24th Dragon Boat Festival

The 24th edition of the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Festival was once again held at False Creek was on display in the worst weather conditions in the past 13 years.

Yet the racers dreams were not dampened and the event continued with over 180 teams (racers) and over 5,000 paddlers. Saturday saw a steady downpour but despite our west coast liquid sunshine the various divisions from Recreational, Masters and Grand Dragon raced in a mix of times, thereby setting up Sunday’s heats.

Age wise the teams in attending varied from young to old, along with a couple of visual impaired teams traveling from Seattle, Portland and as far away as San Francisco.

Saturday’s results were carried over to Sunday’s races as they set up the heats in the 15 categories of the event.

The racers (naturally) are unable to control the conditions but Sunday featured much improved conditions; which made for much faster times on the 500 meter course.

Recreational teams competed in the morning and qualified for the semi-finals and finals which included Junior and Grand Dragon races (all divisions) for the afternoon.

Impressive times were set on Sunday in all the divisions with some resulting in record times for the course.

Nine new boats were donated by Milford Wong the founder on the weekend (who recently passed away prior to the event) and donated by Pacific Concord Chairman Terry Hui at the opening ceremonies, which featured the blessing of the boats the tradition dragon boat racing world.

Races took place every 12 minutes and began at 8:00am to 6pm.

The crowd on Sunday was average, but still disappointing as from previous years only due to weather conditions.

Special thanks to the key sponsors for the weekend Rio Tinto Alcan for 24th.