Monday, July 02, 2007

Paddle, paddle

We attended a Dragon Boat Festival on Saturday. The sporting world is cruel.
Here’s how a race goes:


In Theory:
Start with 5 deep strokes to lift the boat over the water
15 fast, fast strokes to build the speed
5 transitional strokes to race speed
Paddle hard to finish line


In Practice:
Start with 2 or 3 deep strokes
Paddles start flailing and crashing into each other
Chaos
Gallons of water get splashed in everyone’s face
Pandemonium to the finish line.


We ended up 8th of 14 boats. And the bottom three boats were female-only crews. So really we were 8th of 11. Not our finest hour.

2 comments:

cityofmushrooms said...

and yet I'm picturing all you dragon-boaters in slow motion, paddling away to the "chariots of fire" music...

Nanuk of the North, older but no wiser said...

Enjoy that image, as the only place it exists is in your imagination. Nuthin' like it in the real world.

An appropriate theme for us would be that Benny Hill music.