The Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team - front row: Carolyn, Wendy, Rita, Gail and Natalie. Standing: Anne-Marie, Julie, Jonas, Steven, Jim, Dave, Daming, Jennifer, Joe, Sonja, Todd, Stephen, Constance, Deb, and Dan. - Photo courtesy of Lotus Sports Club
The Lotus Sports Club's Bill Alley Memorial Dragon Boat Regatta is always a fun friendly race. Chilliwack and Ft. Langley teams really support it well. I have attended many years with different teams. Celebration in 98, 99, and 2000, Civil Serpents in 2001, Spirit of Vancouver in 2004, spectator for 2005, and finally with Gung Haggis team in 2006. The Lotus Sports Club is where I first learned to paddle a dragon boat in 1993 with the Hamazaki Wong Headliners team. Grace Morisette was my first coach, and Lotus people have all become friends over the years, such as Jim McArthur and Barb Diggins. Friendly faces include Barb Alley, John Park, Carmella, Jane, Clyde, Cindy, Dean and many many others. I can also say I have known Joyce Yeoh and Elton Pao, since they were junior paddlers.
Our team really had a lot of fun. Our rookies were very excited to be in their first races, our veterans were calm, cool, collected and shared information. Dan brought smokies, Joe brought camp stove and tent. Dave brought the large Gung Haggis tent. Food, shelter and friends - what more can you ask for? Okay... we had a team bbq afterwards at Joe's Burnaby home following the regatta.
There is a prize raffle draw with proceeds going to the Bill Alley Memorial scholarship. Bill Alley was a founding member of Lotus, and dedicated to the Lotus Sports Club. Each year I help donate prizes to the raffle and help promote it as an event during Asian Heritage Month.
Format is round robin for first 3 races + Finals - so you get to race each of the other teams + have your own category, for a total of FOUR races. That's a lot in a day for brand new rookie paddlers!
For the race finals you are put into one of each category: Junior, Women's, Mixed or Seniors. Seeding is decided by cumulative race times. The Open category is decided by the cumulative race time that is the fastest!
Our friends "The Pirates" led by left stroke and captain Ian Paul (in front), leading the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team (in back). Notice how deep the Pirates paddles are - getting good water on their blades, while the Gung Haggis paddles are not as deep or consistent. We will have to work on that aspect of our paddle technique. - photo Ben Lee (see more photos at http://www.dragonboatwest.net
The rotation of the races is pretty fast, so that would help discount for other effects such as tide, wind, officiating, start position. But this is meant to be a FUN regatta, so the start positions were not overly picky, especially with wind causing drift at the start line.
Teams swapped paddlers here and there. Gung Haggis loaned about 10 paddlers at one point for Smoke on the Water's 3rd race - because the beginner team from Chilliwack had paddlers that needed to leave or for other reasons. Gung Haggis raced 18 paddlers for our first two races, than added 2 paddlers in race 3, then raced the final with 19 paddlers. It was great to have Nadia join us for our 3rd and 4th race. She is a good friend of Wendy, and paddles on Concord Pacific. She had met our team members Dan, Pam and Kristine, who joined Concord for their San Francisco races last August.
Put this event on your calendar for next year. FOUR races, Great Fun, beautiful pebble beach setting, lots of trees for shade or rain protection, Friendly hosts, and BBQ friendly! No medals - just awards for the top finisher in each category + Top 3 finishers in Open category, AND a team picture already framed to take home!
"Toddish McWong" steering the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team. I only started wearing the kilt at dragon boat races last year. It is a Maple Leaf Tartan made by Bear Kilts. Sonja and Jennifer (seat 10) in their first dragon boat regatta ever, and 4th race of the day. Dave Samis and Jonas in seat 9, Dan Seto in seat 8.
photo Ben Lee (see more photos at http://www.dragonboatwest.net/
Officially - there were 16 teams entered
Check out the Lotus Sports Club website
http://www.lotussports.com/page.cfm?PageID=11
Now what were the official results of the FINALS races? (this is from memory!)
Junior Category -
Lotus Juniors 1 or A (can't tell the names apart!)
Lotus Juniors A or 1
Women's Category
WOW - Women on Water (Ft. Langley)
Abreast in Barnet
Senior's Division -
FCRCC Grand Dragons
Dogwood Nothin' Dragons (Coquitlam)
The Eh Team
Dogwood Nothin' Dragons Challengers
FCRCC Grand Dragons (withdrew and did not race finals)
Mixed Adult -
Sudden Impact
SOAR - Spirit of a renegade (Ft. Langley)
Chilliwack Thunder Strokers (Chilliwack)
Pirates (Chilliwack)
Lotus Mixed
Gung Haggis Fat Choy
Smoke on the Water (Chiliwack) (withdrew and did not race finals)
