Who'll place in the top 5?

I'M Batman!!

So am I! Although I never said that line in my movie. I really wanted to though.

jetstart or golden plate.

Menage A Team

1. Jetstart
2. Riptide
3. Aquaholics
4. Castek Chaos
5. Toronto Area Dragons

Dude, you forgot the Golden Plate Warriors...they're solid..I think they won it last year.

I can guarantee you TAD won't be in full force that day so their results may not be as good.

Is Lively running the event? If they are, Lane 5 is going to win. Or Riptide. Or Riptide IN Lane 5

Stratford Juniors had 6th fastest time in Waterloo and beat out Golden Plate Warriors in the same heat.

ahah... I bet stanford junior had a better lane then the warriors ... If Waterloo is the only festival that you can build a conclusion off of, there must be a problem

Again, go figure....Stratford Juniors had an outer lane 4 and Golden Plate at Lane 2.
Refer to the Waterloo threads and you'll see the consensus on how the lanes were MESSED.

I believe lively dragons are running the event again. Uh OH

SMART ASS, BMO RIPTIDE is not the same as the other RIPTIDE.

Woodstock is on the GWN Clients Events Calendar so I hope that would mean it is a GWN event.

Hahah these people should change their damn names...
Some teams are so unoriginal...
There's this team...Komodo Dragons (a good team) and then there's another team called Komoto dragaons...HAHA
c'monnnn

I'll take Castek for the Threepete.

1) Castek Chaos
2) Jetstart
3) Aquaholics
4) Golden Plate Warriors
5) Toronto Area Dragons
6) BMO Riptide

Is BMO Riptide a joint venture with TCBA and BMO?

If not, I would have to say that BMO Riptide don't have too flashy results...not sure if they'd place in top 5.

Watch out for the New College Alumni and Menage a Team (joint venture for UC, New College, Summer dragons EH?)

Thanks for the compliment, but we're just going to have fun and drink some beers.

Menage a team looks strong and I think has a good chance of making the A final.

Hey Seb, it's Alvin. This forum is pretty active! I just found out about it a few days ago.

See you at Woodstock

#1 Jetstart
#2 C.C.
#3. Golden Plate Warriors
#4. Aquaholics
#5 T.A.Dragons
etc.....

Jetstart
Golden Plate
Castek Chaos
Stratford Junior 1
Catch 22
TAD
Silver Masters
Aquaholics
New Dragons Alumni

But really we're just going to drink beer and show off our guts. :P

Fyi...Komodo Dragons will also be attending
They should place pretty high

Sounds pretty boring to me...where are all the heavy weights?

you don't need 'heavy weights' to have a fun day of racing at a festival.

I try not to do heavy weights at festivals, it tires me out for racing.

that's BS, everyone should be doing heavy weights all the time, especially right before a festival.
That's how you win!

Are you a mofo?

BTW, I said "at festivals" not "before festivals".

.....check with the "A" division crews, no one does heavy weights during paddling season. Endurance yes.

perfect. the blind leading the blind.

I need to tell my coach we aren't supposed to be doing any heavy weights lol.

How gullible can you beeeeee?

teams just look more intimidating when the men are tanks...so lift lift lift!
Only shoulders and back..ha ha ha..
I am not a mofo....but I'm on a team that gets jealous of teams like Tempest for having those tanks on their team!

tempest is a small team...what are you talking about willis?
Want to see a big ass team, look at those mofos

But any properly periodized training regimen includes elements that keep all energy systems in check. Just my opinion, but if you're already on the water for a good # of times a week - why waste your time doing so much "endurance" work? Instead of doing a set of 50000 barbell rows, crank up the specificity dial and get out there and paddle instead!

Are the Piranhas competing in this event?

I feel that I paddle better when I am also lifting weights. "Heavy" is subjective. I prefer to keep the weight at something that lets me do 6-8 or 8-10 reps per set. I find that when I'm still doing things like chin-ups, dumbell rows, bench press, etc, then I feel stronger in the boat, too. And abdominal work is something you should never let up on, IMO. Running is also something that helps me feel better when I paddle.

Sport specific training is great, but by definition it's unbalanced. A few weights here and there help keep you in balance.

go heavy and hard before a race festival or go home without any gold!


muuhahaha

I saw the Piranhas email address on an email to all team captains from the organizer. Not sure if they're really going or if they just expressed interest.

Top 5 changes now with Piranhas registering last minute.
Do you think they scouted the competition before officially entering?

No

highly doubt that, but you never know.

They did do St Catharines, which was another small time event. But hey, every team is entitled to race whatever festival they want. So that's their business.

But in keeping with this thread, with the piranhas there, I would say they they should take this festival easily.

Winner of the Open Division receives a free entry into the Woodstock Rotary Dragon Boat Festival the following year.
A plaque and medals will be awarded to the division winners and medals to second place teams in each division.


Who wants to go?

"But in keeping with this thread, with the piranhas there, I would say they they should take this festival easily."

That don't impress me much!

Shan ia?

Piranhas Beach (takes it in the final by at least 7 seconds)
Jetstart
Golden Plate
Castek Chaos
Stratford Junior 1
Catch 22
Aquaholics
TAD
Silver Masters
New Dragons Alumni

WOW..by 7 seconds..that is extremely confident...
Air Canada is not bad I have to say...so don't rule them out.

7 seconds is about 2 boat lengths no?
I don't think so.

Piranhas Beach by no more than 3 seconds.

Rumour has it Riptide made a last-minute decision to attend. Ladies and Gentlemen, your A final. Riptide may or may not be denied!

It's right there on the the sched: BMO Riptide.

BMO Riptide is not the same team as the TCBA Jr. Riptide.

BMO Riptide isn't even related to the other BMO teams, they're their own deal.

Oh man, why can't teams find original names?

In Montreal, there were no less than 3 "Phoenixes".

Gaaa!

The team Menage is a collaboration of UC Waterdragons and Summer Dragons, eh?
Why UC would collaborate with SDEH is unclear, but UC is still the "best university team in Canada". So watch out for them.

Some of the members on SDEH are former UC or NC paddlers from previous years, so there are familiar ties within the boats.
Our team should do alright!

enuf with the our team is the best talk. that gets a bit old after a while don't you think?

yeah, I agree... lets all get in our boats and paddle around in circles until the BBQ is ready, then we can give each other backrubs and congratulate ourselves on having such a happy day

Piranhas by 6.00284 seconds (give or take 6 seconds)

"UC is still the best university team in Canada..."

Actually that's probably not true. UC are the best university team in ONTARIO, but Phoenix ETS (after their results in Ottawa and Montreal) could easily claim to be the best in the country.

You guys on Phoenix should stop posting about yourselves

I heard that the Mofos are going, they're so fast

How did the mofo's come into this conversation? They're not even going to Woodstock ...

12:33 thanks for the headsup. We will not under estimate the menage team

Hey Jetstart, had fun paddling against you guys in Montreal and the little cheer-off we had after the race. All the best of luck at Woodstock and I hope you guys take home gold!

Hey New Dragons? Nose brown enough yet?

Hello Anon 4:58. You make a good point. From now on, we're instituting a bashing-only policy for our dealings other teams. Inter-team cheers will be disallowed, and punishable by a public slapping (backhand, of course). Instead of practising, we'll require our paddlers to spend two hours a week spreading rumours on the forum.

Good show sebastian

You get how it works. Good for you.

Now shuddup

Just to be clear

GWN will be running our event as always.
We will be setting the course out futher to equalize the lanes

Komodo Dragons withdrew
Late entries include
TCBA Junior Riptide
Piranhas - Beach

See you all on Saturday.

Dave

Well if that's the case

1 - Piranhas
2 - Riptide (TCBA Jr)
3 - Jetstart
4 - Golden Plate
5 - Castek Chaos

Let's break it down, shall we?

Well, "Numb". That's like, when you can't feel. And "Brrr". That's the sound you make when you're cold. So my answer would be, "Someone who can't feel when they're cold."

"What is someone who can't feel when they're cold?"

This one time, I was out with some friends on a boat. And uh, this guy on the boat was like, "Come to the back of the boat!"

Woodstock coming up soon..gametime

"A" Final

1 - Piranhas/Beach
2 - Jetstart
3 - Riptide (TCBA Jr)
4 - Golden Plate Warriors

Piranhas/Beach definitely the class of the field. Race course was deep and fair. Not much in controversies. Ran on time. They had a 6 lane Open Division fun Race at the end. Nice job by the Woodstock organizers.

I think the times were about 2:06, 2:07,2:07 and 2:09. It was really exciting to see such a strong group of teams meet in the final.

Woodstock deserves to be supported in a big way. Everything ran smooth. Organizers were courteous and appreciative of the support that they had and the field was pretty decent. In fact, too decent for The Silvermasters, but we love being in with strong teams.

Mark this one on your calendar for next year and build this event up to 60 teams. They have been hanging in for 8 years now and deserve support from the paddling community.

Congrats Dave Harris and all the great Rotarians who did a marvelous job today.

C'mon! We gotta Go! C'mon!

While Piranhas did win as expected, the margin of victory certainly wasn't as large as many people predicted.

Open Division race was a nice fun race, 4 all men teams, 1 mixed and 1 all women team. 3 of the teams in the A final (Piranhas, JetStart, Riptide) went right back out for the fun race. Heck Riptide sent their mixed crew back out, instead of going all men. And they finished exactly in the same order as their A final lol!

One of the first things I noticed was the speed at which results were posted. If you just got out of the boat, and headed back to camp, the results of your race would be posted on the times board. I've never seen it done so efficiently.

Good racing today, volunteers did an excellent job making sure everything ran on time. Couldn't ask for better weather. Congrats to thea ll participants, and kudos to the all-women's crew that duked it out with all the other men's crews out there for the Open division fun race.

This was a great event..hats off

Yes, the efficiency of the stratford organizers was amazing! They even accounted for skewed start and finish line markers. Much props to them.

Perfect day of racing in Woodstock. The weather cooperated, the lanes were all fair and deep, good boats, good timing, great volunteers, starter and ref were fine, ... pretty much all you could ask for. More teams need to come to this race. You will be pleasantly surprised and it could just rank as one of the best all around races this year. Absolutely no complaints. Congrats Woodstock on putting on such a fine event.

Thanks to all the teams for your great comments and for a great day of racing. The results are on the website in pdf format www.dragonboatwoodstock.ca

The race is organized and managed by the Rotary Club of Woodstock. Our members work hard on the event organization to ensure a smooth flowing event each year. We even took a stab at setting the course this year to elimiate the lane bias. I guess it worked! Great White North continues to provide excellent equipment, race timing and officiating at the event.

We have been hovering around 30 teams each year but would love to have a full event next year so pass the word around. Any written testimonials would be appreciated. Just e-mail them to me through the website.

Thanks for your support Kevin. Stratford and Kevin McCann have always supported our event through entries and advice when called upon.

Cheers to a great day!

Dave

On behalf of Piranhas-Beach I would like to congratulate the Woodstock Rotarians on a well-run regatta. Very efficient, entertaining (not annoying) announcer, great venue for camping, etc.

I have never been to Woodstock before so I cannot comment on how the lanes have improved. Although I do suggest that the lanes be widened and the outside lanes be moved further out into the lake to enhance the fair racing experience.

Overall, well done. This is one of the better dragonboat festivals.

I'd also like to thank the members from the UC Waterdragons, GWN Women, Aquaholics, Mofos, Hammerheads and "unknown team" for helping us fill out our boat for this event.

Race course was already set for 15m lane width which is probably the max that anyone uses these day. Even Berlin used only 13.5m width. Organizers set it up themselves this with minimal instruction from me. Good for them on a ensuring everything was right and organized throughout the day!

You kidding me? It wasn't tight but 15 I am sure it was not

Riptide put in their regular mixed team. Jetstart+Castek put in a men's and a women's team. Menage combined with black pearl for a men's team. And new dragons and piranhas (and a few hammerheads) combined for a men's team. Not sure who Testosterone brothers was.

It was absolutely 15m lane width! Same race course equiment used for Stouffville. I ALWAYS check the lines on land before they go out on the water. Just for reference the lines used for Waterloo was 13m width. (BTW I had nothing to do with setting up that race course, they just used our equipment).

Maybe they were put in improperly. I swear they didn't look 15m wide. Closer to 10

bah, who cares? there were no collisions or complaints of washriding, no?

Big thanks to David and the other volunteers of Woodstock for putting on an excellent festival.

Best announcer ever!

I put the course in myself with the help of 3 others and we set it exactly as Ken had it set up. The way he has the chains set you can't make a mistake. One length of chain accross with a special link every 15m to which a 10' length of chain is clipped to attach the markers.
Dave

How are courses put in anyway? I see Dave and Ken saying the chains were set to 15m. But we all know putting things in water has a tendency of shifting. How are the courses put in to ensure the lanes stay at max width? This also applies to course length because I am sure we have all experienced lane markers that drift all over the place.

I really do hope this event grows with out of town teams, the Woodstock organizers deserve it.

This was the first time we did this event and we were very impressed with how well this festival was run and how friendly all the volunteers were. There were no issues to be had and racing was fair and on an excellent course. I would like to thank the organizers for running such a fine event and would encourage other teams from Toronto to drive out to Woodstock next year. Congrats to the Piranhas for giving us some good competition and for being able to reverse last years result at Summer Sensation. I guess we will be seeing many of you again racing as Lane 1 in Stratford. Awesome racing everybody!

On behalf of Jetstart, I would like to thank the Woodstock Rotarians and all their volunteers for an outstanding event!

Coming up blank on my own, I did an unofficial poll around the team for anything at all amiss about the festival and the best anyone could do was, "um, it's hard to watch the start of the races from our tent location?" You have to be doing something right if you can't get a dragonboater to complain!

The list of things done right at Woodstock is as long as my arm:
-GWN boats, starting and timing (other organisers take note, ne plus ultra)
-wide deep lanes
-an announcer that made the D semis sound as thrilling as a World Championship Open Final, unbelievable enthusiasm
-proper, loud PA with ample team calling and decent music all day
-top flight volunteers
-results posted by the time you got off the boat
-lovely and plentiful medals
-gorgeous park, thick grass
-shady marshalling area with washrooms
-regular toilet paper restocking (hello, Montreal, are you listening?)
-they even made everyone back into their parking spots to make sure we exited the park as efficiently as possible.

We could go on and on. They seem to have thought of everything. This was our first Woodstock as a team and certainly won't be our last. There's plenty of room for this festival to be as big as Stratford without losing any quality. If you were on the fence this year, mark it on the calendar for next year!

Finally, congratulations to the Piranhas, Riptide, Golden Plate, Chaos, Menage, UT Alumni and all the other teams on a fabulous and highly competitive day of racing. Summer Sensation's loss was our gain!

"Congrats to the Piranhas for giving us some good competition and for being able to reverse last years result at Summer Sensation"

Wow, that's a bit of a dig. Looks like a bitter inferiority complex

i've been attending this festival for the past few years and it's always been run this efficiently. i'm surprised everyone's just noticing it now!

Well the word should definitely spread now. The biggest key will be whether or not they can keep this up as the popularity spreads and more teams enter. Its easier to manage a 30 team festival than say a 60 team festival. But a great day nonetheless and I hope thay can keep it up, especially if demand grows!

Great fun open challenge to end the day as well. Kudos to the women's team to go up against the men, along with the Riptide mixed team, which finished 3rd and beat 2 of the all men teams!

Finally, gotta love the announcer, he deserves a medal for his enthuasim throughout the day!

Big thank you Dave,

Another great festival.

From all the girls of the 40 double d's.

No dig intended. I just enjoy racing good teams and people I know and have raced against for many years. Once again congrats:)

Platinum Division Final:

1. Piranhas Beach: 2:06.34
2. Air Canada / ITW Jetstart: 2:07.67
3. TCBA Junior Riptide: 2:09.70
4. Golden Plate Warriors: 2:10.23

Platinum Division Consolation:

1. Castek Chaos: 2:12.22
2. Menage A Team: 2:12.95
3. Catch 22: 2:13.80
4. New Dragons Alumni(U of T New College): 2:15.23

The chain going across the race course is marked every 15m and a 6' line goes up to the buoy. Each end of the line is held in place by a 40lb block. There will be some variance because of the wind and because the buoys will flutter in the water on that 6' chain but that is minimal To say that the wind caused the lanes to go from 15m to 13m is just not the case. You would have a huge bow in the line for that to happen and the lines were pretty tight same as other races.

This festival was very well run. Nothing to complain about at all. The announcer was extremely enthusiastic (man his voice must be sore today!) and all races were on time.

Good stuff Woodstock! I'm def. looking forward to hitting this festival next year.

Open Challenge
Lane #1: Testosterone Brothers #5 2:11:57
Lane #2: 40DD #6 2:22:56
Lane #3: Jetstart/Chaos #2 2:05:48
Lane #4: Menage a Pearl #4 2:10:16
Lane #5: TCBA Junior Riptide #3 2:07:39
Lane #6: Newranhas #1 2:05:26

Ken, how did your juniors do?

Had a bunch of new paddlers in the boat some who were 12 year old who were just happy to be racing against some quality teams. Development at the younger ages is what need to push in dragon boat.

Dave Bell will doing a race event in 2 weeks for Motorcycles that will run Wednesday till Sunday for 12 hours each day and will sound like he did in Woodstock each and everyday. The man is just awesome.

i didn't know his name, but her certainly did an awesome job this year in Woodstock! We were racing and could hear him cheer us on from the shore...i for one paddled extra hard in that race.

I was truely impressed with the announcer at Woodstock so when he was packing up I got a chance to talk to him.
All of the sound equipment was his own and he does the set up and tear down himself at all of the events he does!! NO need for a seperate Sound Company!! He is booked up fairly fast for next year, but Saturdays are still preety good so far. He mostly does off road racing like motocross, trucks, and sled racing! I have never been to one of these events, but whoever found him made a great call to get him for the DB races.
He said he will be doing the DB race in Port Perry next year that the Dragon Flies asked him at the awards cerimony. Good job ladies!!
You can get a hold of him at d.d.bell@sympatico.ca. He lives in Greenbank, which is near Port Perry. Just thought I would pass it on.