Dear Dragon Boat Enthusiasts!

Greetings from New York! Our 22nd annual Dragon Boat Festival is August 4th and 5th this year, and we are wondering if you would be interested in coming! Our festival is one of the oldest in the US, as well as one of the largest if not the largest! We are expecting approximately 200 or more teams this year, and our two day event is going to be our own biggest because it is the year of the water dragon.

Please feel free to ask any questions, and we look forward to hearing from you!

toilet bowl anyone?

can you tell us how things are going to be differnt this year? I find it hard to travel down so far when the races are unorganized and lanes are unfair

seriously? 200 crews?

One of the worst race in North America.Unorganized & unqualified official.

not to mention that you have to use THEIR 45" wooden, splinter-y paddles, THEIR nasty life-jackets and THEIR 5000 year old "boats"...pass

Jeffery, any chance they would change te life jacket/paddle rules?

How is medal given? Thanks.

Looks like a lot of New York peeps posting the same questions from allegations from year's past...

If the organizer change the rules to let people use their own paddle & pfd. More team would race. Also limit the sets of boat use & have team paddle a full 20 men boat.

@1:07 PM

I agree - My team came down two years ago and had an horrible experience. I do not understand why we cannot use our own paddle and especially PFDs. Jeff, can you shine some light on this?

Hi Everyone,

It is unfortunate that there are some who dislike our festival. In regards to being unfair and unqualified, all of our judges are IDBF certified and have been doing this for many, many years. Our lanes are measured and set by a professional third party that has well over 10 years of experience. We just bought new paddles last year; we also have recently bought life jackets that are in great shape (2 yrs ago) and are constantly buying new jackets to accommodate the growing number of teams. We have 12 fiberglass boats that are modern and lightweight in excellent condition.

The Festival Committee has also recently changed our rules regarding the US Dragon Boat Open Championship Divisions, and the Advanced Divisions to 18-20 paddlers.

In regards to personal equipment, our insurance as well as our collaboration with the NYC Parks dept, requires us to use standardized equipment. That is why we cannot allow outside equipment to be used. It also creates a more equal competition.

I apologize to anyone who has had a difficult or unpleasant experience in NYC before, however our festival continues to grow as more and more teams from across the states and internationally come to race. We try our best to make everyone happy, and we hope to see you there.

I appreciate you taking time to explain everything. My team was not there last year and did not see the changes.

"It also creates a more equal competition."

What size paddles did your org buy? Are there any 50/51 inch paddles for the taller paddlers. I believe this would make it more fair. This was the biggest flaw that I saw. The shorter paddlers have much more advantage using these paddles.

"The Festival Committee has also recently changed our rules regarding the US Dragon Boat Open Championship Divisions, and the Advanced Divisions to 18-20 paddlers. "

That is great! Is this the regular 12 male/8 female like all other races?

"It also creates a more equal competition."

Sorry Jeff, but if you collected feedback from most of the clubs that have raced there year in and year out, 9 out of 10 would not race there if this was not the only race in town. The course itself makes the race a crap shoot, as being a faster seed does nothing for you in terms of getting you a "better" lane. It is a mystery whether you will hit dirt when the horn sounds, but this is arguably out of the festival's control.

However, the officiating, while "IDBF certified", is not out of the festival's control. If I were to come down to NYC it would not be for this race but for the town itself because you will not get any even competition there. There is no real dedication to even being remotely fair to all teams. The festival often will often make up bogus reasons to screw over the local teams in favor of out of town teams or clubs that bring in the most revenue. As long as you finish in your own lane then it does not matter what you do in between. All this is guarded by a pre-submitted $100 check just for the right to protest.

While I love the festival portion and all the freebies from local businesses this is probably the worst race to participate in. Have you consider hiring a professional company to do the finish line (GWN, PanAm, USDBR)? Good race management companies cam cut the time it takes to run a heat significantly. What about maintaining the boats so they are not covered by different amounts of tape or take in buckets of water from the cracks? DB races are won by 0.01 second so a small amount of tape can make a difference. How about hiring steerers for festival teams so the races can run properly and not be constantly late or have to be rerun so often? There is nothing you can do about the muddy shallow water but things would run more smoothly if the festival would hire some pros to run important parts of the races. Good teams will figure out the lanes and sandbar.

If you follow rules set by DB governing bodies then you would know that paddles blades are standardized. Whatever advantage gained by using our own paddles will not change results since most club teams have their own paddles and compete at every other races with them (except maybe Boston). At the very least, please have more portopotties (and cleaner ones) and award medals instead of participation medals.

Hi Jeff,

I hope you take these comments not as an attack on the festival but comments from your "clients". I understand things cannot be changed drastically and this is indeed a festival but if you do want more out of town teams to come down - I would talk it over and see if smaller things can be changed. I can try to understand why the park department wants life vest to be universal but don't get how paddles have anything to do with it.

Hi Jeff,

I believe a lot of the local & out of town fellow paddler would like to see a new race format. Instead of register for each division. Most of the race out side of new york Division is determine by heat. This would be fair for new team & competitive. Not fair for new team race 1 race & get knock out.

Check out other race festival such as Montreal & Toronto as example.It would encourage team to get better each year to climb up on the division. Those are the more than 100 team. HK Dragonboat in New york do not have 200 team. Only on paper but really. lot of people knows there no way you guy have 200 team.

FYI Lot of local paddler are losing interested of this festival is due to race format & race equipment.

They can count over 200 teams because of a lot of the corporate and sponsored special races where these 12 person boats only get to race 1 or 2 races.

That no full team. Montreal & Toronto has 100 plus team with full roster of 20 paddler.

Dear NY Race Organizers,

We won't be back to the NY race until I hear that it has changed drastically.

Let paddlers use their own paddles. It will reduce the wear on the festival paddles and people will be happy. By the way, Boston does allow you to use your own paddles, but they have to be wooden--no CF--that helps keep it fair. I'm ok with using festival PFDs, but I'm 6'4" and I have to use your little Barbie paddles and that's no fun.

Your race info says there is no parking, yet everyone parks in a massive, free parking lot at the race site. Out of towners don't know this, we pay big bucks to take cabs there, and then we start off the day angry since we could have driven.

You allow teams to rent port-o-potties for cheap money. Thanks! But, you don't bother to tell anyone that 1) they can do this or 2)if they don't they will be stuck using one of two public port-o-potties. Please tell teams they should rent port-o-potties.

Lose all the weird divisions. Follow the Montreal or Toronto format. It's absolutely no fun to travel all the way to NY to get stuck in some weird Open division where we never have a chance because we're racing some foreign national team and DCH.

Hire GWN or Patrick Chen's crew. Your starters are rarely able to line up a heat in under 20 minutes. I don't experience this problem elsewhere.

Ditch the leaky teakies. You don't even need to do anything. Just walk away, and they'll slowly sink in a few hours. Tradition is fun, but racing in a IDBF standard boat is funner.

Find a new venue. Flushing Meadows could not have been more aptly named. It smells like sewage, the water is murky and befouled, and paddlers hose themselves off after being exposed to the water. I know it's a lot to ask, but it would make a huge difference. If you can't change the venue, then change everything else I mentioned. Thanks for listening.

Good luck.

I brought my team there in 2010, and we won't be back. The race officials were incredibly rude, and spent the majority of the captain's meeting yelling at everyone. Needless to say, that wasn't a great way to start the day. We were there to compete and have fun and we were almost already being accused of cheating before we set blade to water.

Even someone from DCH welcomed us to "The F#$ing toilet bowl of New York" Glad he at least came to say hi.

They also don't tell you that all of the New York teams time trial in order to get into divisions, so if you're not there to trial, where do they put you? It's a little unclear, but unfair to the out of town teams who they seem to be advertising this race to.

It's too bad because it would great to have a race at this time of year and in a place like NY where a lot of the east coast teams could get to.

Thanks but no thanks. I'll keep trying my luck in Pawtucket. They have flag-grabbing!

Flag-grabbing?! Don't be so rude!

I don't get it. What's rude about flag grabbing?

flaunting something better that we don' have in NYC

Change the paddle policy! I also agree with the division splits. Why not slot people in different division based on time?

"Ditch the leaky teakies. You don't even need to do anything. Just walk away, and they'll slowly sink in a few hours."

Good stuff.

What's so great about flag grabbing?

What are the team register for US OPEN mix? Also when is the web site be update with list of team planning to come.

Teams haven't found a reason to register yet

@1:28

LOL, true but would be interested to see what team from NYC to race in this race.

@ 1:28

LOL! Would like to see what out of town team sign up to race here.

@2:36 - I am speechless as well.

Can someone just tell me the problem with proper english.

What do you mean by .. some weird open division?

Just thought I'd chime in from a local NY paddler's perspective. Most of what is pointed out here by (I assume) visiting teams are valid points. The whole "knockout" format where only winner or top 2 advance does leave a lot to be desired, especially if your team ends up being randomly put into a heat against a much stronger team. Then your day is essentially over if you don't win your qualifying heats. I definitely prefer the division-based approach (A, B, C, etc..) used in other festivals as it at least groups teams of equal talent together instead of just watching an advanced team blow out novices. Of course, that would mean you'd have to put a cap on the number of entries - otherwise you'd be running heats well into the night.

To the poster who commented on parking - yes, they do indicate parking is not available on site when in fact there is a parking lot there. But it is extremely limited (relative to the number of people who participate) and fills up very quickly during the festival. Local / returning teams do know you have to arrive super early to secure a spot. Hence I'm sure they post that to encourage others to use public transportation (especially spectators). I guess the catch to that is the public transportation usually doesn't start until 8:30 - 9 AM, which can be a hassle for those who have the early AM races.

In terms of their "divisions", it's basically broken down with the "US Dragon Boat Open" being the cream of the crop, followed by the "Advanced" division, and then the "Regular" division aimed mostly for beginners / recreational teams. Open vs. Mixed teams of course just differs with the female paddler requirements. Of course, there's no way to determine that if you've never been here. Again, what can happen is a strong team may simply choose to enter a "lower" division (i.e. Regular), and basically just clean house to claim whatever prize(s) are being offered.

For time trials (which take place the weekend before the festival), they use that more to determine lane selection and to try and ensure the top teams are in separate qualifying heats with the goal of trying to have them all end up in the "Finals". Obviously this ends up hurting the visiting / recreational teams as they are randomly filled into the various heats, with little chance of advancing.

Unfortunately, (as many pointed out) it is the only hometown race to New York, so local paddlers don't have much of a choice if they want to compete locally as it may very well be their only opportunity to race each year. As a local paddler, we're hoping for some of the suggested changes too - but it's not likely to happen any time soon. Nonetheless, still hope to see more visiting teams participate - we'd love to test ourselves against others.

It also does not help that officiating

It also does not help that the officiating is very arbitrary with sticking to rules and they often will waive off penalties if the violations does not "materially affect the race". But I guess sticking to the rules would not mean much anyway in this context since the race book is full of gray areas as their time penalties note a range of 2 to 5 seconds or none at all with no seeming standard to determine this. Sometimes they will do things like add time to the offending team's time while they sometimes will subtract time from the another team's time. Sometimes they will even just re-race. However, they are unwilling to apply any time penalties or make judgements until the actual race results/times come out, meaning that they will have room to fudge the results to what they "think" would've been the results if no violations had occurred. If a team breaks a rule, they should be assessed a standard penalty regardless of what the results were.

And also making a team's races over over 6 hours apart in time is a big waste of time for a lot of crews.

6 hours between races?! Are you f**king kidding me?!! This event sounds like a total GONG SHOW.

Oh come on.. Lets not be dramatic here.. If you havent experienced a LONG wait between races you havent done the island! 6h would be good!

I have done the Island many times and I have NEVER waited 6 hours between races.

Hold on, it's not that far from wrong. If you were in the A or B finals in Community and Grand Championships, you raced at 10:00am-ish and 3:30pm-ish. That's about a 5.5 hour seperation, and it's been that way for years.

Saturday on the Island is great for community/coporate teams: two races seperated by less than 2 hours on average. You get there, your race, breif rest then race again and go home.

Sunday is another matter. You race and then you wait, wait, wait. Have lunch. Take a nap. Play volleyball. Read a book. Then shake of the cobwebs and race again.

If you're not used to this, what divisions are YOU racing in?

@Jeffrey Chyau - any response to this? Please let us know if we are wasting our time here suggesting things.

Here's the problem with the divisions if you're a visiting team. They do the time trials in NY the weekend prior, as noted above. Visiting teams probably can't attend them nor are they invited. The result is that visiting teams don't get placed in the Advanced division, where they probably belong. Instead, they get put in the US Dragon Boat Open division. This can be problematic, as I discovered.

We're a small club team that averages 2:20s. We'd love to race teams in that range (i.e. Advanced Division). The NY race stuck us in the Open division where we got to race DCH's A boat and some foreign national team. Before the racing began, we asked to be moved out of that division, but the race officials wouldn't allow it. It was not a competitive race, to say the least. And, we were stuck in that division. There was no where else to go and no other teams in the division. So, we got to race and lose in that same division 4 times over the course of the weekend. That sucked. I'm not looking for any free passes here. I'd just like a shot at racing against teams that are more or less my speed. Maybe we win, maybe we lose; it's up to us. When we get pitted against national level teams, it's not fun. I'm not taking my team back to NY because it's not a competitive race for us. We're just going to get jammed in the US Dragon Boat Open division and get slaughtered.

If they would follow a standard racing format (see: Montreal, Toronto, any GWN race) it would be better. The whole point of the race grid is to end up with divisions where the races are tight and competitive. That makes it fun because everyone feels like they have a chance to win their division.

Most teams in NY do not bother with the time trial either. That time trial does nothing for divisions. It just puts you in a lane for your first heat.

Well said. A very good argument for how proper a proper race progression with divisions contributes to enjoyment across all levels of competition.

^^ This is why dragonboat gets no respect as a serious sport^^

Let's dumb it all down so everyone can go home with a medal to show the kids.

Don't complain because you are not competitive. Get faster or do community races only. So many of the so-called "competitive" regattas are like some sort of kid's school play day with everybody and their grandmother walking around with a medal on their neck at the end of the day. We need to grow up as a sport and as individuals. We're not 6 year olds anymore and we shouldn't have to hand out "Participant" medals at "competitive" regattas so that everyone feels good about themselves.

Tough guy talk sounds great, but it doesn't turn a 2:20 team into a 2:06 team. You can train a lot and bring your times down some. But it's unlikely that a well trained team is going to pull 10 or 15 seconds faster on race day as a result of some tough-guy talk. Several things make boats go fast, but spouting cliches like "in it to win it," "give 110%," or "Thunder Cats, Ho!" works in the movies, but not in real life.

Losing sucks but that's not the problem. The problem is racing in a division that is mismatched. I do not want to race against national level teams because my team is not at that level. I don't want to race against community teams because my team is not at that level. I just want to race against teams that are more or less my speed. Is that too much to ask?

"Let's dumb it all down so everyone can go home with a medal to show the kids."

Are you kidding me? That's what you get out of the response and the reply?

The origianl poster wasn't asking for a medal or participant ribbon. They were saying that they would have preferred to race against teams at their relative level of competitiveness.

What are YOU suggesting? Should we randomly assign teams to the "A" final, and f#ck you if you don't like how that turns out? That's no different than putting a D division team in the A final because the organizers were too lazy or poorly structured to prevent it.

I can't believe someone is so F'ing stupid that they have to have divisions explained to them. Dude isn't a "tough guy", he's an idiot.

fail

new york will never change!

I'm still trying to decide if we should travel down to NY for this...

You shouldn't honestly. You won't get any fair racing here. It really is that bad. The dozen or so local clubs only do it because they feel obligated to race in their own backyard. Otherwise it's just all corporate teams that only do this once a year.

Agree!!!! you shouldn't brother to travel for this race. Been paddling in this race many year & never has change!

hahaha, i think OP caught his tongue, too many things to change... I think he was better off not posting his event here.

never learn!

It's not that they don't learn. It's that they don't care too much. Competitive racing at any large festival probably only makes up about less than 5% of the revenue down here whereas running a competitive festival will cost them way more than that. It's NY. It's a business. The people in charge don't run this for the love of the sport.

Jeffrey, your response reads as if it was written by a public-relations flack. You're completely full of it. The lanes are not "fair" because the depth of the lanes varies greatly. And you know it.

As for "standardized equipment" making things "fairer": what kind of reasoning is THAT??? People come in different sizes. It's only fair to those whose body size fits your paddles. Why not mandate that everyone wears the same shorts and shirts, too?

Oh, and can we drop the stupid name of your race? The recent races in Hong Kong were not called "New York Dragon Boat Festival".

Thanks... My team decided not to head down to NY. Are there any other races in NY?

Beside NY. Best bet is Lake mercer. Princeton is the closest ( 30 min to NYC ) or Hartford CT 1.5 hrs from NYC.

Just curious, how many out of town teams have wanted to race in NYC but then declined due to the things they've heard/experienced at this festival?

I clicked on the Register.There are 3 different categories.

Does the lowest categories ensure I wont face DCH (the top one)? and vice versa?

One thing you have to realize is that this event is mainly sponsor-driven as it is a non-profit organization (as per its website). So its main goal is to attract as many spectators as possible in order to gain sponsors. While it still reserves a portion of the festival for the club teams to compete for cash prizes, a majority of the races are definitely geared toward the novice / recreational paddlers from the various local sponsors. If anything, I would say one of the biggest contributions this festival has done is to expose many people to the sport which either led to formations of new club teams, or members joining the existing teams.

While it's not the ideal festival for top-tier competitive teams who are looking to establish themselves as the best (or compete for a national team), it's still a decent festival for those who want to enjoy NYC and compete at a more recreational level (unless you're gunning for the top US Open division).

Yes, having competed at outside races, it's sooo much nicer to be able to use your own equipment (PFD & paddles), or at least have various-sized paddles to compensate for varying heights.

As the previous poster metnioned, the next closest races are in Lake Mercer, NJ or Hartford, CT. Both I believe are run by GWN... although I believe the Hartford one is part of a festival that hires GWN to run the racing.

NYC is an awesome place to visit and you need a lot of time to take it in. Instead of wasting a whole day at this horrible dragon boat event, just go to NYC for a long weekend sometime and race elsewhere.

I'm sorry, but being listed as a non-profit organization says nothing. The festival charges money for everything from having chairs to porto potties. Entrance fees for the 3 club divisions are 1000/800/500, with 500 being the cost for the 12 man boat races. This does not even include the many sponsored divisions where they charge each sponsor more than they are charging the clubs for their entrance fees (up to a few grand). A majority of teams that do not finish 1st or 2nd in their preliminary heats will only get to race once per day. Most of the workers there are volunteers so there is no expense there.

In fact, this festival is such a money grab that they've been getting audited quite often as you have accountants sending out letters asking participants about the amount they "donated" to the festival. With all this money they are pulling in, you'd think they could spend some time to run the race in a more professional manner or at least hire someone that can. Nope. All they care about is bringing in more revenue/sponsors which makes it purely a business.

So no, in short I would say that the festival has done anything for the sport. You have one of the most intriguing cities on the East Coast and yet there are no out of town teams that come back year after year. There's a reason for that.

@5:49 PM

Nice try DCH. We all know that novice/req NYC members wouldn't be on this. We know DCH practice hard and is a good team but give it up already. There is a reason why no one likes your club form the outside. Show some class.

LOL SO JEALOUS YOU CAN'T BE NUMBER 1 IN THE USA

@9:57,

No I am not from DCH. and stop hating them.

"LOL SO JEALOUS YOU CAN'T BE NUMBER 1 IN THE USA"

You're referring to DCH? You're joking right?

What?! Who cares? No. 1 in the US is the equivalent of about No. 15 in the world. Keep fighting it out in your fish bowl!

Cant agree more about the name. This one is LAME.

"LOL SO JEALOUS YOU CAN'T BE NUMBER 1 IN THE USA"
You're referring to DCH? You're joking right?

#1 in USA based on what?

Again, who cares? The number 1 club crew in the USA is insignificant on the international stage.

Hey, Jeffrey Chyau, where'd you go? Can't take the heat after your drivel was exposed?

LOL I would go to flushing just to go say hi to him

Poor Jeff, he's just a messenger. He isn't even the man behind all this crap.

HI ALL, THANKS FOR THE RESPONSES. ALWAYS ISSUES WITH PROMOTING, PLANNING EVENTS IN NYC ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES IN THE WORLD TO PRODUCE ANY TYPE OF EVENT. I'VE WORKED ON THE FESTIVAL FOR THE LAST 12 YEARS AND IT HAS BEEN A JOY AND A CHALLENGE. THE ORGANIZER IS SINCERE AS ARE ALL OF THE VOLUNTEER AND PAID STAFF. THE LOCATION IS DIFFICULT BUT WHERE ELSE IN NYC IS THERE WATER AND SPACE TO PRODUCE SUCH A LARGE, SUCCESSFUL EVENT. THE OVERALL IDEA IS TO SIMPLY PROMOTE DRAGON BOAT RACING, THE ASIAN CULTURE AND TO ENCOURAGE MULTI-CULTURALISM. RAISING THE FUNDS TO PRESENT A FREE EVENT FOR THE PUBLIC IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT THE FESTIVAL IS NOT AWASH IN CASH. THE SUCCESS OF THE EVENT HAS TO DO WITH THE COMMITTED PADDLERS,EXTREMELY STRONG MEDIA SUPPORT, DEDICATED SPONSORS AND BOARD. ALL OF YOUR SUGGESTIONS ARE APPRECIATED AND IMPLEMENTED AS & WHERE POSSIBLE.

GOOD LUCK THIS YEAR, WE ENCOURAGE ANY TEAM INTERESTED TO COME AND EXPERIENCE THE ANNUAL HONG KONG DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL FOR YOURSELVES.

BEST,

DLA

David,
Suggestion #1 turn off the caps lock.
#2 take out the "Hong Kong" part off your festival
#3 actually listen to what people are saying about the festival

I haven't raced here and don't plan to. I've been to Philadelphia, Hartford, Nashville and Ithaca which seems to be the better alternatives.

David,

What festival doe not update there web site?
There is no detail abt the race prize & what team are coming? This festival is very dis-organize. Always people been advising every year & there has been no action. Getting worst every year. How can you ask team from from out of town to come to race. it embarrassing

" ALL OF YOUR SUGGESTIONS ARE APPRECIATED AND IMPLEMENTED AS & WHERE POSSIBLE. "

orly?

WHY AM I YELLING!!!!!?????!!!!!!

DCH #1 in USA for cheating!

You tell'em Brick

Can you guys stop hating. Come to New York and paddle. You will know who is best and who is cheating.

Nice try. If you think that Flushing race is anywhere close to a level playing field you need a reality check.

We all know it's not a level playing field. It's a luck of the draw or luck of which line your boat takes.

Despite it, PDBA used to come up and dominate for over a decade. No excuses made for them.

Obviously if you are a lot more dominant than other teams even if you draw a bad lane you're going to still have a good chance of winning despite conditions. The issue is if the crews are anywhere close in strength, it becomes more of a gong show than the HK race. Philly has lost in Flushing before actually, and the lane/boat probably had a good deal to do with it. Regardless, they stopped showing up a long time ago, probably around the time the prize money dried up. That alone speaks volumes about the quality of the venue if the money is the only draw.