Gung Harrison Fat Choy!

We all had a lot of fun at the inaugural Fraser Valley Dragon Boat Festival – held at Harrison Lake.

All the paddlers integrated very well.
The Drunkn Dragon paddlers brought lots of humour and teasing to the
boat.  The CC Riders bring some centering, The GVRD 44 Cheeks
paddler/steers brought his camera and love for the team.  And our
GHFC paddlers provide the structure and the foundation.

And when combined – a heckuva lotta fun!
Our veteran paddlers shared their experience and supported our rookies,
and our newbie paddlers rose to the occasion.  Together we won our
first race as a team and it pushed us for medals.

Here's my breakdown of the day…
to share with our paddlers who couldn't make it!

There were 24 teams are randomly seeded.  

First race.  We place 2nd.
uneven – Bob says the backs are pushing the fronts

2nd race, We place 3rd.
I explain to the team – that race 2 is the race to
experiment as I switch the lead strokes.
More uneven – Bob says front half and back half were
paddling two different races.  Our slowest race.

24 teams are now settled into 3 categories.
2 heats of women's division
2 heats of Division 2
2 heats of Division 1

3rd race
This is the race that matters.  Only 1st and 2nd place
teams move to the medal round.
We are 7th seed for Division 2.
Switch the lead strokes back – no gap.
I pop into seat 5.
Dave Samis is steering now.

We have our best race ever!
Our time is 2:34.69
We win our first race of the year!
We are now the top seed going into Div 2 Finals
We are racing for medals
Deb is bouncing up and down she is so happy.
She has drummed a winning team!
Bob has to calm her down.


4th Race
Division 4 finals
at the start line – we discover that I don't have a pfd on.  shhh!
Dog fight from start to finish.
We are boat #2 – second from shore.
I paddle the right side, and I can see Boat #1 slowly
pull away from us.  I can hear the drum from boat #3 beside us,
ahead of us, behind us.  I am hoping that it is beside me –
because that would mean they are 5 seats behind our drum.

We cross the finish line.  Only Boat #1 is cheering.
Nobody else is certain of the finish order.
We congratulate everybody on our races.
Bob is at the Finish lane tent with Trev, as DBA was doing the finish line.  We are 4th, by just over 1 second.

Everybody is feeling good about the team, and their
performance.  We gave it our all.

What else?

Mizz Drag-On-Boat contest.
Ian Paul of the Fraser Valley Dragon Boat Club comes by the tent before
the lunch break asking teams to enter a contestant.  Both Bob and
I have our kilts in the cars. I ask the team to vote on having Bob or
myself as our team contestant.  I ask people to put up their hands
to vote for Bob dressing up.  Nobody puts up their hand.  I
ask people to vote for me to dress up.  Everybody puts up their
hand.  As I start to head off to the car to change, Tammy 
offers me her pink bikini swim suit.  Enough said… except that
Jody heard people say that they thought I should have won.
Oh well… what can we do when we make up something on the fly. 
The contestants who won wore evening dresses and put a lot of effort
into their costumes and deserved their tiaras.

Next practice Wednesday 6pm
next race – Richmond or Vernon July 23(if you want to hop another boat – no official GHFC entries)
next race after that…
San Francisco
Vancouver Taiwanese Races

Cheers, Todd

The Harrison Festival of the Arts,
has always sounded real cool. But I have never managed to find my way
out to Harrison since 1989.  This year there is a dragon boat
race, the inaugural Fraser Valley Dragon Boat Festival put on in conjunction with the Festival of the Arts.  Looks like I will finally get there.

Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team
will race with a recreational crew bolstered by some paddlers from CC
Riders and Drunkin' Dragons.  Our practice felt pretty solid on
Wednesday night with only 16 people in the boat.  I think we will
have a good time.

Two hours East of Vancouver is the idyllic resort community of Harrison Hot Spring,
known for its famous hot springs and the annual sand castle
competition.  I first visited the public springs when I was a
pre-teen.  I thought it was crowded.  But in my twenties, I
learned to search for the untamed wild hot springs such as Meagre
Creek, Halcyon, Hot Springs Cove and Hot Springs Island.  Today in
my 40's, I still resist learning to say “Yes” when my girlfriend offers
to take me to the Harrison Resort for a weekend.

Dragonboats and Hot Springs… could be a deadly combination –
especially if you throw in the words “party” and “wineries.” 
Maybe we will find a way to stay overnight in Harrison afterall.

for articles on the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team:see http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/29/1847817.html

Hi everybody,

Lots of fun with the obstacle course.
We had a great start going through the slalom… until I realized I had
run out of buoys, and wondered what I was supposed to be doing.

First instructions said, go to the right of the first buoy… I went to the right of the buoy marked “1”
(Oh… they meant go past the the yellow buoy, and go to the right of the orange buoy with the little boat taped to it.”

Instructions said “Go around the squatter boats.”
So… I headed around the squatter boats…
I didn't realize I had already done that with the little boats taped to the buoys in the slalom course – duh!”

Our final race time was 6:3? most teams were finishing in 4:?? or
5″??  Obviously the later teams would do better after watching the
first teams.  We were the 3rd team out there, and so we did not
have much of a chance to see what the other teams were doing, or to
plan for it. Winner of the $3000 draw prize was Team Momentuum – an all
women's recreational team – which proved that everybody had a chance to
win.

Anyways…. sorry for making you all paddle so much.
We had fun, Great spirit on the team, very welcoming to the paddlers
from CBC, Hydro Dragons + Coro from Abreast in a Boat.  These
paddlers were very appreciative of being welcomed in and felt
comfortable to do more races with us – such as possibly Harrison and
Vernon.  Wonderful expression of Gung Haggis warmth and spirit!

Great jobs to the three sets of lead paddlers, Everybody did a fine
job… Deb gave us great humour and confidence.  Steering was good
(other than the slalom course).  Picking up the plastic animal –
that was funny!  We did a good job!

Our time for the 1000 m. was 6:57.  Lots of teams finished 5:??
one team did 7:00+ Team Sauder with more paddlers than us.  We did
very well with 16 paddlers.

Not sure of the times for the 250m or 500m races.  Again – very
decent for 17 paddlers.  We used the regatta to have fun and
change up lead strokes for each race.  People responded to the
challenges.  Everybody is learning to paddle “outside the box.”

I'd do it again – that was fun!
But I would still complain that the Saturday regatta format is not kind
to novice or low-level recreation teams like us – who constantly must
lose for the benefit of the Comp and Hi-Rec teams.

We race next week for medals at Harrion Lake in the inaugural Fraser Vally Dragon Boat Festival.

Cheers, Todd

RESULTS

Saturday
500 Metre Final – 6-16 Boats – Winner gets 2006 Alcan Entry
1. 1:58.720 FCRCC Mixed
2. 2:00.350 Pacific Reach
3. 2:10.180 Specialty Subaru WRX
4. 2:11.750 TD Lightning

DragonZone practice prize goes to Vancity Thunder.

Sunday
Obstacle Course 6-16
Pacific Reach had overall fastest time at 4:03.xxx.

Team Momentum was winner of $3000 prize.

for articles on the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team:see http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/29/1847817.html