West Coast Paddler Out East... Part III guess I'll get this out of the way now... yes... the stories are true...this is probably one of the chaotic races in North America with at least seven boats getting swamped through out the weekend, two crashes, countless steerspeople going overboard. And yes... I swam in the Hudson... more on that later.
Getting there Saturday morning I was kinda underwhelmed by what I saw. I was expecting a larger event judging by what I saw on the website. The race site was held along a seawall which allowed for a very good view of the race.. especially since the race course was essentially right along the seawall. There were some promotional tents for Dragon Boat World Magazine, the New York 2012 olympic bids and Chase along the seawall at about 250m to about where the finish line was. There was also one food vendor ($7 USD for a Philly Cheese Steak...
)in the center of the race site. No tents were provided for teams.
The race course was... a disaster waiting to happen. Four lanes with the width of approximately what two lanes in ADBF were. To the left of Lane 1 was the seawall and all the fun rocks that go along with it. To the right of Lane 4 were a large collection of sailboats moored similar to what we're familar with in False Creek. Throughout the weekend there would also be semi-large logs that would be floating into the race course. It has been pointed out that by the end of the weekend, there was a definately lane bias to the outside lanes with a strong current that helped teams towards the finish line.
Boats, PFDs and paddles provided for use by the festival were supplied by 22Dragons from Montreal. Apparently the carbon fibre paddles that the festival was touting for paddlers to use prior were no where to be found. I didn't hear the reason what happened.
The announcer did a competent job except when he got ahead of himself and caused some confusion when he started announcing teams for the next heat for the current heat on Saturday.
For this race I paddled with BAD Roli, which was a combined team of paddlers from Roli (Vancouver) and Bay Area Dragons (San Francisco). We were travelling on the light side so we were missing a steersperson and were borrowing one for our races. I'm guessing that our Friday afternoon practice should have been a preview of what the weekend would be like. During out practice, we actually had one of our paddlers go overboard while he was giving out instructions. Saying the water was choppy would be an understatement. I don't think I have ever paddled in rougher water and have no fear of paddling in False Creek in crappy weather anymore.
The festival eventually postponed Saturdays races after race coditions were "unsatisfactory". This was probably after the 2nd collision and 4th sinking of their boats of the day. Unfortunately that would be after our 250m B-Final where during the race, our steersperon lost control and fell down causing us to veer right... right in front of the Dragon Boat Club of Boston... the collision hit us between Seat 5&6 on the Right side, causing the boat to flip and trapping some our left side paddlers under the boat. Both 5R and 6R had to move out of the way of the dragon head that was speeding towards them. I noticed that our 5R was bleeding near his left eye so I'm not sure if he was clipped by the head or not. I was pretty much tossed out of my 4R position and into the water by the collision, losing my sandals in the process (I paddle barefeet). After "swimming" to the boat and doing a quick headcount we waited for the recovery boat to arrive. I must say... the recovery has much to be desired... as me and my 5R had to get out of the way of the boat to prevent our heads from being crushed between it and the upturned dragonboat. Apparently they almost lost and had to chase down the dragon boat as it almost floated to New Jersey. It was almost fitting to be sitting on the docks after the recovery and seeing the dragonhead float by on it's way to Jersey...
Things didn't really get much better on Sunday. It started off with the city being on Orange Alert because of a possible car bomb attempt in the financial district and heavy rainfall in the morning. The water was a little calmer than the previous day but it got just as hairy as the day got on. Our second race of the day saw us coming in third due to Team Prestige flipping over due to a large wake. We were taking on water from the waves as well and managed to finish the race with about a foot of water inside the boat.
Even the Canadian National Team wasn't successful in avoiding the rough conditions as their boat got swamped during the early part of their men's race. During our 500m B Final, we had our steersperson go overboard due to a wake during our warmup.
In the end, 22Dragons won both the 250m and the 500m Open Mixed divisions. Philly and Canadian Nationals came in 2nd and 3rd respectively in the 500m Open Mixed Division. BAD Roli managed to come in 8th/16 in the 250m Open Mixed event and 6th/19 in the 500m Open Mixed.
Would I recommend the race to a West Coast team? Probably not worth the airfare for just the race itself. If you are going to see the city of New York, then it might not be all that bad. It's definately one of those "you have to experience at least once in your life"-kinda things.
I'd like to thank Boston for sharing their tarp when the rain started on Sunday morning. Even though some of us were from Vancouver, being in the rain sucks...
New York International Dragon Boat Festival Official WebsitePhoto Album (hosted by ImageStation, so you will need to sign up to see the pictures if you don't have an account there already.)
