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Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

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[dafonz]

The way the seeding worked for the finals could have been improved significantly. The organizers should have known from the first set of races that tides played a huge part in the way in the times (ie, Eric Hamber getting the fastest time in the first heat). This was the case for the semis where the times got progressively faster and faster as the current got stronger and stronger. It was a little funny how the race organizer insisted that the water was neutral and fair for everyone in the afternoon.

I was on riptide/ready jet go and we won both our first two races by fairly large margins, but because our semi was earlier in the afternoon, we were seeded 8th in the B final. Our time for the B-final was I believe 1.17. The winning time in the A-final was 1.16.

It was fun overall and taking home hardware is always nice, but we were very much looking forward to racing the brown pants team.

[trinh]

The seeding was weird, as some of my team mates and i were looking at placement grid from the racing package and it said "fastest time from semi goes into A finals". i thought that my team would end up in b finals as we came in 2nd in our semi finals but still had the 4th faster time overall.

would of been great to have raced in the finals with ready-jet-go/riptide and bring me my brown pants. we also clocked in at a 1.17 time to get 2nd in A finals. the tide did create fast times, we said that there is no way this is 500m like they said, it felt way shorter. i do believe that most, if not all the ppl that ran this festival are rowers, so they are use to placement based on time alone. atleast this year the turn out was pretty good (29 teams i think, better than last year), just wished that every team had the chance to have raced all 3 races. also some teams that came in 2nd/3rd in B finals and lower were all waiting to get metals at the docks only to be told that only 1st place and A finalist gets metals, which was a shame. hopefully things will be better new year and teams will come back to it. we need festival like this to survive as we need more local festivals, god knows if taiwanese is ever coming back.

overall i enjoyed the festival, did not have the burgers as it did not look appetizing, but did bump into some of the brown pants at the cafe accross the street from the festival during lunch. and amanda, you looked fantastic in ur swimsuit thing, just wished our own coach would stop wearing tights to our training...

[IronGiant]

Junior teams had a great showing ... you folks always push us to paddle harder, usually because we're behind you. Great enthusiasm. Manda, I saw the Flashdance outfit, no big deal - super spirit, don't back down. Shorts would have thrown off the whole silhouette. Do you have it in men's XL for Kelowna for me!? Did I just use my outside voice ...

Richmond 2010: Water's Edge books the Ozone, the new huge park/plaza in front of speed skating oval, where the river is twice as wide, and run races ACROSS the river. That removes tidal issues. Water's Edge removes race issues. At 250m, Dash for Charity accomodates 48 teams in one day, 3 races. (We had a company fuction out there a couple of weeks ago ... beer as well ... so it's possible ... huge space. Paddling Centre on the first floor, too - tanks and all.

[mo]

Finally, this isn't Richmond Festival organizers' faults, but it was disappointing to overhear some teams smack talk us, that we cheated/stacked etc.

Well, not only did your name not make sense, but you were also prancing around baring your moose knuckles for everyone to see. AND you stacked your team with banana and fish paddlers. So who wouldn't be offended?   

the team that i heard talk poorly of other teams (you weren't the only ones) are the same teams that practice on the same weekday as us and they're generally a good bunch.  Disappointment, long day under the sun, and other reasons could be factors to the grumpybear-mouths-off syndrome.  Don't let a few bad mouths ruin the reputation of a team for you, manda. 

There are always active ears (intentionally or unintentionally) listening at festivals and news in the dboat community travel like wildfire.  so that's why i keep conversations about weekends with thai ladyboys to a minimum at festivals...

IronGiant- now that the festival is over, is there a clearance price on the bumper stickers? j/k... thanks, ritchie bros, for the use of their parking lot!

[BernMan]

Interesting conversations going on here. Too bad I was not involved in any way, shape or form to truly appreciate the legitimate complaints. But 'mo' was right when she said not to worry about who said what about a crew. It is obvious that it was not an original crew. It was more of a couple of crews putting their share together to form a team. This is possibly because neither team could field enough paddlers to fill a boat. Does that mean they are cheating? NO! Not in my opinion anyway. They even made up a new team name. Had they kept the name of one team then maybe I can see how someone could be a bit disappointed because maybe they are trying to keep up or beat a team that they compare themselves to. I know I was involved in a nice close race last year with a team that we historically had better times/better placements all season long only to lose to them by a mere .02 of a second, that's 2 1/100ths of a second in our last final race of the season!    Didn't matter though because it was good for my crew to know that they kept their original crew in tact and still managed to almost keep the status quo. It was still a good way to end the season. Anyway good on the mishmash of 2 teams put together to show that together they can come up with a nice race plan and accomplish what they set out to do!

[mandachan]

there is no way this is 500m like they said, it felt way shorter.

That is true. The race was actually 425m!

The seeding was weird, as some of my team mates and i were looking at placement grid from the racing package and it said "fastest time from semi goes into A finals". i thought that my team would end up in b finals as we came in 2nd in our semi finals but still had the 4th faster time overall.

would of been great to have raced in the finals with ready-jet-go/riptide and bring me my brown pants. we also clocked in at a 1.17 time to get 2nd in A finals.

I agree that the seeding could use a lot of improvement. My entire team was stunned when we heard Ready Jet Riptide was in B finals, instead of A finals. The tides were always changing, there's no way the staff crew could claim it was neutral!

and amanda, you looked fantastic in ur swimsuit thing, just wished our own coach would stop wearing tights to our training...

Do you mean Kevin or Sean? Cuz I know I've seen more than enough of Sean's manly body parts  

Finally, this isn't Richmond Festival organizers' faults, but it was disappointing to overhear some teams smack talk us, that we cheated/stacked etc.

Well, not only did your name not make sense, but you were also prancing around baring your moose knuckles for everyone to see. AND you stacked your team with banana and fish paddlers. So who wouldn't be offended?  

Here is the reason for Brown Pants [in case anyone didn't get it  ]:

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/95q2/pants.html

[trinh]

(ie, Eric Hamber getting the fastest time in the first heat)

to be fair, eric hamber is a fast jr team, on multiple occasions they have beaten the laoyam eagles which is like the best jr team in bc. and those eagles are damn fast, beating adult teams!

Do you mean Kevin or Sean? Cuz I know I've seen more than enough of Sean's manly body parts 

neither of them are our coaches, dave, the strath youth dragons know whom i'm talking about. no man should ever have to see another man do dynamic stretches in tights

and mo, you had lunch with the sword fish crew, couldn't you have slipped them some laxatives before our finals?

[mandachan]

(ie, Eric Hamber getting the fastest time in the first heat)

to be fair, eric hamber is a fast jr team, on multiple occasions they have beaten the laoyam eagles which is like the best jr team in bc. and those eagles are damn fast, beating adult teams!

Do you mean Kevin or Sean? Cuz I know I've seen more than enough of Sean's manly body parts  

neither of them are our coaches, dave, the strath youth dragons know whom i'm talking about. no man should ever have to see another man do dynamic stretches in tights

and mo, you had lunch with the sword fish crew, couldn't you have slipped them some laxatives before our finals?

Whoops I thought you were from Ready Jet Riptide.

and we don't need any more browning of the pants!

[StrokeItHard]

- The medals were pretty, and engraved on the back unlike Alcan's.

A little off topic on my part, but I've never seen an Alcan medal that was not engraved. All the medals I have or have seen have been engraved.

[trinh]

- The medals were pretty, and engraved on the back unlike Alcan's.

A little off topic on my part, but I've never seen an Alcan medal that was not engraved. All the medals I have or have seen have been engraved.

your first place medals were eye blinding, they were like extra polished or something. last years 1st place medal were just like the b finals gold medals, nothing special. only thing that made richmond sweet last year was the fact that they gave our team a free buffet dinner at the river rock. sushi in the chocolate fountain and alaskan king crab legs mmmm... how was the prize for coming in first this year compared?

and our team did not win a medal this year at alcan so i can't say how the medals were this year.

[LittleSchrodinger]

From the sound of it, looks like the seeding definitely was a major issue. I guess that's why it has always been a relatively small festivals. Hopefully someone will let the organizers know how to seed properly.

[mandachan]

- The medals were pretty, and engraved on the back unlike Alcan's.

A little off topic on my part, but I've never seen an Alcan medal that was not engraved. All the medals I have or have seen have been engraved.

What! the Gold I got at Alcan had a sticker on the back with the division and placement. 

how was the prize for coming in first this year compared?

We got a $150 gift cert to Boston Pizza. Lol. River Rock sounds fantastic  wow.

[redlancer]

Our mish-mash team entered Richmond with the mindset that it would be a small event.  Sheepishly I can say that my team was a beneficiary of a late semi-final.  However, it was nice to see our team nearly pull a 3rd or even 2nd out of the A Final.  I'm not going to argue that our team deserved to be there more than others but we showed we could be competitive in that race.  I totally agree though that the timing system is dumb in almost any tidal waters.

My major problem with the regatta was that we were always in Lane 4, farthest away from the starter.  It was nearly impossible for us to hear him in a couple of the races.  They should have moved the air horn to the starter and told the steers where they could stop.  With the amount of time it was taking between races I'm sure that the boats taking a couple extra of seconds to reach the dock wouldn't have killed anybody.

It's really too bad that a number of teams only got 2 races.  They could have easily fit another final or 2 in.  Just think.  If your team had spares and you didn't make a semi then you have paddlers with only 1 race.  Not good.

That said, we had a blast and will probably return next year.  There needs to be the smaller festivals where the minnow rec teams can do well and have some fun.

[redlancer]

Oh and Manda, you keep dressing whatever way you want!  If you got it, flaunt it.

[Backward Rowing]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac9OTTiT_fM