|
Written by Rachel Belino
|
|
Friday, 09 October 2009 10:42 |
|
Hey DBCB,
Congratulations to the Shanghai crew for representing Boston in China last weekend! The crew is bringing back a SWEET cash prize for the club, which will go towards the funds we're raising to buy a new boat!
The 10-paddler mixed crew raced their hearts out against 14 other teams in Qing Pu, about 20 mins from Shanghai. The race was an invitational race for teams to compete in an Open division and not surprisingly, it attracted extremely tough competition. To mention just a few teams that were present: the national dragon boat teams for China and Macau; teams from Vancouver and Montreal Canada; Hong Kong; Germany; university teams from the Philippines, Taiwan and Southern California.
The boats were wood 10-person dragon boats, very tippy, heavy and the steering oar blade was much wider, almost like a big paddle. The race venue was set in a public park in Qing Pu where a main stage was set up for the local government VIPs and the sports association who sponsored the race. Although the 500-meter race was billed as 500 meters, the actual race course was more like 300 - 400 meters. Our 10 paddlers raced a thrilling first heat against a local Chinese team and a team from Hamburg, Germany, placing 3rd with a time of 1'49''63. It was a close race at the end though. In our "500-meter" semi-final, we managed to beat the all-male team from Hamburg, placing 3rd with a time of 1'49''37. Our final didn't go so well after having had a long lunch break and paddling to the main stage and back for the official opening ceremony in the afternoon, waiting at the main stage, confusion at the docks, etc., and we had a rough start, but the race was close the entire way against the same competitors we faced in our previous races, and we placed 3rd with a time of 1'51''31.
In the 2500 meter rounding race, our endurance training and practice with turns paid off! The race was a staggered start with our division racing 7 teams. We started off in 7th place but finished 5th ahead of 2 teams, with a time of 19'08''56!!!! In this race, we were pretty much breathing down the necks of the team from Hamburg. If the race rules had not prevented turning on the inside lane, our crew would have easily over-taken them on several turns; there were 2 times, our crew let it run on the turns to avoid passing Hamburg on the turns and breaking the rules.
At the end, our crew raced 4 times in one day, including the 2500 meter rounding race. WAY TO GO DBCB!!!!!! The team paddled their best in every single race and I'm so very proud of the effort they put in! You should have seen them DBCB, the crew showed some serious grit!
Huge cheers to Nikki, our Team Manager and Race Coordinator Extraordinaire, who managed every little detail among a thousand details to get our crew to China! She makes race coordination and team management look easy and effortless!!!
Big props to Claire who acted as our travel liaison with the tour guides, and used her expert bargaining skills, connections, patience and charisma to get us deals on airfare and the group travel tours!
BIG thanks to Jack for being our team intepreter and DBCB representative at the mayor's greeting when the teams first arrived.
Thanks to our cheering squad in Shanghai: Rosemary (Raphael's wife), Jack and Bella!!!!
Last but certainly in no way the least...TONS OF KUDOS to the crew who raced their best and made this fantastic trip a reality!!
DBCB paddlers:
Nikki
Khoa
Laurinda
Mike M.
Jacek
Claire
Ashley Wo.
Gim
Non-DBCB paddlers:
Steve C. (LRDB)
Raphael (DC Dragons)
Steerer: Daniel (UC Irvine), Rachel
Drummer: Tom, Rachel
See you at practice next Thursday!
Rachel
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 01 March 2010 15:05 |
|
|
Written by DBCB Site Administrator
|
|
Friday, 28 August 2009 16:31 |
|
Dear DBCB members,
Thank you again very much to those who competed with DBCB at Hartford this past weekend! Despite the extreme hot weather and fierce competition, the DBCB crew was able to achieve a decent performance. Out of the 16 premier mixed teams, the DBCB ranked 9th in the 500m race (for the 200m race, I am waiting for the official times). The ranking itself may not appear to be that amazing, but considering the fact that we were competing with some of the very best teams in US, including DCH Racing team I and team II, Metro Athletic Dragons, Xtreme NY, NY Wall Street Dragon, and National Capital Area Women’s Paddling Association, it was a huge achievement from a team who has two new co-captains, two new strokes, as well as two paddlers and one drummer who have never competed in any dragon boat race before. More importantly, over the weekend, all team members put in all their efforts and were able to collectively figure out ways to improve our timing (for the 200m race, we improved from 1:07 to 1:00, and for the 500m race, we improved from 2:37 to 2:30). I have to emphasize that this was a great team effort, and we could not have done this without any one of you.
I also need to take this opportunity to thank Khoa, the race coordinator and the co-captain. He has done a fantastic job organizing the race, and taking care of all the race logistics. Dan, Claire and Ashley, thank you very much for taking care of our breakfast and lunch. Kevin and Mike, thank you for taking care of the team entertainment. Donna and Dana, thank you for the nice restaurant suggestion. I also need to thank our two new paddlers: Xandria and Jacek. This was their first dragon boat race, and they were both real good team players and showed real good sportsmanship. Last but definitely not least, I have to thank Tom for willing to be our drummer. I certainly appreciate your effort, and I hope that you have got your voice back.
This was my first time taking the responsibility of a captain, and I hope that I did not disappoint any one of you. I also hope that you all enjoyed this competition. For me, it was a very rewarding experience. I especially enjoyed all the post-race meetings, when we all tried to evaluate how we did and tried to come up with ways to improve. That was the time when I feel the whole team was together. As a whole team, I believe that we were all very pleased to see the improvements that we had made over the weekend. I hope to see you all in future practices and races.
Lick
Your proud Hartford co-captain
p.s. thank you for the ice water shower!
|
|
Last Updated on Friday, 09 October 2009 10:49 |
|
Written by Rachel Belino
|
|
Monday, 13 July 2009 16:54 |
Hi DBCB,
Ithaca was...well...what can I say, it was a rain-out!
The weather on Saturday morning started off decent with partly cloudy skies and temps in the 70s. The forecast predicted scattered thunderstorms so we pitched our tents and draped our big blue tarp over them to prepare for the rain -- it was quite an eyesore but it proved to be the smart thing to do once the rain hit in the afternoon!
In the morning, we got off to a strong start! DBCB won our first 2 back-to-back races which were 250m time trials, with an average time of 1:14. We faced good competition from NY Wall Street Dragons and a team called Puff Puff Dragons. After lunch, we switched gears to the 500m distance in our next race. We faced a tough battle against PDBA II (Philadelphia Dragon Boat Association) and the Gorges Dragons (Ithaca's home team) where we came in 3rd. The race officials haven't yet posted the times for our last race so I couldn't include it in this write-up.
The festival's race program scheduled three 500m races for each division after the time trials but we only ended up racing one 500m. Right after our 500m race around 1:30 PM, the race officials suspended all racing until 3 PM. They had received reports of heavy thunderstorms coming through the area within the hour and asked us to shelter in our tents or nearby restaurants until the storms passed. With the weather delay, the race officials had to make some drastic cuts to the race program as the Community Division hadn't even raced after their time trial earlier in the day. There were 4 divisions (women's, community, mixed and open) so there was still a ton of racing left on the schedule but not enough time to complete everything due to the storm delay. One of the cuts they made was to the Mixed Division, which meant we would only get to race one more 500m, which would count as our final, rather than a semi-final then a final, as originally scheduled.
While the rain had started at 2 PM, it wasn't until about 3:30 PM that the heavy rain, strong winds, thunder and lightning rolled in. Most of our crew headed to cars for safety while a few of us stayed in the tent. Amidst the thunder and lightning, the race officials announced there was a 4:10 PM cut-off for continuing the races. At that point, I asked the team to pack it up and call it a day. Most of us then headed to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner.
We expected to see stiff competition at Ithaca from the Northeast teams that attended and they no doubt brought it. PDBA, MAD, DCH came with 2 mixed crews each, NY Wall Street brought 3 crews. Teams from NJ and Washington D.C. were present as well. I don't have the exact results on me but I think I recall the PDBA women's team pulled in an average time of around 1:07 in their time trials. The fastest time trial average was 1:04 from the PDBA mixed crew. This race is definitely one of the competitive venues in the Northeast. It certainly offers itself up as an arena in which we can benchmark ourselves against great teams. Let's bring it next year DBCB!!!
HUGE THANKS goes out to Dan T. for race coordinating this event for us! Special thanks to Ken, Phil and Brett who helped pack up our tents and gear. Big thanks to Nikki for transporting equipment and supplies; and to Nancy for helping out with uniforms. As always, kudos to Stef for her race analysis and counsel to our crew. Props to Vanessa for coming with the team to hang out and support us; and to Doug's family and friends, and Ron's family, for being our cheer squads! A big shout-out to Alex T, Laura H's friend, for coming out that day to drum for us!
Last but not least by any measure for sure, thanks to our entire Ithaca crew! Give them a pat on the back when you see them next!
Brett (steerer)
Khoa
Dana
Stef C
Phil
Nikki
Rachel
Laura H
Laura M
Jen C
Doug U
Friso
Steve N
Dan T
Ron T
Dan G
Jared M
Nancy N
Vanetta
Ken M
Dave H
Alex T (drummer)
See you at practice!
Rachel
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 01 September 2009 14:32 |
|
Written by DBCB Site Administrator
|
|
Sunday, 28 June 2009 16:28 |
|
Thanks to everyone for an awesome time in Toronto! I'm amazed at the amount of sleepless activity we crammed into that one weekend and still came home from it all with medals.
Our first race was almost comical given the monsoon like conditions. Pelting wind & rain turned the entire festival into a soaked-out sod-bog. People (ourselves included) were doing whatever it took to stay motivated, and I still remember how we emerged energetically out into the soggyness to do our 1st race...only to find out some fuse had blown somewhere, relay communications had croaked, and the whole mess was already running a half-hour behind.
Sunday the weather turned spectacular. Michael Alimurung really came thru when he conjured up a deal with fest organizers to add 2 paddlers. Coupled with the festival steerer and Vanetta flying in after midnite, this gave us 4 potential alternates. We used all of this in our 1st race Sunday to snatch bronze medals in the International Championships with an excellent time of 2:12.33! Noteable is that in addition to our festival steerer & drummer, we had 3 folks who'd never raced with us before, and one who only started dragonboating a week prior. So everyone really put in their all.
Our final finish of 2:13.13 was also pretty fast. Ironically enough, our time was ahead of 3 boats in the D division (the class above ours). So we would actually have placed better if we'd competed one division up, go figure. Most noteworthy is that all our Sunday times are 5 to 6 seconds faster than last year; a massive improvement overall for everyone.
Most importantly i got the sense that everybody really had a blast on this trip. If you put in your best and enjoyed it to the fullest, then i think that's the most any of us could have hoped for. Thanks again to all who came; it was a pleasure to paddle with every one of you.
Special thanks to:
- Collins for getting his passport within 8 hours
- Igor, Marta, Friso, April, Mike M, and Laura H for driving
- Garhay for filling in leadership after my voice went dead
- Mike M for joining at the very last second
- Laura M for organizing lineup
- Vanessa for surviving 20 hours in a car full of dorky dudes
- Julia (and Livingroot's) multi-team support to rep for Boston
- Katie for starting off dboat with the world's 2nd biggest race
- Liz, Paul, Stan, and the fest drummers who joined in Toronto
- Vab, Lick, and Kevin for flying all the way
- Vanetta for not only flying but making it 1:30am Sunday.
Extra thanks to Michael A for outstanding recruitment and especially for doubling my alternate strategy; we would simply not have pulled the times we did without his help. Highest thanks to co-captain Laura Hagen; this race would never have happened without her.
To everyone, it was a great honor to team with you in the 2009 Toronto International Dragonboat Festival. Please join us for food & drinks after Thursday's practice at McCormick & Shmicks; right now weather is looking nice that evening (finally). Lets strongly consider Toronto again in 2010!
Kristof
Captain - DBCB Drachenfurie, Team Toronto 2009
|
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 03 March 2010 17:31 |
|
Written by Rachel Belino
|
|
Thursday, 18 June 2009 09:23 |
I hope everyone is recovering well from our very busy weekend! This was our club's first big race of 2009 and I just want to say how proud I am of the effort put in by DBCB. Attached are the official results from the festival with a quick summary below. Of course, results on paper don't capture the moments from Sunday and do them justice. We raced hard and with lots of heart this weekend. GO DBCB!
DIRTY WATER won their semi-finals against local team Sun Life and Gotham Thunder (a NYC team) then advanced to the C Major Division Finals, where they placed 2nd against a local team called "The Boat for Kids Who Don
Attachments:
 BHKDBF.pdf | [Boston race 2009 official results] | 111 Kb |
|
|
Last Updated on Friday, 28 August 2009 16:33 |
|
|
Race Results
