[Guest]

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

 

Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

199 Guests, 0 Users

[BernMan]

OK so another festival has come and gone. For those of us that were there this past weekend what did you like? What did you not like? What would you do about fixing what you didn't like? The more we post on here the better and hopefully someone from the DBA (those who put on the racing side of the festival) can make the changes. And after they read this maybe then can send other comments to the Taiwan Fest people as well so they may be able to address any comments too.

I will start off by saying happened to the beer garden? I somehow doubt they, the race organizers, had anything to do with the previous year's beer gardens but surely the festival side of things should have thought about that! Don't they know dragon boaters love to drink??? They missed the boat on that one. I am aware that the pub that was located there sold the beers but now that the pub is gone someone else can do that. No?

I propose we get 1 or 2 teams joining up and getting a license, a "serving it right" certificate, and perhaps security, and run the beer gardens. All profits could be shared between the teams for team expenses. Anyone want to plan that for next year???

[LittleSchrodinger]

A great fun at the festival next door and the Taiwanese races are always fun if you can get past the heavy boats, but as usual I'm irritated by the amount of other on-water traffic while the racing was going on. Not as bad as some cases last year (Remember the parked boat, anyone?) or as busy as some other locations, but there have been at least one case where a yacht cut into the race courses in the middle of a race.

On the racing itself, I don't particularly like how the teams were seeded and bracket, as some of the teams hardly get a reasonable race all the way until the final. Be it some teams coming off in the last places for three of the flag-pulling races or some teams practically cruising to the final, I wish they'd at least arrange the semi-final to pit the teams of closer skills against each other. It was basically making the team place exactly first for A, exactly second for B, and etc and that doesn't make it very forgiving when teams of closer skills actually get pitted against each other.

Having a dragonboater-run beer garden for next year would be a good idea, as long as you really can convince them that it's practically the lifeblood for many dragonboaters. Worst case, do an underground beer garden instead. <_< (Or on-water, depending on the teams as long as the steerpersons are not drinking.)

Congratulation to FCRCC for being the top dog in the festival! I also would like to shout out to Phat Phish Racing, RGL United, and ScotiaBanks for putting up a great race in the final! Same goes for all the other teams, whether we've raced you or not.

[gunghaggis]

 ALL Taiwanese boats.  Every Race had flag grabbing. Every Day.  That was the Best thing about this year's Vancouver International Taiwanese Dragon Boat Races. Last year our team got only 1 real race in a Taiwanese boat + a Nogard on the Saturday.  On Sunday both our semi-final and upper consolation were in teak boats.

Race bracketing.  I dislike that novice teams are destined to finish last in every race, while top teams are expected to come first every race.  It's all based on trying to ensure that the teams are ranked according to their performance abilities for the finals.  But this really ensures no close races until the finals, and discourages any brand new teams from entering.  "We can guarantee you will be beat soundly in 3 races, then you can race against all the other last place teams.  Welcome to "No Fun" Races."   

It also really encourages sand bagging.  Why race to your abilities in the preliminaries and semi-final when it's easier to win a medal in a lower category?  In the semi-finals, in a close race you could practically pick your medal final.  But if the system is supposed to be ensuring rankings, why would any of the semi-finals be close, or have clustered groupings of upper or lower rec teams?  Plain and simple, the seeding and race bracketing didn't work.

No promotion of this race.  There were only 25 teams this year, down from 29 last year, and low 30's in the first years.  This event is in decline, despite it's unique appeal.  There are similar styled Taiwanese dragon boats on the Mississippi.  I think Vancouver is the only place in Canada with flag grabbing dragon boats.

Traffic Safety on the water.  During the A Final, a water ferry cuts across the course.  During one of our races, the party cruise boat, honks its horn and starts backing up while we are racing behind it.  In Victoria, the races are in contact with the ferries, water taxis, sea planes, tour boats etc.  They do a great job coordinating races in between all the scheduled boat traffic.

Race commentating. In past years, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre has helped to supply volunteer announcers.  But this year they only showed up on Sunday, and then one went home sick.  Neither knew anything about dragon boats.  The key skill needed is public speaking.  Guest Announcer Ed Fong did a reasonable job of trying to keep things interesting by interviewing racers, but he wasn't given any material to work with, other than race results.  Past years asked teams for written bios.  I didn't see any requests this year.

Thank goodness Puppy was there to do some commentating.  I stepped in as well, and also handed the mic off to Jim McArthur on Saturday.  I think the commentating really benefits when we can learn more about the teams, and the sport, and the races.  And it is a wonderful way to promote the sport of dragon boating.  Free advertising anybody? I did put in a plug for Lethal Weapon's photo skills. 

Taiwanese Beer garden???  where was it?  Building/with pub all torn down.  But if the Taiwanese Festival is happy with bringing in top Taiwanese pop acts and attracting youth, then why can't they find a Taiwanese beer sponsor to promote their product?  Maybe something is "lost in translation."  Hmmm... I do seem to remember lots of Taiwanese beer being passed around to dragon boaters in past years.

There really seemed to be a disconnect between the races and festival.  I didn't see anything about dragon boats in any festival programming or advertising or community announcements.  In past years, when the sea-walk was closed off.  You could easily see the Taiwanese dragon boats racing by from the Plaza of Nations viewing area.

Taiwanese Cultural Festival is fun.  Lots of entertainment, Lots of promotions, lots of VIP's - so why doesn't this extend to the dragon boat side?  The Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society does a great job of promoting itself as a distinct society, arts and cultural group. 

Was anybody aware of this great programing? http://taiwanfest.ca/events/tcf08/vancouver/programming.php#performances


For the future:
I want to see a race with celebrities or politician VIP's as flag grabbers on the Taiwanese dragon boats.
Oakland Dragon Boat Race, has a Mayor's race where teams represent different cities.
Maybe we can see Vancouver vs North Vancouver vs Burnaby vs Richmond vs Coquitlam with the mayors trying to grab flags.

Getting the political clout behind dragon boats might be a way to help speed the creation of a dragon boat club house on False Creek.
FYI, I did take Gregor Robertson onto a Taiwanese Dragon Boat at the end of Saturday to help introduce him to one of the world's fastest growing water sports.

[alunjai]

the festival was amazing..
i still miss the food..

overall everything was fine except .. how me and a couple of other paddlers.. complained how our tent area was not closed off or added into the festival site.. having the general public walking around our camp site was a major pain..
having to share the portable restrooms with the public was also quite inconvenient for the paddlers..

it made a lot of people feel that we were left out and not included with the festival and how we were pushed aside..
i know their intentions wasn't what i just stated but while waiting for the restroom a couple paddler mentioned said thats how she felt..

just hoping maybe they can do something like Harrison or more security wise like Alcan where they need to check for
"racers pass" to be able to get to our tents.. and separate 2 different sections for the portable washrooms..

otherwise the event was fun, memorable, and overall enjoyable !!!

thanks..

[LittleSchrodinger]

Actually, I find the potty issue to be rather tame. Because of the small number of the teams, I never saw a line up at the potty longer than three or four people. That's one of the points that I found mightily impressive, or I just have a good sense of potty timing.

Well-written as ever, Todd. This year is definitely a lot more disjoint and made it feel like "Waiter, there are dragonboat races in my cultural festival" instead of "Waiter, there is a cultural festival in my dragonboat races." Also, remember the last race of Saturday, before the re-race?  In that race, a bigger, slower moving yacht cut in between the flags and the dragonboats while there were perhaps 300 metres left to go. That eventually led to a re-race, and hopefully that was the only re-race. (That I know of.) That was even more damning than the A final's Aquabus cutting in during the start when the other water users are showing blatant disregard of the races either through ignorance or just plain lack of enforcement.

Certainly I've worried about the racer's village being completely naked to the public and whatnot, even less comfortable to me than at Dragonzone. (No offense to those who paddle out of the green trailer!)

[Backward Rowing]

Once again, Gunghaggis's comments are very well articulated. And yes, I enjoyed racing in a single class vessel within an entire festival. LittleSchrodinger comments were spot on.

On the race commenting part. What would have been nice were team bios and a "phonetic guide" as to pronouncing team names.  Why? Because wouldn't have been nice, between main stage events, to have mixed the sponsor ads with... wait for it, the MC's describing the races.  Basically a single camera fixed at the timing tent facing near the front of the finish line (without camera operator, like the one stage right on the main stage).  During the break and when a race is about to finish, the MC's in both English and Mandarin would talk about the race... to included the TaiwanFest audience into the dragon boat competition.  There would still be separate from the commentators of the races, as they would speak primarily in English and primarily be about the races.  I envision 20 second spots in between the Telus and China Airlines ads.

On the awards ceremony, I am not sure which direction that went.  If it was for paddlers only, then Puppy, you did a great job up there.  If it was to incorporated it into TaiwanFest, then it really was a flop. Only a handful of paying TaiwanFest audience members where there, and of the few that were there, they seemed to be eating and chatting.  If the MC's there could have announced the awards, again in English and Mandarin, with what Gunghaggis was saying about local celebrities handing out the medals, the awards ceremony could have been better.

Now my fun suggestion.  Since Edgewater Casino is not only a sponsor, but also a neighbour... why couldn't we have betting on the outcome of races.  Imaging scores of ahmas in the casino watching the big screen TV whether or not RaceFace makes it through the finish line first in their heat... Could be fun! Why have a beer garden when we can GAMBLE!

                   Me, addicted to gambling? Why would you say that?

[wanker]

This is and should be primarily a Taiwanese cultural festival.  The dragonboat racing component should be in the background, IMO.  However, it did appear that the regular festival attendees may not have been aware that there were races going on through that gate.  Perhaps a small booth with some posters and documentation on the history of dragon boating, along with some directions to suitable viewing areas would be an appropriate addition.

I quite enjoyed the main festival portion this year, having had a chance to sit and watch portions of a few performances while eating some of the great food available. 

Keeping the "tent" area secure is a definite issue if the pathway is to be kept open to the public.  If the City requires the path to remain open, I don't see much that the organizers of this event can do to help security.  There were a couple of guards at the gate to the main festival & their placement was well chosen to be able to keep an eye on a good portion of the pathway.  Other than this, it was pretty much up to the individual teams to protect their own valuables.

Lack of a beer garden is of course a concern to dragon boaters.  A beer garden helps promote interaction between the various teams which was lacking this time around.  Perhaps it's exclusion was a conscious decision.

Oh, and we should make FCRCC compete the entire festival in NOGARD fashion.     

Backward Rowing may have just invented the hottest new casino game on the planet.

[LittleSchrodinger]

If Edgewater Casino do that, they better do researches on the dragonboat teams beforehand and get the odds right, otherwise all the real dragonboaters would bet on FCRCC and then laugh all the way to the bank.

[Scaly]

Agreed that being in the Taiwanese Boats for the entire festival was great.

I didn't mind the race grid - as opposed to the Alcan formula where 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, 7&8 advance to different finals and consolation rounds. 
i.e. I liked the fact that 4 of 5 boats from the semi-finals went on to a medal race. 
I thought that the point system used in Nanaimo had more problems than this system (i.e. we ended up in "Diamond" based on points, whereas faster teams than us ended up in lower divisions (Jade)).  The top times of the boats in the A, B and C finals seem to rank well against each other - It's only the top 2 boats' times in D that provide a discrepancy (faster than the top C boats).

I didn't find the porta-potties to be an issue.

The seawall may be less of an issue next year when the condos immediately west of the Plaza of Nations complete - that would allow a short diversion of the seawall path around the Plaza of Nations to Pacific Boulevard and back to the seawall.   Currently, the condo construction zone along Pacific would have required a diversion from west of Cooper's Park past the Plaza of Nations.  The organizers did post signs asking cyclists to walk their bikes, which helped.
Although the races seemed separate from the Taiwanese Festival, I did appreciate that we didn't have to wade through the marketplace tent to get to the dock like we've had to in previous years. 

Maybe there wasn't any physical space for the beer garden.  With the demolition of the west building, that footprint is now Casino parking (i.e. leased to the Casino, no doubt), so the square footage of the festival site is significantly reduced.  And with the restaurant kitchen gone, there was no "famous beef noodle soup" this year.

WRT the awards ceremony - it didn't help that the Taiwan Festival announcers asked everyone else to leave and said "good night".  Maybe they would have had to clear the stands if there were more teams, but for 25 teams, that wasn't necessary.  Kerry did a great job MCing the awards.

 

[paddlecwazy]

There is no real solution to the issue that Todd brings up about the race grid...they may have been able to modify it slightly so that the semi-finals had a bit more drama... but having seeding races on the 1st day that are mismatches are a fact of life... and they are one of the best ways for a team that is on the rise to prove themselves against higher seeded teams.

Watching all the finals, and looking at the times, I am hard pressed to see any evidence of sandbagging.  Save for the A final, there was less than a second separating 1st from 2nd in both the B & C finals.   In fact, in the C final there was a scant 2.5 seconds separating 1st from 4th.

[gunghaggis]

The Taiwanese Cultural Festival is really a festival with a dragon boat race attached to it. LittleSchrodinger said it nicely

"Waiter, there are dragonboat races in my cultural festival" instead of "Waiter, there is a cultural festival in my dragonboat races."

The TCF was already established with a track record of multicultural awards, when we approached them to say "Hey, you've got the Plaza of Nations site.  How about we bring some dragon boats over and add some races?  Oh, and do you know if the Taiwanese Economic and Cultural Office could find a way to donate some Taiwanese Dragon Boats as a cultural exchange with the City of Vancouver?" 

The TCF was very pleased with the idea.

But their focus really is on the "Festival" with the incredible entertainment they are bringing in.  Much more interesting to me than what Alcan is doing now.  I talked to some of the Festival organizers this weekend including executive director Charlie Wu.  They still see value in the Taiwanese boats.  It is seen as a way to bring in non-Taiwanese audience.  It helps integrate the Taiwanese community more with our mainstream dragon boat community. 

Plaza of Nations is stupid expensive for a dragon boat race. That's why Alcan moved to Creekside Park.  Parks are cheap public land.  At Plaza of Nations, if you want to close off the sea walk, you have to pay for the rental of public space.  My guess is that Edgewater doesn't want to inconvenience their customers, by blocking their customers from the parking lots. 

But why doesn't Edgewater be a good corporate citizen and enter or sponsor a team in the Vancouver Taiwanese Dragon Boat Race... nudge nudge, wink wink?  For that first Taiwanese race, I was able to get Telus as a sponsor, and matched them up with one of the top dragon boat teams... darn, they only came 4th overall.

Why doesn't Edgewater sponsor a beer garden?  That would be great... dragon boaters could take over the casino lounge, the way we used to take over Maverick's.

Remember the first Vancouver Taiwanese Dragon Boat Races? There were lots of exhibits in the BC Enterprise Hall, and no casino.  Teams marshalled between the Plaza stage area and the BC Hall.  The steps were used for people wanting to watch the race finishes, because it lined up beautifully with the finish line.

Space at the Taiwanese Festival is at a premium.  Exhibitor space under the large tents in the plaza was $700 for the weekend.  The Taiwanese Festival makes an arrangement with Edgewater Casino for leasing the space.  You'd think we could have taken over a few stalls in the parking lot and created a "secure village."  After I saw the close proximity of the parking lot to the finish line, I thought about bringing in a pick-up truck for a tailgate party or a motor home and using that as our team site. 

"Racer's village" is such as strange concept.  If you were in Victoria in the late '90''s, you know there was no "village".  We just sat on blankets on the grass.  If you go to Kent WA, or Portland's Sellwood Park Race, or many other smaller races - all the tents are in the open.  It's up to personal responsibility to look after your own valuables.  It's only in the past 7 years that teams have really been buying and putting up their own tents.  We used to just huddle under the trees.  We get spoiled at Alcan, because the Canadian Armed Forces comes in as a sponsor.  They trade use of tents for access to Alcan Festival's high attendance.  That's why they bring in an armoured personnel carrier and pose for pictures. 

[Rob]

Quote from Gunghaggis:
'For that first Taiwanese race, I was able to get Telus as a sponsor, and matched them up with one of the top dragon boat teams... darn, they only came 4th overall.'

Yeah, we wanted to do better in that race but we just had one of those races.  We just didn't have the right stroke for the Flag pulling boat. 

 FCRCC had a great time again.  A beer garden would have been nice, but we did the BYOB thing, and it seemed to work.

I thought the commentary was good with Todd and Puppy stepping up to the plate.

Getting prizes from Telus was great! Thanks!

The boats were fun, as well as all the races. This festival is always a good time.

Thanks to the other teams.  We would have liked to mingle more. (but it was hard without the beer garden)

Thanks Puppy for steering, you did a great job. Thanks to monkey for drumming and to all the paddlers that joined us from other crews.
It was great racing with you.

All in all the only real things I would change is the promotion of the event so we could get more teams.