One of the things I did this summer was paddle in the Lake Superior Dragon Boat Festival's Dragon Boat Races. Clay and I signed up to paddle on the University team, which consisted of 22 paddlers, 1 drummer and 1 steersman.
Being adventurous and wanting to try all sorts of new things in Duluth, I thought the Dragon Boat Races would be a lot of fun. And they were! First off, we had practice on the Tuesday and Thursday before the race. Practice was a combination of laughing and groaning; laughing due to the extreme absurdity of paddling in sychronization with 21 other paddlers, and groaning because the end of the race seemed to be so far away (the race was only 450 yards).
The drummer sits at the front of the boat on a tiny chair and yells encouragement along with counting. The steersman was provided by the Rotary Club and basically ran all the practices.
On race day, we raced at 11:30 and 4:00. The best time from the two races would be the qualifying time for the finals. We did really well, coming in 51st out of 82 teams. And even though we felt we could have bettered our first time in the second race, a strong wind came up in the afternoon, making this dream impossible. :(
If you have the opportunity to watch or participate in a dragon boat race, I strongly recommend them. I think I will do it next year.
1 comment:
That does sound fun. Maybe I'll come visit Duluth for next year's Dragon races.
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