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Archive for June 26th, 2006

Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival

June 26, 2006 @ 09:04 By: gordon Category: General

This past weekend was the Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival weekend.� The weather was perfect for racing on both days — not too hot, not too cold, not too wet and not too windy.� We couldn’t have asked for better conditions.

I was steering for the PCL Singapore Slings who were competing in the Hospitality and Tourism challenge cup.� Our first race Saturday morning, which determined the winner of the cup, saw us clock a time of 2:22.76, a very respectable time which won us the Hopitality and Tourism Challenge Cup.

Our second race on Saturday, which was the last race of the day,�ended up with a�time of 2:29.� A lot of factors contributed to this slower time, such as there being a bit of a headwind and rougher water, having sat around for the whole afternoon waiting for the race, but mostly it was because there was a bit of chaos at the start line and we couldn’t hear the starter.� We had about 1 second’s warning on the start of the race, but the team quickly got in time within 4 seconds.� Later, we learned that every boat in that race wanted to file a protest because no one could hear the starter clearly.

Our best time from Saturday, 2:22.76, put us in 44th place out of 190 teams, so we advanced to Sunday.

The first race on Sunday saw us log a time of 2:21.00, almost 2 seconds faster than our best time from the previous day.� We were very happy with this time, but felt we could do better.� One of the people on the team challenged us to break 2:20 with the incentive that he would buy a round of beer if we did.� With an incentive like that, we finished our next race with a time of 2:19.93.� Heading back into the dock after the race, our caller had us chanting “Beer!�Beer! Beer!” rather than the more mundane “Hit! Hit! Hit!” she usually used to keep the paddling rate even.�

Overall, it was a great festival and I really enjoyed steering for them.� So much so that I will be steering for them throughout the summer in preparation for The�Fall 400 in Carleton Place in September.

Many thanks to everyone who sponsored me!� It helped raise a lot of money for good causes!


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