Some boats were clocked at faster than 11 knots at the 16 th Alcan International Dragon Boat Festival in Vancouver last weekend, and the Laoyam Eagles of Pemberton Secondary School were definitely one of those teams.
The team rose to new heights this year as they paddled to win the competitive Junior ‘A’ division championship for the third year in a row. Even more impressive, however, was their silver medal in the Adult Recreational Division in which there were 144 teams entered. It should also be noted that the Eagles missed the gold by just two-tenths of a second.
The Alcan Dragon Boat Festival is Vancouver is the largest dragon boat festival in the world, according to the festival’s organizers, with 183 teams competing this year.
Although the sun played peek-a-boo for most of the weekend, the racing conditions were near perfect. The rain forecasters were calling for held off and the winds and the waters were calm for the most part.
Despite the fact that one of the Eagle’s most experienced paddlers was laid up with a fever of 102, the Eagles won their first seeding heat (there were 16 seeding heats with nine boats in each) by more than eight seconds. They event beat Team Ruckus, a university team that has been posting fast times recently, with a time of 2 minutes 4.52 seconds.
Later on that day they had a closer race in the first Junior race – the adult rec race was just for fun – against the Sun Dogs, a group of high school kids from Portland who have already qualified for the worlds. The Eagles managed to post an even faster time of 2:03.25, edging out the Sun Dogs time of 2:04.55.
The Eagles got another boost when they checked the times in the junior seeding race. The next fastest junior in the seeding racers – the Centennial Centaurs – posted a beatable time of 2:11.32.
In their second seeding race, which determined whether they would compete at the A, B, C, D, or E level, the Eagles once again beat the competition to the line, posting a time of 2:09.52. The next fastest team finished almost four seconds back. As a result, the Eagles made it into the ‘A’ category.
Back in the Junior semi-finals, the Eagles were forced to race the course twice – the first race, in which they had a huge lead, was discounted after an American boat wandered onto the course and blocked some of the other boats. Undeterred, the Eagles paddled the race again and won.
The day ended with the Eagles on top in two divisions.
Meanwhile, the Pemberton Spirit team, a group of women paddlers who got into dragon boat racing after watching their kids race with the Eagles, made it into the Rec "B" category. They originally intended to race in the Novice category, but were bumped up after posting some excellent times in the seeding races.
On the second day of competition, the sick paddler rejoined the team, which had a few sore shoulders after the first day.
In the junior final, pitted against all the top junior teams on the coast (including three teams from Portland, and Vancouver’s Eric Hamber secondary, and Centennial school) the Eagles hit their stride again. In a convincing show of strength and teamwork, the Eagles won the race by a full boat length.
An hour and a half later they were in the water again, this time in the demanding Rec ‘A’ semi-final against mixed teams of adults. Only the top two boats make it into the finals. The Eagles won that race, edging out a Vancouver boat called "Tragically Quick" by less than a second.
For the finals, the Eagles lost their sick paddler once again and there was a problem with getting able-bodied girls to fill the boat. However, in a 20-person boat, you are only required to have eight women in the mix. The Eagles had been competing with 10 boys and 10 girls since the beginning against teams who had crews of 12 men and eight women.
The boat filled, the Eagles set out to win the Rec ‘A’ title. Four boats took the lead from the beginning and the Eagles were one of them. Right until the end, the Eagles continued to gain strokes on the lead boat and they might have caught up if the course was just a little bit longer. As it was, they settled for second to Team Agilent Technologies – 2:03.99 to 2:04.19.
As all the teams were panting away at the finish line waiting to come back, one of the defeated teams called cheerfully over to the kids, "Hey, why don’t you go and race someone in your own age group?" The kids, never short of an answer replied, "We already did that, and beat them." They shot back "Some of us are 45," to which the Eagles replied "Some of us are 13."
Most spectators thought the Eagles were 18 or 19, while the age range actually ran the whole spectrum from 13 to 18. In many of the Junior races, they were younger on average than the competition.
Meanwhile, the Pemberton Spirit team made it to the finals, but didn’t come away with any medals. However, their times were good enough to win the ‘C’ division.
During the course of the day it was determined that the Eagles’ times qualified them for the World Championships in Philadelphia in August.
Laoyam Eagles coach Hugh Fisher, a gold medal canoeist in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the person who started the Eagles, could bring his team home from the championships with a medal.
