Dragon Boat Racing

I'll admit it, I had never heard of Dragon Boat racing up to a month ago. But when I saw the announcement in our employee newsletter soliciting participants for Boston's Dragon Boat Festival, I was tempted to sign up immediately. You didn't need any experience, all costs were covered by my company and it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So once I convinced Andrew (who had to drop out once we realized the practices were at 6 pm, which would be impossible for him to make) and Phu to join me, it was a no-brainer to sign up!

Which brings me to today, the first practice for my company's Dragon Boat racing team.

Although it was a pain in the butt to find parking near MIT's Pierce Boathouse, it was so worth it to step onto the dock and see our boat waiting for us:



Once equipped with our paddles, Phu and I were ready to go:




We formed lines based on our seating in the boat and received directions from the Dock Staff Volunteer. We learned the proper way to hold the paddle and commands such as:

• Hold Water - Paddlers should stick their paddles in the water to slow/stop the boat.
• Ready Position/Paddles Up - Paddles above the water, reaching forward.
• Go/Take it away - Command to start paddling
• Way enough/Let it run - Stop paddling and let the boat coast to a stop.
• Starting position/Ready, Ready - command in a start situation for paddles to be placed in position for the first stroke (usually completely submerged in the water)

Here's some other teams who had their practices the same time we did:

I can't tell you how amazing it was to be out on the water and to realize that we were actually moving a boat around the Charles. Although I ended up looking at the paddle in front of me for most of the time (the proper way to keep up with their Strokers and their timing), I did get some beautiful views of Boston like the one below:

And I'm happy to report that although the Charles looks dark, the water seemed clean - at least I hope it is, since we all got splashed with it.

I'm super excited about doing this, and as our last two mandatory practices are two weeks away, I'm hoping I don't forget everything I learned today. I think my team has a good chance of winning some races if we continue on doing as well as we did in practice today!