The 2018 edition of the renowned Vancouver Dragon Boat Festival took to the waters of False Creek and is North America’s largest and most competitive featuring over 200 teams in addition to the 5,500 paddlers, 7 countries and 7 of the states south of the 49th parallel. Seeing it will inspire you to take part in a boat race yourself, but until you’re more experienced you might have to stick to something a little safer. If you want to try punting then these are great for example.

The Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival is a legacy of Expo 86, where Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadian community introduced the traditional annual Chinese

Duanwu Festival as a cultural outreach program sharing the Chinese culture with the multicultural population of Vancouver and area.

Initially the City of Vancouver traveled to Hong Kong in 1984 as a means of how to import teak dragon boats which was endorsed by Vancouver’s Centennial Commission.

Photo DragonZone.ca

It was the year of Expo 86 that the Chinese Cultural Centre of Vancouver organized and hosted the very first authentic dragon boat festival in North America inviting numerous well known and prominent community leaders.

It was Dr. Wallace Chung and Dr. S. Wah Leung that took the task along with a committee that managed to maintain the fleet of 9 teak dragon boats after 3 more were purchased.

Friday marked the races for the charities involved in this event which included the Milton Wong Society the founder of the Vancouver Dragon Boats festival, B.C. Blind Sports.

MS Society of BC, the Open Door Group, Men’s Prostate society, South Vancouver Neighbourhood House and the BC Kidney Society.

All raising money for their respective charities racing on the water with the top team raising the most will be awarded an additional $5,0000.00 for the respective causes for which they are paddling for.

As well as some qualifying races and a Dragon Boat Breast Cancer survivors race challenge as well on a calm Friday night in the False Creek waters with the International Cup knockout races and a welcome party for the participants.

The Festival kicked of with the some qualifying heat races starting at 8am on an overcast day to start but by mid afternoon the skies were clear allowing clear water for all competitors, which included the Junior Mixed heats, Premier Women’s races and seeding, the premier open and mixed heats.

After lunch the participants from Friday night’s races challenges took to the course in the 100 meter knockout grand finals, which was immediately followed by the Senior Cup Grand Finals and the U-24 Grand Cup finals which continued to around noon.

Following a brief lunch break all of the challengers took to the course in the 100 meter knockout grand final, followed by the Senior Cup Grand Finals and the U-24 Grand Cup finals.

Countries competing included China (four teams), Germany, Australia, Macau, Philippines, Croatia, Sweden and Hong Kong.

This was not including those from the seven (7) states South of the border that included Washington, Oregon. California, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Sunday saw the semi-finals start at eight (8) with Junior Mixed race and finals followed by the Premier Women’s semis and finals.

This made way for the premier open race finals and mixed events in the semi’s and finals with racing continuing with several corporate finals every 11 minutes apart.

Prior to the medal ceremonies the mixed “Guts and Glory” race as it is so appropriately named see’s a 2,000 meter race which involves 18 boats with each getting released every 10 seconds with each boat required to do two complete laps of the false Creek course.

The end of race day saw the participants readied for the renowned Premier Women’s “Guts and Glory” Grand Final which represents a 2,000 meter race which includes 18 boats.

All are required to complete the circuit doing two laps around the False Creek Course before crossing the finish line.

Another extremely successful day of racing and while the racers all competed for medals, it was clearly the fans that were the winners. If you want to get into maning a boat yourself but don’t know when to start, check out this Highly recommended Site that can show you various boats for you to look through and think about getting.

Can’t wait till next year!!!!

Submitted in part by B. Nolte

Photo 604Now