VO2Max, in it's ten years of existence has never raced outside of the province of British Columbia... until this past weekend when we went to Portland.
The Portland Dragon Boat Race in a small race in Portland, Oregon, consisting of a pool of 15 mixed teams. Unlike the larger and more known Portland Rose Festival race, this race uses the familiar 6-16 boats rather than the Taiwanese Flag-catching boats. Race length was the usual 500m that Vancouver teams are used to.
Being a first year race, the organization of the races was very good. The biggest complaint in general was about the fairness of the boats. Over the course of the weekend, it became known that the boat used for Lane 2 was generally the cleanest whereas Lane 4 had enough growth that teams dreaded being seeded in that lane.
Competition-wise, it was good to see some familiar faces in our hosts for the weekend, Multnomah, our friends from Los Angeles, Team LARD as well as fellow local team Gung Haggis.
The greatest highlight for the fans watching from the shore would most definately be T-bone collision between Gung Haggis and TeamLARD. Team LARD's steersperson lost control of the boat and started to veer right off the race course. The steersperson tried to steer the boat back onto the race course but overcompensated and caused the boat to take a drastic swerve to the left placing the Team LARD boat a metre away from the finish line...perpindicularly. Gung Haggis, with perfect focus on the boat didn't see the prone LARD boat till last minute causing them to hit at roughly seat 2. Don't worry... no one was hurt... just lots of stories to tell.
The last race of the day Comp Mixed Championship final was between Zamboanga, Team LARD, Wasabi Mixed and SunDragons, with results in that order.
We placed a respectable 5th overall, earning a gold medal in the Competitive II Mixed Division with a final time of 2:24.72. Fellow Vancouver team Gung Haggis finished 9th overall, earning a Silver in the Rec Mixed Division with 2:41.64.
For more information, you can go here:
http://www.portlanddragonboatrace.com/
