Boston results anybody?

does anyone really care?

didn't make the mixed finals. sorry Bob.

I saw the times. The highest was 2:17 for a 500m. The worst festival organization with by far the dumbest rules I've ever seen. Max 16 people per boat, can't use your own paddles, can't use your own life vests (unless they're the same colour WTF?) and incompetent steerspeople. Don't know what it was like in 2005, but in 2004 10 out of 14 races on the Saturday ended in collisions or capsizing. Didn't se any collisions on the front page of the Boston Herald like we did last year. A joke festival. Don't waste your time. Go see the Boston for Boston, not for the festival.

Mr. Bitter and Angry from 2004

Why the weird rules?

What's with the 16 max per boat? Did they utilize the extra seats for a tea party during the race?

That's what they said. Most teams have toruble scraping 20 people together for a race, so they lowered it to 16 (Minimum 6 women, 6 men) MAD didn't even bother showing on the qualifying Saturday and just raced Sunday. Should have followed their lead.

To prevent boats from capsizing

The times were a bit faster than 2:17.
Philly cops pulled a 2:09:30, 2:13:68, 2:17:74 in the quarters, semis, finals.
MAD pulled 2:17:34 and 2:17:00 in the simis and finals.

They use GWN boats. These shouldn't capsize. Unless there are extreme water or wind conditions.

They use GWN boats. These shouldn't capsize. Unless there are extreme water or wind conditions.

But trust me, when your steer falls off the boat and the team keeps paddling into another BuK that has fishtailed and is waiting like a wall for the collision to happen, well you get the idea. I think the average steer last year had 3 practices under their belts. Gentle Giants and another men's team madeup of flatties were so out of sync that they flipped after 100-150m. I am not making this stuff up. Ask anyone who went last year (minus MAD). I think CN aquaholics went along with Montreal Thunder. God, it was hilarious (but sad and dangerous at the same time).

The BuKs were new in 2004. At the end of the weekend, they looked like they were 10 years old. Scratched and beaten to shit.

Just for the people that don't know. Seeding heats on saturday are held at the wider part of the river so it can get choppy from passing boat and cross winds, i believe it's the MIT boathouse, and the race course itself is held at a much narrow course but wide enough for 4 boat races.

MAD came first in the final and Pcops came in second in the 500 finals?

yeh i think. I not sure what you guys think about how they do their races but i think it stinks. Im still kind of new to this sport but I was wondering why they took the top 4 times to the finals insted of the winners of each heats? ( since the water currents etc change as time passes, like when it strated to rain a bit) im sorry for my poor english

All,

As I understand it, the race organizer at Boston caps the on-boat racing crew complement at 16 paddlers plus drummer and steerer to make it a bit easier for the locals to recruit teams.

Speaking from the perspective of a new dragon boat club without an existing membership base in a city that has only 1-2 other standing clubs (depending on how you count them), and without any affiliation to an organization from which to draw people easily, it's been challenging to vy for the attention of people in Boston to even try dragon boat.

Of the 30 or so teams, and not factoring in the out-of-town teams, only 2-4 local teams were new to the race, depending on how you count them.

Not being an organizer of the race, I'm not in a position to speak as to how and why things are run as far as race format or course set-up. I will say that I have heard the same or similar complaints since I've been dragonboating 4 years ago.

Kind regards,

Bob Lee
President
Living Root Dragon Boat, Inc.
www.livingroot.org

PS - As for my team not making the finals, for those who run teams and clubs, I suspect they understand that you have to start somewhere and build up, as long as you keep working towards your goals.

It could be better run for sure.
I would expect a festival that cost quite a few $ to at least update the webpage with the results of saturday so that one knows when to show up the next day.
There also seems to be no indication of the final results.
I heard that MAD won ahead of the Philly police and Harvard. The 2 Canadian crews did not make it into the top 3.
Is that true? Does anyone have the results?

only stayed to see the semi's. The philly cops beat MAD in the semi, but the top 2 proceed to the Final 4. The other semi was Harvard and i think it was BDBC so I don't think Rukus or Crimewave made the final 4.