...and that's a wrap on the 2010 dragon boat season

That's all folks. You can now expect precisely 96.4% less blogging about dragon boat for the next few months as I just raced in my last regatta for the year. That's a lie, I can't predict the future (that well).

Anyway, roughly 60 teams took part at the Stratford regatta and although it's not one of the most competitive, the course is probably one of the best/worst one's I've raced. It's good because it's fairly narrow and spectators are actually really close to the action - at some parts of the course probably like 10m away.



It's bad because the river is actually curved and that in combination with the narrow course makes for some unfair lane advantages...there's only actually 4 lanes. For example there's a sandbar along one of the lanes and its really shallow at the far end. There's also huge swans scattered all across the river that don't even flinch at the sight of a dragon head. I even managed to jab my paddle into a rock. It was cringe-worthy, believe me.



Other than that, there's actually a road and a bike path that are right on the edge of the water. They close it down (obviously) and all the event related stuff if setup there. The camps go in the space behind the street, so the tent city is pretty damn small quite cozy though...



The Row-Bots managed to bronze it up bronze styles with a time of 2:32.10 in the C Division Final. We had a lot of tough battles but managed to squeak out some copper plated aluminum solid bronze out of it for our first medal of the year.



The other good thing is that since it's not an ultra competitive regatta and at the end of the season, most of the top teams don't show up at this one. So in the qualifiers you're less likely to get embarrassed the shit out of get dusted by the Mayfair Warriors or Jetstart.

You can check out the race videos HERE.