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Dragon Boat Canada


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Canoe Kayak Canada

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[paddleboy]

 ok ...enough already .........next topic ...paddler party !! .......who went and please give a report

[Secret Weapon]

My apologies to Islander, I got a little heated as I know many of those involved in organizing this elaborate event and I know how much time, effort and stress is on their shoulders.  Again to everyone sorry for blowing my top.   

[Colossus]

the real paddler party was in the beer garden....   beer bong, break dancers, ass-smacking with paddles, and a wrestling match.

how you feeling this morning, Puppy?     did you enjoy your brief period of weightlessness as you flew through the air?   

[Monk]

Many of us endure frozen fingers, stiff joints, wrenched muscles and sores in places that no one wants to know about...all for our love of this sport. I am sure that a few glitches here and there are something we can 'suck it up' for, especially since most of us have not contributed to what is a truely awesome venue.

Hats off to the organizers and volunteers! It is obvious that they endure far more than we do...for the same reason as the rest of us.

I issue a challenge Alcan 'regulars' to take a moment to ask how they can help for next year. I am sure that you wouldn't be asked to donate a kidney or anything, and many hands make light work.

If anybody out there (puppy) can point us to the 'how can I help out for next year' line please do so.

[glowing_ice]

the beer garden was a blast.  went in downed 4 beers, followed up with another beer... then one of the guys on FCRCC men's gave me half a cup of hard liquor (whiskey i believe) and that was the end of me...

colossus tackling puppy and judo flipping him was really cool too!  luckily VO2 didn't break out the lube.  

[bolshevik]

Secret Weapon

hey we all blow our tops and sunday had a lot of them. The crew and volunteers had a very long weekend by the looks and sounds of it and some people are just not built to handle a lot of stress. thats why it has to be a team effort the same as it is in the boats, so should it be with the organizers. However the whole community is a team too and rather than be super critical (no finger pointing intended) we need to work together.

One thing that seemed to be a theme was the lack of volunteers, obviously the weather kept most away but i'd say recruiting was likely difficult and many people, paddlers included need to step up and pitch in during such large festivals. Even if it is for one race.

[puppy]

the real paddler party was in the beer garden....   beer bong, break dancers, ass-smacking with paddles, and a wrestling match.

how you feeling this morning, Puppy?     did you enjoy your brief period of weightlessness as you flew through the air?   

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I'm still trying to find my lower extremities.

[puppy]

Many of us endure frozen fingers, stiff joints, wrenched muscles and sores in places that no one wants to know about...all for our love of this sport. I am sure that a few glitches here and there are something we can 'suck it up' for, especially since most of us have not contributed to what is a truely awesome venue.

Hats off to the organizers and volunteers! It is obvious that they endure far more than we do...for the same reason as the rest of us.

I issue a challenge Alcan 'regulars' to take a moment to ask how they can help for next year. I am sure that you wouldn't be asked to donate a kidney or anything, and many hands make light work.

If anybody out there (puppy) can point us to the 'how can I help out for next year' line please do so.

Yes, hold Colossus down for me, so I can beat him...

[subzero]

Taking into consideration that with so many teams/paddlers during the 2-day event, overall the festival went pretty well, in my opinion.  

It is unfortunate that the G&G was delayed but the organizers and volunteers worked very hard before, during, and after the races to try to make things run as smoothly as possible.  I doubt there will ever be a perfect event when everyone is satisfied.  With such a large event it can be difficult to have everything go perfectly, and sometimes things go wrong.  When things do go wrong, everyone tries to scramble and improvise to fix the problem.

At the same time, when things don't go according to plan and it affects a team, every person on that team can feel frustrated and discouraged.  Especially when you add in the pressure of catching a ride home, father's day dinner plans, or just plain tired from a long day.  Islander, I'm guessing your team was disappointed and frustrated with the situation, but I hope you had a good experience this weekend overall.  You provided some great competition this weekend.

"Thank you's" go to all of the organizers and volunteers (from the race director to the dock volunteers - you know who you are) who put so much time and energy in running Alcan.  It's very much appreciated.

For all racers...great job in competing.

For the security guys....well, i didn't see it so no comment from me (except maybe less energy drink samples?).

For the homeless person...I think Puppy has offered you free rent at his place for a year.

Good luck to all teams during the upcoming races.

[Kripple]

Kudos to the organizers this year; the dock and marshalling went as well as could be expected. I do wonder whether the festival was attempting too much by running TWO G and G races, though.

Setting up that race must be quite the challenge since it is only setup once a year, giving organizers little chance to practice, or evaluate different approaches. The 250/500 metre races are a known entity, which the DB community is quite familiar with.
The 2000 metre GG is another beast. Staggered starts, 16 boats, an oval course, different lane(!) buoys, different timing, marshalling eligible teams with little notice.... That's gotta be a challenge. I'm impressed that they attempt to put it on at all.

It is also a thing of beauty to watch, photograph and video.   Camera lenses hungry for blood (or collisions...)

But 7pm is WAY too late to stage what should be the highlite spectator race of the weekend. Unfortunately it was too late for me and I had to leave without seeing the final GG. It would have been even later had the festival not run as smoothly as it did. I can understand the frustration of the Island teams needing to catch the 9:00pm boat. Lower Mainland teams would be frustrated if the Victoria races continued late.

I'm wondering how the women paddlers felt about racing 2 back to back GG races. I mean really... Just how crazy is that???

Oh yeah, could it be modified so that the crews have to do 2 turns by science world? That's the best part of the race for the spectators, and it's great to see it up close and personal from the seawall... Either start/end it from the cambie bridge, or (even better) make it a 2500 meter event starting at cambie and finishing at science ball (he-he-he...) Give the spectators what they want, cuz I might only be a spectator at that race. (I was sidelined with a herniated disc the only year my current team qualified for it. grrr.)

PS Maybe the festival could do something to appease the homeless binners, such as dumping all the trash in a binner-friendly area for them to scavenger through. Keeps the binners from scurrying around racers village while helping them recycle for their next meal... And might prevent incidents with the rent-a-cops. Dunno.

[islander]

I recognize the volunteers have a tough job and I definitely applaud their efforts.  We wouldn't be able to race without them!  

Apology accepted Secret Weapon.  Thanks to Colossus, puppy, subzero etc. for your constructive comments.  

As someone who has visited this website lots before (but not posted a message until today), I understood that it's common to use this website as a forum to provide feedback on events.  I also understand that some of the race organizers earn wages/profits from the Alcan event.  That's why I directed the feedback points in my original post to the race organizers.  

See you on the water!

[Colossus]

the real paddler party was in the beer garden....   beer bong, break dancers, ass-smacking with paddles, and a wrestling match.

how you feeling this morning, Puppy?     did you enjoy your brief period of weightlessness as you flew through the air?   

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I'm still trying to find my lower extremities.

thats not something you want to admit to on a public forum with the ladies reading, now is it? 

[meowzers]

1)Lane 8 –  the speaker’s  on the other side of the creek seemed to be faint. There was also an echo which bounced from the starter’s tent. Last year the race officials used the mega phones to relay what the starter announced.

2)Lanyards/security.
The lanyards this year were made out of compressed metal flakes and some of the clips were really badly made. Racer passes were all over the place. I’d like to thank the security guard frantically scanning for passes and rapidly stamping those who lost their racer’s pass

3)Supporting our community,
Though out the weekend, I’ve heard numerous teams calling my team a “farm team�. Farm team or not, Give every young old or new team a chance to develop their identity, their own potential, before you start categorizing/branding them

Elephant and Castle Booze Cruise has unconditionally supported RaceFace from our year as a junior till now, as a young adults team. During Alcan, we have received consistent encouragement, advice, feedback and nothing more or less but support from the members of E&C booze Cruise. At Alcan, we stood on our own, created our idenity , raced our own races, paddled our potential. Give Both Teams, E&C and RaceFace a little more credit.

The rewards of supporting a developing team are indescribable. Acting as a “mother ship� you experience the ups and downs (all mother’s can relate) seeing the “child ship� grow up. I’d like to see more teams support potential younger generation teams.

[rightarm]

Of all the Alcan's that I've been to, "post Plaza era", i'll say this one I felt was the best. With so many teams and people in general you'll never be able to please everyone but, at least in my experience, the marshalling was the best i've ever had there, and of course as usual puppy was at his finest, the focus of the festival was back on the racing with the enterntainment as compliment, which is excellent, and contributed to by the best decision ever... free admission.  Thank you to the folks who finally made this possible, i know it eats into the bottom line, but end of the day, i can personally say i saw tons of people i know at the races this weekend who wouldn't have paid to come in the past, and got to experience what the races were about, which is the only way we'll grow this sport in the future.

Other thoughts.  Competition was excellent, particularly in the mid comp range.  every year the competition seems to get just a bit tougher. now if only we can get some of these mid-range teams working together to provide a little more cmpetition to the big boys and girls!!

Dock volunteers were excellent.  Sometimes you get some with ego issues, etc, but this year again in my experience, nothing like that.  The volunteer who was working dock #7 on sunday was great, I forget her name, but she was quick, effecient, and fun.  What mroe can you ask for?

The big screen TV continues to be a must, I'm glad alcan picked up on this, and hope it continues in the future. 

I think everything else has been said.

The only thing i'll point out which i haven't read thus far is a functinoal PA system in the paddlers village.  Not sure what happened this year, but most of the time you couldn't hear the marshalling calls... and we were in tent 12, ie fairly close to the racers info tent, so... that's a problem.  not a huge one, but something that will hopefully be addressed for next year

Overall, great job!

[readyreach]

Sorry to change topics but does anyone know where I can find the full race results from the weekend?