Row Row Row, Your Dragon Boat!

Also this past weekend we attended the inaugural Greater New Orleans International Dragon Boat Festival!

Held on the banks of the Tchefuncte River, organizers are hoping to make it an annual event with more and more teams participating!

This year they also had food courtesy of Blue Runner Canned Beans ( who also supplied some excellent tunes!) and Cafe Madisonville, but hope to expand next year to a full fledged racing and food fest!

So what is a dragon boat?

"A dragon boat is a very long and narrow canoe-style, human-powered boat. It is now used in the team paddling sport of dragon boat racing, which originated in China over 2000 years ago.

Dragon boats vary in length and crew size will vary accordingly, from small dragon boats with 10 paddlers, up to the massive traditional boats which have upwards of 50 paddlers, plus drummer and sweep! " Today when they transport the boats to the launch sites for the races, the tail and heads are taken off, and put back on before they go in the water-pretty neat to watch!

"The standard crew complement of a contemporary dragon boat is around 22, comprising 20 paddlers in pairs facing toward the bow of the boat, 1 drummer or caller at the bow facing toward the paddlers, and 1 sweep or tiller (helm) at the rear of the boat, although for races it is common to have just 18 paddlers." (The Red Dragon Team to the right actually had 20 members- 2 of them 'missed the boat' for the 500 meter race, yet they won easily). It's a VERY impressive sight to see these boats coming down the river!

"The drummer (caller) may be considered the "heartbeat" of the dragon boat, and leads the crew throughout a race with the rhythmic beating of a drum, to indicate the timing and frequency of paddling strokes (that is, the cadence, picking up the pace, slowing the rate, etc.) The caller may issue commands to the crew through a combination of hand signals and voice calls, and also generally exhorts the crew to perform at their peak. A caller/drummer is mandatory during racing events, but if he or she is not present during training, it is typical for the sweep to direct the crew." And no, you are NOT missing anything here- the drummer sits on a VERY small piece of wood (I hate to call it a seat it's SO small) and literally has ONLY the drum to hang on to, if the boat jostles too much!

" The paddlers sit facing forwards (unlike aft-facing seated rowers), and use a specific type of paddle which (unlike a rowing oar or sculling scull) is not rigged to the racing watercraft in any way. Therefore, Dragon boaters are paddlers not rowers or oarsmen/women."

And no, you're not seeing things to the right- dragon boat racing is almost equally divided between men and women- 45% are men and 55% are female (you GO girls)!

AND age (and size!) makes NO difference:
15 % are under 20 (in fact the Red Dragon's drummer was about 16!)
20 % are 20 - 34
35% are 35 - 44
20% are 45 - 59
5% are over 60

So it can be a FAMILY activity on the water OR watching from the shore!! Pretty cool, huh? For more info, check out the gwn dragionboat website for races in your area AND you can also see about participating as an individual in the Earth Dragon races, if you just want to try it out and see if you like it!

How did daughter like the races?