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Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

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[sterles]

SAVE THE DATE! The 2011 Portland Dragon Boat Race, presented by DragonSports USA, has been confirmed for September 10th & 11th, 2011 at beautiful Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon.

More information coming soon. Online registration will open in early 2011.

Portland Dragon Boat Race online:
www.portlanddragonboats.com
[email protected]
www.twitter.com/pdxdragonboat

DragonSports USA online:
www.dragonsports.org
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/dragonsportsusa
www.twitter.com/dragonsportsusa

[sterles]

Hey everyone,

Just a reminder (if you didn't know already) that registration for the 2011 Portland Dragon Boat Race, presented by DragonSports USA on September 10th & 11th, 2011, is now open.

Registration fees are as follows:
Local Teams - USD 900.00
Visiting Teams - USD 800.00
Junior Teams - USD 400.00

There is a USD 100.00 Early Bird discount on all registration fees for teams that register before June 15, 2011.

Portland Dragon Boat Race online:
www.portlanddragonboats.com
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/pdxdragonboat
www.twitter.com/pdxdragonboat

DragonSports USA online:
www.dragonsports.org
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/dragonsportsusa
www.twitter.com/dragonsportsusa

Please let me know if you have any questions... hope to see you there!

[sterles]

Me again. Just a heads up that the Early Bird Deadline to register ($100 off registration) is in one week.

List of teams that have registered to date is online at http://www.portlanddragonboats.com/2011teams

We'll be updating it regularly over the next week. As in past years, I am sure that most teams will wait until right before the deadline to register, but we've got a good group of out-of-towners signed up already!

Hope to see you in September!

[sterles]

Just a couple of more weeks to register for this race! We're up to 65 teams with room for a few more.

List of registered teams is online at http://www.portlanddragonboats.com/2011teams

Portland Dragon Boat Race online:
www.portlanddragonboats.com
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/pdxdragonboat
www.twitter.com/pdxdragonboat

DragonSports USA online:
www.dragonsports.org
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/dragonsportsusa
www.twitter.com/dragonsportsusa

[sterles]

Thanks to everyone who turned out at the 2011 Portland Dragon Boat Race last weekend. 75 teams and ridiculously hot weather!

Mixed Fremont (A Division) Final Results:
1   Kai Ikaika
2   Portland Fire Dragons
3   Navy Dragon Anchors
4   Anniemaniacs
5   Dragon Hearts Ultimate

Women Broadway (A Division) Final Results:
1   Kai Ikaika Women
2   Wasabi Power
3   Bridge City Blue
4   Wasabi Huge
5   Amazon Dragons

Complete results posted at http://www.portlanddragonboats.com/results

We're planning on the same weekend (the weekend after Labor Day) again next year. We'll confirm that hopefully later this year. Hope to see you there!

[sterles]

Survey is now posted for those that participated in last weekend's Portland Dragon Boat Race!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/pdxdragonboat2011

[coach]

Overall it’s a good race,

-   beautiful venue
-   friendly atmosphere
-   good beer garden

BUT, the downsides
-   the starter is still pretty bad (lots of uneven starts i.e. some teams with big leads or moving on the start, and different start positions i.e. some races are 5 or 10 metres longer or shorter than others)
-   the lanes, being in a river, are somewhat uneven (lane 5 is generally not preferred, they should put the last seed in lane 5 not lane 1, e.g. top to bottom is lanes 3, 2, 4, 1, 5)
-   one bad boat in Lane 3 caused a lot of unfair races and teams being in the wrong divisions.

[sterles]

Thanks for the feedback, we love our Waterfront Park too! Since this is out there in a public forum, just wanted to address these concerns quickly, just to let you know that I have some of these same concerns and that we are listening

I thought our starters (John did most of the starting, but we had a couple of people relieve him, including me) did a pretty good job for the 80+ races that we ran. I was out there for an hour on Sunday and there was definitely a tailwind that made things challenging. That being said, there's always room for improvement and I am confident that keeping the same starter every year (assuming he agrees to do it again), will lead to more consistency and better results in the long run. I'll be sure that he receives everyone's feedback and talk with him about ways to improve.

As for the lanes and boats, we'll be testing out our boats and looking at the race course over the next year. That's my primary focus for improvement in 2012. We thought we had addressed a lot of the problems from several years ago (last year went especially well, I thought, though we were only running 4-boat heats). We made sure to wash all of our boats within a reasonable time of the race, but you can't argue with the results. We have lots of teams in Portland that I am sure will be more than happy to run some practice races so we can sort these issues out if we decide to continue using our fleet of Six-Sixteens for this race.

[paddlemonkey]

Yup first time we've been there and we L O V E D it.

oh please do keep those six-sixteens at the event...given the varying conditions and occasional crazy boat wash, I'm thinkin' they will continue to be the best suited for this venue...

[mandachan]

The 6-16s were interesting to race in, to say the least. I've never personally raced in one before Portland, and at our home club in Vancouver we do everything possible to avoid having to use one.

If you do decide to keep the 6-16's, for whatever reason, please warn us  On one hand, it gives stability in the area, (which actually wasn't that bad) but on the other hand the things are tanks.

The festival was pretty good despite the late start on Saturday. Were all the visiting teams paired up with a host team, or was this optional? I liked the venue a lot. It was my first time in Portland and I think the people there are very kind.

All in all, I think I would do the festival again if they put faster boats in.

[Rob]

You think the 6-16's are tanks ? Maybe your are spoiled at FCRCC.
Mandachan, you should go down and paddle in the Rose Festival in Portland.  I think after that experience you will think 6-16's are like F1 race cars  .

I personally liked racing in the old school 6-16's but found them not even in terms of boat run.  I found that doing the women's and mixed bridge race back to back too time consuming, and cut into my beer drinking.  I think if you hold the women's event on Saturday like in Alcan, the festival would not run so late on Sunday, and the women could do both divisions without getting so tired.  I thought the venue was great, as well as the beer garden.  Good job by the volunteers and staff.  The starting wasn't that fair, but under the conditions, I think it is as good as you could hope for. And as usual, Mandachan and her partner were fashionable. They brought a smile to my face. 

[sterles]

Oh, we warned you... posted in the rules (under "Equipment") and sent in the emails to team captains.

Like I said, we'll consider all options for next year at this point. The 6-16s are great for our river when the Coast Guard & Sheriff Patrol boats have to leave or aren't paying attention. They're definitely ideal practice boats for our teams. And yes, they're race cars compared to the Rose Festival bathtubs. You should see some of our Portland teams when we go to venues with BUK boats. We freak out... tippy canoes!

Host team arrangements were totally optional, but most took advantage of the offer when we asked the second time around (after registration). I think we may just go ahead and assign everyone one in the future--it is what you make of it, even if it's just a friendly face at the race and nothing more. Sounds like many friends were made last weekend!

[ReachRotateRelease]

I'd take the 6-16s over the multi-upgraded Geminis any day.  BUKs are still my fav though.  Many teams were pulling sub 2min times, so the boats were not that cumbersome.  I think if the boats raced in the other direction (up river), there would be more complaints. 
I've been down to Portland several times in the past, but this is my first time down for the DB Festival. It's a great little city, & I've always had a good time when I've visited. I know of a few people (including myself) that make comments like 'it's the kind of city that I could live in'.  Being Canadian, that's easier said than done.  I digress.

I thought the Festival was really good.  There are many competitive teams in the Portland area, and there were several other out of town teams that kept things interesting.  Issues exist (e.g. Lane 5, one of the boats in Lane 3, the starts), but it's difficult to run a 'perfect' festival.  You're often not going to please all people all of the time.

One of the reasons my team has not done the Portland Festival more often is the dates of the Festival.  It's usually around the time of the San Francisco and Kelowna Festivals.  In the past few year's, we've done the San Francisco Festival, and we're enjoyed it. This year, the festivals are on back-to-back weekends, which makes it difficult to do both.

[rb]

The slow boat in Lane 3 being referred to is the orange boat. That caused lots of problems, please don't use it again. 

Here's an example, Kai had that boat in the semi, Ultimate in the final. It probably added about 5 seconds to team's times.

Semi Final
Dragon Hearts Ultimate 01:47.34
Navy Dragon Anchors 01:49.70
Kai Ikaika 01:49.84

 
Final
Kai Ikaika 01:52.16
Navy Dragon Anchors 02:00.87
Dragon Hearts Ultimate 02:02.74

Other than that, a great festival. There were a lot of fast teams there! Great competition. And I like the 6/16s.

[mandachan]

If you do decide to keep the 6-16's, for whatever reason, please warn us  

Just a friendly reiteration: I knew we were racing in 6-16's this year, but if you do decide to put them in for 2012, I'd rather know before we get the Rules manual, ie before I sign up. Unfortunately I officially rostered about a week before the festival, and didn't know about the 6-16s until a couple days before. My own damn fault! But if you do use them again, it'd be awesome to have 26-person boats! Woo hoo!

I mean, racing is racing so please run your festivals how you want to. I'm just here because you asked for opinions. I'd do it via SurveyMonkey but this isn't DBE

Oh my goodness, I am so spoiled by FCRCC.