Dragonboat: Win as a team, Lose as a team

Let’s kick this off with some candy eye. My team, Phoenix, is Boat #3. This is the 200m Final, Division B (A being the highest-ranked), for Quebec Cup, the Provincial Championship and last competition of the season.

Most of you know I’ve been partaking in the sport with my University’s team for a while. If you don’t, you might want to read this article I wrote a while ago, as a Guest Post on Adam’s site. At that time, I was still a young fool and speaking proudly of feeling trashed. The challenges mentioned remain, though, I just have a different approach to them now. More on that later.

This season has been great. Despite many challenges, despite the fact that we lost a third of our recruits and experienced crew members during the winter season (one of the difficulties of being a University team), and despite a couple of set-backs, we have performed very well. As a team, we have learned a lot, too.

This year, I’ve also had the chance to lead the team as Captain. It was an honor, and also a great deal of learning.

In any case, I’ve been in this sport for 3 years now. I shall share some thoughts with you.

What I Love

Above all: the Team. Of all the team sports I have tried in my life (I have tried quite a good number of them), I have never seen any other for which teamwork, and the team’s spirit, are as important as they are in Dragonboat.

If you don’t work together, you lose.

However, I’ve been told time and again that the spirit found in Phoenix is hardly found in any other. So if you’re thinking to join a team, make sure you pick one that fits your vibe.

Next up, the racing adrenalin. I haven’t done many racing sports, let alone competitively; I can guess it’s pretty similar between racing sports, but definitely unique to them.

How do we human beings get so excited envisioning to finish 1/10th of a second ahead of our rivals, I truly have no idea. But it’s one of the most exciting things in the world. And that is a fact.

The chaos, and possible havoc, of a 2 kilometers race. To my knowledge, such kind of race is unique to Dragonboat and, most importantly, amazingly awesome.

A 2k race is done in multiple runs of 500 or 250 meters, depending on the event’s chosen format. This means turns. It is usually launched with 10-15 boats that start at 10 seconds intervals, the fastest-qualified boat going last. This means overtaking. And wash riding. Sometimes even collisions. Keep in mind that these boats, at full crew, weigh around 3000 lbs.

Energy dissipation. The presence of another object that prevents the dissipation of energy outward causes the energy to be reflected back. Same concept as depth and the energy dissipation downwards. You probably don’t feel it in marathon boats because their proximity and relative size is not the same as in dragonboat.

More information: Wash Riding – effect on the lead boat

Combining these elements together is a recipe for… well, many things. Here’s an example, with some of our turns at the Quebec Cup’s 2k race:

These were actually very clean, but in a previous race one of the steers fell in the water .

NEXT: What I learned, What I’d like to see change

To be continued.