Dragon Boat Festival 2008

Macau International Dragon Boat Races: June 7th, 2008, 2000 m race. Thunderstorms and rain turn the daylight into dark. (See more photos of Macau)

Macau offers a prime and modern water sport venue with perfect conditions and plenty of space on land for crews and spectators. The racecourse was build with Dragon Boat Racing on mind and is situated between the Macau Tower and the city’s Casino packed skyline.

In compliance with the IDBF Rules and Standards, on that day the 2000 m races were held while I was there. Unfortunately it was extremely bad weather with rainfall much dense than you would expect when taking a shower. The races needed to be interrupted due to almost no visibility – again, because of rain!

However, not for the paddlers in the boats, but for everybody on land there was plenty of shelter and in addition raincoats were provided! That’s simply a big WOW! Despite the weather, it was a nice, very welcoming atmosphere.

I didn’t follow up the results, but this was a real and exciting sport event, which I would recommend for anybody from where ever in the world, who is keen on testing his racing abilities in a international comparible and Asian evironment.

Verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED SPORT EVENT

Rushing back to Hong Kong on the same day and arrving late night, the next morning of the actual Dragon Boat Festival day, I beslept a little and missed the opportunity of taking pictures from HKIPC making dragon boat history at the traditional Aberdeen Fishermen Races.

By the old way ladies were not allowed on dragon boats at all. Well, we all know that this has been relaxed since a few decades ago, although there are still races around strictly following the tradition. However, the relaxation so far only referred to the 20 men and smaller boats and certainly no women were allowed on the Big Dragon, the 50 men dragon boat.

For the Aberdeen Dragon Boat Races, the Fishermen invited for the first time ever the ladies of the Hong Kong Island Paddle Club to perform in a mixed 50 men crew. Now, that’s a big, big honor!!! – And it caused HKIPC a little bit a headache. Why?

Well, when the Fishermen’s invitation came, HKIPC had signed up already for the Macau Dragon Boat Races. Since HKIPC is one of the teams going to the Club Crew World Championships in August in Penang / Malaysia, the Macau race would have been the perfect preparation and test for them.

To make it short, HKIPC finally decided to pull out from Macau and to follow the invitation for Aberdeen.
My outmost respect to HKIPC for this tough, but good decision, which clearly shows a great commitment to the local Hong Kong community bonds.
Both, the Fishermen and HKIPC certainly made a huge step in Dragon Boat History.

Shame and blame on me for missing it! However I’ve still been there and took photos of the event, which has nothing to do with international racing rules, but still being outmost demanding for sportive performances. Racing in here means being up against the Fishermen, who are “born with a paddle in their hands.”

If you are keen on experiencing the true tradition of the Dragon Boat Festival with exciting and eye catching races displayed in all the colors this wonderful sport has to offer at its roots, this is one of the events to go and therefore my verdict is:

While on Festival Day there are many other Dragon Boat Races held in Hong Kong, like for example in Discovery Bay, Mui Wo, Peng Chau, Sai Kung, Sha Tin, Tai Po, Tuen Mun and so on, which actually all deserve attention, I continued to the international best known and in terms of the number of participating teams one of the biggest events, the Stanley International Dragon Boat Championships at the beautiful Stanley Beach in the very South of Hong Kong Island.

Despite the spectator crowds of last year and with 208 teams being rushed through 52 heats and the organizer stating that the capacity of the venue has been absolutely reached, this year they still topped it with now 230 teams. Lucky enough that the spectator numbers with estimated 10000 were by some 5000 people less compared to last year. Otherwise, at least me, I wouldn’t have known anymore how to move around.

While the event is definitely a must-see for the dragon boat tourist and this possibly is the world’s most famous, commercialized dragon boat carnival, I do believe downscaling it to about 180 teams could only benefit the quality of the event without harming the unique party atmosphere. The allover problem is that the event grew tremendously over the past few years. The bay and the beach, where the Stanley Dragon Boat Championships are held, didn’t grow and won’t grow.

With so many teams competing during only one day and with limited space available, the number of lanes was increased year by year causing each lane to become more and more narrow. Combined with the fact that you are racing from the sea towards the beach with waves coming in, you may be prepared for being driven off the course just to cross into another lane and colliding with a boat racing next to you. In my opinion the current 12 narrow lanes should be reduced to 8 wider lanes.

However, first steps in downscaling the event perhaps can be seen in the wopping 10500 HKD, that’s about 1300 USD, which need to be paid that a team can participate.

While the money actually is for a whole package, which includes the registration fee, one dry bag, a T-Shirt for each team member and 10 hours boat usage for training, everybody has to pay it. There is no choice for registration only!

On the one hand quite some teams are happy with the offer, on the other hand there are also quite some teams who don’t need the package and also actually are not to keen on participating in Stanley because it is way to crowded, but they have to sign up due to their sponsors demand. Those teams are simply ripped off the money of which they otherwise could make much better use for their team and the sport.

Having the choice of only paying the registration fee can easily mean that a team could sign up for two to three additional races in a season.

Coming back to the event itself, yes there are certain points you can complain about, but most people come here for the fun and fun they had.

For the racing, which, in a personal view, I don’t see it in compliance with IDBF standards, it still is a challenge on its own and it is not easy to become the Champion in here. When reaching the finals you are up against the very strongest competitors out of a total of 230 teams and the team who wins this definetly has given a great performance and deserves all the sportive respect, which is given this year to the ROYAL X Team.

Taking the critics afore mentioned into account, but also recognizing the efforts needed to hold such an event, I give it the verdict:

I hope the organizer is not to upset about it. He, as everybody else too, is assured a warm welcome when commenting this article in the Forum of Dragon Boat Net.

The Stanley Dragon Boat Championships are absolutely an important and very special festival event in the dragon boat scene.

As compensation it also is my honor to give the Street Party on Stanley’s Bar Street in the evening after the races the verdict:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED PARTY

Anybody being in Hong Kong on that day shouldn’t miss it.

Dragon Boat Festival 2008?

Dragon Boat Festival 2008?