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Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

177 Guests, 0 Users

[Colossus]

u guys should watch out for "Lil' boat that could".
their steers will ram u because he can't concerntrate when hot chicks are around.

Isn't Voon their steers man?

nope.

[Steamrollers Moaner]

I was just looking over the race grid again.... anyone care to explain why they are running 25mins heat for the finals in the afternoon?   I don't think the comp teams appreciate racing at ~12pm in the Semi's and waiting till 5pm for their final race.

[beedub]

in order to ensure the utmost fairness in each heat, they probably plan to pull all the boats out of the water after each heat to clean, polish, dry, and wax them before the next heat goes..

...for this to happen, they will need an extra few mins in between heats to prepare the boats....

   

[beedub]

Just a guess.  Maybe they only have 6 boats.  For the first 2 heats, they run 3 boats per race so there is no wait.

In the finals, they run 4 per heat.  So they would need to wait for 2 boats to return before running the next race.

no...I like my theory better...

yours is too logical...so logical that it doesn't make sense...

[Ronnie]

The 2005 Richmond Dragon Boat Festival has come and gone.  Unfortunately, this year’s festival made it apparent that there are issues relating to the organization and calibre of officiating.

These issues included late revisions to the race grid due to missing teams who apparently had registered for the festival in advance but were inadvertently left out.

Another concern was the lack of video or camera equipment to record finish line results (unlike Alcan).  Instead, three sets of human eyes were used, standing side by side by side to determine placing in a race.  Apparently, the finish lines officials are very experienced and can tell which boat is ahead even if there is only less than .2 seconds difference between finish times (this is paraphrasing their own words).  This is quite remarkable, considering they are all looking at the finish line from a different angle but all agree on the same result.

The finish line officials were also posting results without any double checking or verification.  For instance, in one race, the third place team was put down as first place, while first and second got push to second and third respectively.

The end result is that the way the event was run does not lend confidence to the officiating system.

Race officials must be accountable to paddlers for the races they officiate.   Inaccuracies such as those outlined above undermine the integrity of the officiating, races and ultimately, the legitimacy of a festival.  For smaller festivals like Richmond to continue to attract competitive teams, it is important that the officiating mechanism is fair and just.

If anyone is interested in signing a petition to strongly recommend the use of video or camera equipment for finish line results for future festivals, PM me.

[paddleBOT]

Blue Final Unofficial Results:

1. xTreme Reach (Victoria)
2. ssSteam Heat (Victoria)
3. ROLI Canada Open
4. Lil' Boat That Could

[zephyrantes]

same with the start line.... I can sympathize a bit because mother nature, airplanes and time are working against them.   But still, it just seems way too disorganized.

[paddleho]

I noticed a huge log on the course for one race but safety boats towed it away right after - so good for them.

As to the wrist bands ... I know of one instance where a team was short one paddler for their final and the race director granted permission for them to pick up a loaner. What that tells me is that the organizers intended it to be a fun, less competitive festival.  But in fairness I guess not all participants knew that going into it.

The marshalling was a bit over-zealous, and once the sun came out that was a drag. But getting and keeping the festival ahead of schedule was great. (There's always the danger of a team being caught off guard, but getting the whole thing wrapped up early and into the beer garden was a positive.)

As soon as you demand sophisticated timing/video systems on the finish line, expect registration fees to go up. Someone from every team really needs to get to the timing tent and find out exactly where the finish line is. Yesterday the discrepancy between the buoy position and the true finish line was significant, which leads to observers from shore perceiving poor finish calls that probably aren't that bad.

A couple of positive comments: plenty of port-a-potties! yay! never a line-up. and plenty of decent beer at good prices! yay! never a line-up for that either. Congratulations to all participants; hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

[Ronnie]

As soon as you demand sophisticated timing/video systems on the finish line, expect registration fees to go up. Someone from every team really needs to get to the timing tent and find out exactly where the finish line is. Yesterday the discrepancy between the buoy position and the true finish line was significant, which leads to observers from shore perceiving poor finish calls that probably aren't that bad.

With all due respect, I disagree with your suggestion that registration fees have to go up in order to have timing or video equipment at the finish line.  How expensive are video camcorders and digital cameras nowadays?

The festival charged each team $600.  That's $23,400.00.  They are charging $1,229.43 to $1,336.43 for the Victoria festival.  If they have at least 80 teams, that's over $98,000.00.  Yet they don't employ any finish line recording device.

Most of us have raced enough to know that the buoys do not mark the finish lines (see Alcan finish line photos).  Even if teams do their part to find out where the finish line is, we should not be responsible for figuring out race results.  Participating teams should not have to assign someone at the finish line to take photos or record races.  The point is that there is no way for us to verify the supposed "official results" posted by the finish line officials.  There is no accountability.

[Steamrollers Moaner]

- Poor accuracy in results and finish line system.  I've heard several complaints that the finish line crew uses substandard timing system for a race that gives out medals.

Poor accuracy would be an understatement.   They had 3 monkeys sitting in the tent side by side hitting their stop watch with their toes with blind folds on!!  On top of that, they had admin issues where they couldn't even properly put the proper teams that won the races on a piece of paper!!?!?!  

wooHOO... Great officiating I must say!!

[Chris]

Hey look! Little boat in the finals!  Take that!

[selltile]

Anyone know how the Save-on Dragonslayers did-Richmond is slow at printing the race results

[turtle_turtle]

Richmond's a nice place.  Race starts were laughable.   Always fun racing against the current though. The area wasn't half bad. Richmond's a nice place.  

[Angus]

Anyone know how the Save-on Dragonslayers did-Richmond is slow at printing the race results

I think they were a close second in Blue C, which places them at 10th overall out of 39 teams.

Oops, they were third.

[Steamrollers Moaner]

Blue Final Unofficial Results:

1. xTreme Reach (Victoria)
2. ssSteam Heat (Victoria)
3. ROLI Canada Open
4. Lil' Boat That Could

Xtreme Reach - Lane 4, ssSteam Heat - Lane 3, Roli Canada - Lane 2, Lil Boat - Lane 1

I'm wondering which race the officials were watching...  On top of that, the time difference between 1st and 4th place team was > 2 seconds apart.  hmmm... reaction time on their stop watches is a bit slow if you tell me.