Dragonboat festival - Novice Cup

Tonight was our first dragonboat race ever! Every single one of us were rookies, yet we took to the water to earn some respect and experience in the Novice Cup Challenge. At first, the race grounds were chaos and we didn't know what to do or where to go. Eventually we figured out all the administrative stuff and hoofed our team over to the docks where we waited for our heat - the third. It was great that we weren't the first heat, because we were able to watch a couple races before we had to climb in the boat and act like we knew what we were doing! The dragonboats were all decked out with ornate dragon heads and tails on the front and back, as well as a HUGE drum at the front. Soon, it was our turn to race! We strapped on our lifevests and hoisted our paddles, then loaded as usual. After a skillfully executed launch (by yours truly) we headed downstream to set ourselves up in lane 3. A speedboat with the race marshal directed the three boats so that each was sitting at the start line - this took several minutes of josseling up and downstream, but eventually they blew the horn. And we were off! All of our practice really paid off, as our timing was perfect, our power was consistent and our start was strong. Now, unbeknownst to us, lane 3 was the faster lane throughout the evening, with less current and drag in the water. However, regardless we still really hauled it when the starter gave us the signal, and maintained our speed for the duration of the race. By the end, we were 3 boat lengths ahead of the boat in lane 2. Right on!! Our time was 2min 18 secs! We were so proud of ourselves, and even really impressed, because we expected the race to take us about 3 and a half minutes! That's what we had been practicing throughout our training.

We will find out tomorrow if we race in the final of the Novice Cup, in addition to our two other races. The top three times out of the three heats race in the final, and we might be the third. There were two other teams that I know of with better times than ours - 2min 6 secs and 2 min 8secs (both in lane 3 too). It's almost too bad that there is such inequality between lanes - makes it hard to compete evenly with teams of the same skill level. Here are some pictures of the team and the river. The boats that are racing aren't us, because we didn't have anyone there to take pictures of us, but just imagine it was.