had a great time.  A couple of suggestions:

1.  The double rostering issue - This was only an issue because the finals for the women were placed in between races for the mixed finals.  It seems fairly logical that people would paddle at a similar level for both the women's and mixed teams.  As the women raced the semis first thing in the morning, it would probably be better to race those finals first avoiding conflicts and not having the women wait so long in between races.

Plus, the ladies would be plenty liquored up by the time I finished my final.

2.  The mic - God bless Peter for all of his enthusiasm!  However, if you were one of the tents right next to the speakers you ended up with a constant barrage of noise.  I'd like to thank organizers for adjusting the volume on Sunday to make it more bearable.  Maybe next year the speakers in the village can be used for marshalling only and the crews at the marshalling area can get pumped up by the announcer with a megaphone or something.

That's it.  Great paddling.  Great party.  See you next year.

[selltile]

Bastion thanks you all for the kind words here. Nanaimo is the best Festival bar none and the crew that organized it did a great job. One reason is that paddlers are hands on with the organization. I agree with other posters about the food choices but we aren't as yet, a food cart oriented area. As for running out of beer, coolers and the Chateau Lantzville vino--well --unfortunate but this and the early closing wouldn't be the choice of ay of the principal organizers