I got this off of the International Dragon Boat site:
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You are going to have to go to the links to really appreciate the story.
In UK, one of the biggest races of the year is the
22 mile Great River Race. There are 20 boat types representing six countries, including an Hawaiian outrigger war canoe, Viking longboat, Norwegian scow, Canadian C-8 canoe, Chinese dragonboat, and numerous Cornish pilot and other gigs, skiffs, cutters, ASC, naval whalers and the like to take on the Watermen's cutter.
The teams are handicapped by having the fastest boats start last. The winner in 2003 was a
OC6 crew with a time of 2:10:30. A Dragon Boat team was only 8 minutes behind them. I could not figure out the ranking on the race results. That is pretty good for paddling for over 2 hours on one side and only 16 paddlers. According to the race classes, Dragon Boats are only allowed 16 paddlers.
Official Site:
http://www.greatriverrace.co.uk/intro2003.htmlResults:
http://www.greatriverrace.co.uk/2003resultsoverall.php?flag=0
