Lowell Race 2007 Write-up
Written by Rachel Belino
So, as expected, Lowell was definitely a unique experience this year, just as comparable to last year's. Actually, I dunno, maybe we topped last year's interesting experience...here are some of the highlights:
Groggy and half-awake, our team members arrived around 8 AM at the race site. Despite one park ranger and festival staff responding to us with "What, there's a boat race? What boat race?" we managed to set up camp near the lifeguard building. While we waited for the organizer to inform us of the race schedule, we watched the lifeguards practice their drills in the water. Little did we know how ominous this would seem later on!
Around noon, yup, you heard me, NOON, we finally had our first race. The traditional Laotian wooden boats were waiting...pretty much floating around like leaves in the water, no, I'm not kidding and I cannot emphasize enough the floating around like leaves part. We drew "straws" for which boat to get...the heavier more stable boat or the lighter less stable boat...and of course, we get the lighter less stable boat.
We pushed off from the beach area and got about halfway towards the race start when our boat flipped. Hooray for lifejackets! Kudos to those lifeguards, who were super quick to the rescue! Luckily, there were no unfortunate incidents, and our crew eventually continued onto race a time trial achieving the second fastest time behind last year's defending champs (the local team). But the ride wasn't over just yet, on the return paddle to the beach area, the festival steerer pointed the boat right at the wall and cracked the tip of the boat as we landed on the beach! Again, thankfully, there were no injuries.
Our next and last race of the day was against last year's defending champs and it turned out to be super close at the end but the local team managed to edge out Boston Fusion by a mere 2 seconds. At the end of the day, we placed 3rd out of 4 teams.
Congratulations to the other Boston team that competed this year, Paddle Oar Else, which was comprised of folks from State Street, Gund Kwok and AACA, including our very own Nancy Wong from DBCB! They managed to place 2nd overall!
All in all, it was lots of fun in a way and completely memorable. Here's to another successful merge between DBCB and Harvard Dudley! Go Boston Fusion!
