The Dragon Lake Paddlers hoped to earn a medal, but came back from the Penticton Dragon Boat Festival with memories and a personal best time.
“It was a successful weekend,” coach and drummer Sarah Shipley said.
Of the many memories collected by the Dragon Lake Paddlers winning their first-ever race was the fondest.
“It was fantastic, just fantastic,” paddler Cathy Briggs said of the team’s third appearance at the Penticton Dragon Boat Festival.
“We always say we’re going to win a medal, but our big goal this year was to beat another team.
“We didn’t want to always be the last boat across the line.”
The first day of racing had a bit of an inauspicious debut as the Dragon Lake Paddlers found themselves caught up in the lane buoys when the start of the race was signalled.
The team managed to extricate themselves from the buoys and finished the race in 2:51, well behind first-place finishers FLCC Fort Fury who paddled to a 2:27.65 finish and eventually made it to the top-flight final, the Platinum final.
The second race of the day went much better for the Dragon Lake Paddlers.
“It was incredible, we had a great start, we paddled together and we came in at 2:43,” Briggs said with a big smile.
Sunday morning the Dragon Lake Paddlers found themselves in lane one, a novelty for a team used to being in lane five, the lane reserved for the slowest boats.
“We got off to a good start, never looked back and won the race,” Briggs said of the semi-final race.
“It was unbelievable.”
The final race, by all accounts, was a nail biter from beginning to end, with just a four-second gap separating first place from fifth place.
The race also had another first for the Dragon Lake paddlers, they raced in lane three.
“We had boats on both sides, you could reach out and touch them.
“It was so loud.
“All we could hear was Sarah [coach and drummer] yelling at us.”
With the race being so close, there was temptation to take a peek across the lanes to see where the other boats were, but Briggs said the advice from their coach was not to peek.
“She said whatever we saw was going to be wrong because of the layout of the lanes relative to the shore,” Briggs explained.
“We did come in fourth place overall out of 14 boats in our division,” Shipley explained, adding, “we only missed third place by 38/100ths of a second.”
The Dragon Lake Paddlers collected more memories with friendships they made at the festival, including a team from Edmonton and the Hot Knotts from Salmon Arm.
“They were great,” Briggs said.
“They even lent us a paddler.”
Although the racing season is over, the Dragon Lake Paddlers are hitting Dragon Lake for practices and fun paddles.
The paddlers meet at Robert’s Roost, with paddles hitting the water at 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“Anyone is welcome to come and try it.”
For many of the Dragon Lake Paddlers, the weekend’s competition has given them resolve to finish even higher in the standings next year.
“All in all, it was a great experience,” Shipley said.
“Now the team is anxious to improve as a whole going into next year.”
To make their boat faster, Shipley said, the team needs more practice and more dryland training, both of which the team had not focused on before.
Several paddlers have expressed interest in building on their fitness and strength in a variety of ways, including zumba, yoga and time in the gym.
“I think the team is going to look after this themselves over the fall and winter months,” Shipley said.