You know...I personally expect to get BS'd on any given day - it's just a fact that in my life somehow someone somewhere will find a way to make me miserable for no legitimate reason at all. Did I forget to mention that someone backed into my car the other day and then skedaddled? Well that's another story...
So the haters decided to take it to the next level and BS my entire dragon boat team this time as they brought the hate all the way from Stankonia right into my own backyard. Not cool.
The bottom line is that although we won the A Consolation Final at Oaville (which is actually Glen Eden in Milton btw, wtf), we got penalized 1.5 seconds from a preliminary heat and ended up in 4th. Frak.
Ok fine. We pulled a noob move, that's real, but here's what happened: we were lining up, got to "ready, read" then the starter screamed "attention", and I mean startling scream, some of the boat took a stroke because it sounded like a go call, the judge called us out, but then decided to go ahead and shoot the cannon anyway and start the race despite what happened...
Normally when this type of thing happens and you have enough time to actually call out the one team that was at fault, they give you a warning then just line the boats up again for another fair start. This judge, who I'm guessingmight have been drinking moonshine in the bushes is doing it for the first time, decided to fire the start gun anyway despite all the doings that just transpired.
As a result, our one stroke allegedly moved us up 8-10 feet which is somehow a 1.5 seconds penalty. F**king weak and unrealistic.
Did I forget to mention that the the start judge is on shore about 15m to the right of the start line but also about 5-10 m behind it? So how the hell can he judge that distance anyway. Did I also forget to mention that he had to line up our second race twice because he messed up? He could have done the same for the first, but decided it would be more exciting to fix up a race like that. More likely that he decided I was too good looking and had to penalize us somehow - it was dumb.
Anyway, despite that cheese the weather held up and it was a solid day of racing. The thunder and lightning actually rolled in after our A Consolation Final. There was only the actual A Final to finish off the regatta but I'm not sure if they actually raced that race because I had to go home and immediately wash away that sorrow.
In other news....Vitaminwater was back but with smaller bottles and their (lame) Jenga game. After never ever seeing anyone ever buy or drink their product at a regatta or ever, I guess they figured out that giving away hundreds of bottles of their full sized product was not a smooth business move...so they decided to create a smaller version and give that away instead. Marketing genius.
It was my first time at this regatta and despite a totally misleading name it wasn't all that bad. It's a venue I'm more than familiar with and, like I said, pretty much right in my backyard.
We threw down a 2:15, 2:16 and a 2:15 (which got adjusted to a 2:17) in some pretty close races. When seeding works out right the winner is usually decided by hundredths of a second. Having that 1.5 second penalty was just total BS like when Tory sent Cally through that airlock like a biatch.
It wasn't all bad though because we ate well. Real well. It was the first time any of my teams planned it out and brought a BBQ with all the fixings and snacks. I had a sausage and a burger, and by my broad estimation that was about 2381 calories to power me for the final race. It was glorious, and much better than the usual fare you get at these type of events. Much better.
We were no match for that one team who brought actual chicken and a full blown industrial size charcoal grill to feed their team. Outclassed. But at least they actually deserved to win that one...
Anyway, like I said: we won but lost. What a way to go, especially at our last regatta of the year.
Just for the record though, our captains and coach did try to reason with the judges. I'll admit that I've never read though a dragon boat rule book but if we make a mistake in one race, shouldn't it affect that race? Even disqualifying us from the race would have put us in a final based on our second race, which is pretty consistent with the first. I dunno, we messed up but that judge kinda screwed us too right...
We could haveeasily probably sandbagged our second heat to balance out that time to at least give us a chance in the final (after penalty), but leave it to us to not hold back and land us within the top 10 teams in that regatta.
Whatever. That's life. Shit gets real, then you die.
Well at least my Saturdays are free now. Epictember, here I come...
So the haters decided to take it to the next level and BS my entire dragon boat team this time as they brought the hate all the way from Stankonia right into my own backyard. Not cool.
The bottom line is that although we won the A Consolation Final at Oaville (which is actually Glen Eden in Milton btw, wtf), we got penalized 1.5 seconds from a preliminary heat and ended up in 4th. Frak.
Ok fine. We pulled a noob move, that's real, but here's what happened: we were lining up, got to "ready, read" then the starter screamed "attention", and I mean startling scream, some of the boat took a stroke because it sounded like a go call, the judge called us out, but then decided to go ahead and shoot the cannon anyway and start the race despite what happened...
Normally when this type of thing happens and you have enough time to actually call out the one team that was at fault, they give you a warning then just line the boats up again for another fair start. This judge, who I'm guessing
As a result, our one stroke allegedly moved us up 8-10 feet which is somehow a 1.5 seconds penalty. F**king weak and unrealistic.
Did I forget to mention that the the start judge is on shore about 15m to the right of the start line but also about 5-10 m behind it? So how the hell can he judge that distance anyway. Did I also forget to mention that he had to line up our second race twice because he messed up? He could have done the same for the first, but decided it would be more exciting to fix up a race like that. More likely that he decided I was too good looking and had to penalize us somehow - it was dumb.
Anyway, despite that cheese the weather held up and it was a solid day of racing. The thunder and lightning actually rolled in after our A Consolation Final. There was only the actual A Final to finish off the regatta but I'm not sure if they actually raced that race because I had to go home and immediately wash away that sorrow.
In other news....Vitaminwater was back but with smaller bottles and their (lame) Jenga game. After never ever seeing anyone ever buy or drink their product at a regatta or ever, I guess they figured out that giving away hundreds of bottles of their full sized product was not a smooth business move...so they decided to create a smaller version and give that away instead. Marketing genius.
It was my first time at this regatta and despite a totally misleading name it wasn't all that bad. It's a venue I'm more than familiar with and, like I said, pretty much right in my backyard.
We threw down a 2:15, 2:16 and a 2:15 (which got adjusted to a 2:17) in some pretty close races. When seeding works out right the winner is usually decided by hundredths of a second. Having that 1.5 second penalty was just total BS like when Tory sent Cally through that airlock like a biatch.
It wasn't all bad though because we ate well. Real well. It was the first time any of my teams planned it out and brought a BBQ with all the fixings and snacks. I had a sausage and a burger, and by my broad estimation that was about 2381 calories to power me for the final race. It was glorious, and much better than the usual fare you get at these type of events. Much better.
We were no match for that one team who brought actual chicken and a full blown industrial size charcoal grill to feed their team. Outclassed. But at least they actually deserved to win that one...
Anyway, like I said: we won but lost. What a way to go, especially at our last regatta of the year.
Just for the record though, our captains and coach did try to reason with the judges. I'll admit that I've never read though a dragon boat rule book but if we make a mistake in one race, shouldn't it affect that race? Even disqualifying us from the race would have put us in a final based on our second race, which is pretty consistent with the first. I dunno, we messed up but that judge kinda screwed us too right...
We could have
Whatever. That's life. Shit gets real, then you die.
Well at least my Saturdays are free now. Epictember, here I come...
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