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Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

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[gunghaggis]

It's great to see a lot of positive feedback about the Taiwanese Cultural Festival and the racing in Taiwanese flag-grabbing boats, and the Hong Kong teak boats.  When the Race began in 2003 - a lot of people went "Huh?"  or "Why bring in other kinds of dragon boats?"

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong teak dragon boats in Vancouver (and the 20th anniversary of dragon boats in Vancouver) - but there has been little fanfare or recognition of this important anniversary, when teak dragon boats were 1st donated to the City of Vancouver for Expo 86 by the Hong Kong pavillion / Hong Kong Tourism Bureau.

As dragon boat racing grows, I keep encountering paddlers who think that anything other than a Millenium dragon boat is weird - as they are unaware of the history of 6-16 and teak boats, that were the standard for so many years.

The Vancouver Taiwanese Dragon Boat Race really represents classic traditional dragon boat racing.  In ancient days, there would be 3 spotters to see who grabbed the first flag.  In today's Vancouver races, you still have to cross the finish line, because with today's modern video equipment, and drift on the Creek, it is the best way to determine who is fastest.  It would be great to set up the Taiwanese boats on a lake where you can really set the flags evenly - and the winner actually can be the team that grabs the flag first.  But False Creek presents too many logistical problems.

RACES & FLAGS
Generally well run - the Flags were all attached to a single line with weights in the middle, evidenced by the even convex shape when the wind blew East.  This kept a relative distance between the lanes, and was much better than in year's past, when each flag was set with it's own anchor, and subject to drift and varying depth in the creek.  Great that all the flags are NEON this year.  Last year our steersperson couldn's see the blue flag, against a blue sky, sitting on top of blue water.

GENDER RACES
Originally the mens and womens races were FREE, and there were no medals.  It was for FUN and PRIDE.  But now they are charging $100 per entry.  I agree that if there should be medals now for 2nd and 3rd place.  This will encourage more people to enter if they feel they have a chance for bling.  Teams were slow to enter the gender races, and there was still room for additional teams.

PRIZES
Prizes really are dependant on the festival and race organizers being able to find sponsors for each of the race finals.  This is really dependant on the organizers of the Taiwanese Cultural Festival, who leave it to DBA to handle the races - but keep the control of sponsorships.  Years ago, Division A winners all got fruit baskets, because that's what the Division A sponsor offered.  Telus was sponsoring Division C (I think), so the hi-tech prizes were a big thrill to the winners.  I think we can let the race organizers know that PRIZES are FUN, and were missed this year.

SPONSORS
Organizing sponsors is a big challenge for any race, festival or team.  02P managed to find a Taiwanese Cultural Festival participant, and changed their name to TAITRA for a $400 entry fee.  (TAITRA is short for Taiwanese Association for International Trade something or other).
Paddlers can really make a difference by asking your team sponsors to participate as a vendor or display for the Festival. or by asking a Festival sponsor if they want a dragon boat team for the festival - then you can ask the DBA for a special "Sponsor's Race" to add to the 5 races you are already doing in a day.   In Year One, 2003, I brought in Telus as the festival sponsor, and matched them up with a dragon boat team when they weren't able to field their own.  The team recieved free entry, free shirts and other other swag - but sadly came 4th out of the medals in A Division.

BARGES
Too bad about the barges and the Star of Vancouver yacht.  The barges definitely created a finish line hazard, even though they technically were not in the race course.  The big yachts at the marina definitely blocked the view of the race starts.  Too bad they couldn't be moved for the day, like in past races at Alcan.

PLAZA of NATIONS
This is a good reminder of what Alcan Festival used to be like, with all the food stalls surrounding the main stage, and everything close together.  It's a cosy intimate site.  False Creek is definitely shrinking with more development filling in the waterfront.  Those barges are definitely putting in pilings that take away more paddling room.  A secure racer's village would definitely be a welcome addition for next year.  But where to put it?  There is great viewing area of the finish line at the South West corner that should also be used for viewing stands for the pregnant women, kids, seniors who cannot climb onto the rocks.  Tents can be set up along the service road outside the gate, behind the Azure restaurant.  But the concrete gets too hot on a hot day.  The trees provided great shade for paddlers camped for the weekend.  While it's important to keep your team sheltered, setting up tents on the path to viewing areas doesn't work for the majority of festival paddlers and spectators.

[estrella]

Overall I liked the Taiwanese Festival.  It's a nice small festival that still felt like a festival (as opposed to Richmond...which felt like a rough practice).  While the Taiwanese boats are tough it's nice to have something different about this race.

Different from previous years...I liked that the there were only two styles of boats used.  While they were two very different boats, it was easier to adjust between two rather than three.  For the most part, the races were fairly smooth running.  Although, there was one time that we sat on the water for about 20 mins before we could race because they had to realign the markers...and then wait for another race to go.  The starter definitely needed an extra speaker or megaphone to project her voice.  I'm satisfied with medals...but extra prizes definitely make it more fun. 

[paddleboy]

 All that work and no prize....that was too funny . Gawd we are greedy ..lol

[gunghaggis]

On Sunday they had to reallign the markers when a pleasure boat decided it would be fun to cruise between the flags.  Unfortunately - this resulted in moving the flags off-course.

Another reason why DBA needs to have another safety/referree boat on the water - to keep wayward pleasure boats from coming onto the race course.  The race commentators had fun with the mini-kayaks who crossed the race course as a race had started. 

Middle lane markers would really help this.  It gets pretty hard looking into the sun, trying to count which flag you are heading towards.  I like those BIG YELLOW things that Alcan uses to mark the finish line.  Now that would be good for a barrel race.  Or maybe actually float some barrels!

I don't know if DBA was coordinating with the False Creek mini-ferries.  But some of those ferries were coming to the Plaza of Nations dock, while barrel races were going on. And it almost looked like some collisions would happen.

It looked pretty hectic on the dock with Taiwanese boats coming and going, ferry boats coming and going, and trying to send crews out in Teak boats for barrel racing.
Safety has to be a major priority. 

No collisions - only the swamping of the red DBA boat, as a temporary casualty.  That's pretty good considering the skills needed to paddle with the skinny steering oars on both teak and Taiwanese boats.

Hey - at least there was nolightning storm like the first year!

[paddleboy]

 Lightning storms make it way more exciting  ....I think in the future if there is a storm acomin we should attach rods to the boats to make it a game of survival as well

[Luke]

bonus, swim with sting rays in FC or something

that avatar is so offensive its funny...

[paddleboy]

 yeah it is but it looks likes the site crashed ........its now a still,lol....too many downloads

[gecko]

Great festival, good spirit and good competition.  Really appreciated efforts by the announcers to tell the spectators something about the teams.  This was so much better than Alcan where the announcers didn't seem to have any information on the teams or even know much about dragon boating. (At one point in Alcan the announcer said, "boy there must be something magic about that number 5 lane--all the boats in that lane are winning."  Duh)
Taiwanese festival really showed how it improves the festivals when there is some educated commentary.

Agree with those who were puzzled by the race grids which seemed to quietly change, but all in all the organizers did a great job with very very few people.

About those tethers.  What is the point?  Didn't seem to add much to the race organization and in one of our races the tether hit the pilings when the steersperson threw it and bounced back snagging the boat--Hilarious "RoadRunner"  start but it cost us about 2 minutes.

Finally, many apologies from the Saltspring team for clogging up the headland.  We arrived early on Friday evening at a pretty much deserted site , asked organizers if it was okay to set up under the trees and were told yes.   But we should have moved when it was clear we'd snagged prime real estate in the viewing area and were obstructing the view--(we weren't actually on the path. )  We'll behave ourselves next year. Promise. 

[wanker]

Heh, sorry for bumping old posts, but I increase the length of this festival into a bit of a vacation and I am now back at home.

This is the second year that my team from Calgary has attended this festival and it fits in well with us, as a more "fun" festival considering the state of our rebuilding team, and the fact that we only practice on water from late May until September.  While I'd love to paddle at Alcan, there is no way our team would be at all competitive.  For now...

Many of the issues with the Taiwanese festival have already been brought up and several of those are above the power of the festival organizers.  Of course the water quality is horrible, and the barges provide a rather in-your-face reminder that you may cease paddling at the finish line.  There is also only so much physical space to work with for viewing the race, so not much room for spectators.  Not sure if anything can be done to stagger the water ferries so that they don't all show up at once at the dock and plug up the course.  I saw one unfortunate team have to navigate around one of the ferries during their barrel race, while the ferry waited for two others to unload/reload.

I felt that the races themselves were generally quite well run overall.  We were able to find our next race times in short order to make sure that our teammates did not drift too far away, or embed themselves too deeply in the beer patio.  The ladies on dry land did a great job getting teams to the boats on time, and I felt very sorry for the few on dock helpers.  The older fella (can't remember his name now - I must have had a few too many beers) was less enthusiastic this year since he didn't have too much help.  I guess it's tough to find dock volunteers, but it would be nice to not have people out there for the entire day.  They looked tired, thirsty and sunburnt.  Hopefully more volunteers show up for future events.  The races were well marshalled for the most part, but we had one race where we had to wait for quite a while to get started.  On another occasion, I believe that the tether that our steersman was supposed to hang onto was actually broken, but I believe that issue was resolved quickly.

Again our team found ourselves being well taken care of by members of several teams.  Various people shared space, food, drink, paddlers and general goodwill with us and Draco appreciated it very much.  Some of us even liked the Taiwan beer!  This is one of our favorite festivals and we will probably come back, given the opportunity.  Come see us in Calgary next year, and we'll probably see you around at other festivals too.

[gecko]

My one bit of feedback is somehow to broadcast the fact that there was a new race grid out.  I stuck with the one from Aug. 30 and didn't realize until Sunday afternoon that there had been a new one printed out on Sept. 3.  Posting up a notice by the results and announcing over the loudspeakers would have been nice.

Another minor thing is that the walkway to the spectator zone was cluttered.  Part of it was because quite a few people were watching the final (that's good) but also because 2 teams set themselves down right in a major pathway.  False Creek was on the stone walkway (a little further back) - but my main issue was that there was a team who planted their tent right in the middle of the main walkway to the prime viewing spots.  When I opted to avoid the tent and duck under the "CAUTION" tape, I was quickly shuffled out and had to make my way through the rocky outcropping instead.  I noticed a pregnant woman doing the same too, which was very bad.

In general though, extremely well-run festival.  My paddlers tended to enjoyed the atmosphere of this race more than the Alcan extravaganza.

   Hi Darwin.  Saltspring apologized somewhere on this forum for hogging the view.   But the pregnant woman?? that was actually the intrepid Saltspring team manager who insisted on rock climbing despite our entire team constantly saying --"Jeeeeez Nicole!, be careful " all weekend.