Dragon Boat Race

It was a lovely Sunday (2-Sept-07) morning and my aunt was suggesting the previous night that we go to the dragon boat race held at Hanningfield Reservoir nearby. It is an event for the 50th anniversary celebration of Essex & Suffolk Water. Before going out, aunt's friend called to ask for extra hand for her team as their drummer was injured and was unable to attend. Aunt suggested me....

I was shocked and surprised that me, a spectator, suddenly turn into a participant!! So we head out. It was amazing seeing so many people at the lakeside waiting for the event to start off. The main control tent of the event

There were actually 16 teams participating but one of them pulled out... or chickened out? So this is aunt's friend, Caroline, who's very friendly. Our team members were all wearing viking horns.

And this is our team... named "Hidden Tiger Crouching Dragon Boat" What do you think about that name? cool? Soon it's our turn... and there we are listening to the briefing and preparing ourselves. That white t-shirt guy with 2 hands stretching is me. I'm standing in front as I'm their drummer.. We compete against the green shirt guys who were beside us.
So we went off... and this is the first round...
Crossing the finishing line, just a close win, with our time nearly at the bottom of the chart. LOL~~
This were other teams competing...
This is the second round for our team and we had a great win over the same team in first round... but sadly our time only improved 0.21 seconds... we had fun though.
Then it's time to have lunch and I had this. Chinese stir fry with sweet & sour chicken, costing £4.50. The other choices are with vegetables or curry. There were other food around as well. After that, it was our final round but sadly we failed badly as we even lose to the previous team which we won twice.
So this is the winning trophy. What do you think? I think they were stunning.
This is the time chart in the end of the qualifying rounds. The fastest 4 teams compete in the final round. Here is the video of the final round.

In the end, the winning team is "Super Heroes"!! How great were their costumes...

This is the announcer's car. He had been in Dragon Boat events for many years, so his car's number... DRA66ON = DRAGON. This registered number must had cost him a bomb.

For more official photos, go to www.dragonboatevents.com and click for Events > September - Oct > Sunday 2nd September - Billericay, Essex - camera icon and look at the photos. You can spot me in 2 of the photos. Sorry that I can't provide the direct link of the photo page as the page is in Flash format.