Читать книгу Stratford For All Seasons: Secrets & Surprises - Phyllis Hinz - Страница 11

DRAGON BOATS

SEASON: Summer, Fall

LOCATION: Lake Victoria

WEBSITE: www.rotarystratford.com/dragon-boat-home/

www.stratforddragonboat.com/

HIGHLIGHT: A high-energy community event on the water

The annual Rotary Club of Stratford Dragon Boat Festival, a single day of Hong Kong-style dragon boat races, takes place in September on Lake Victoria. You can join thousands of participants and spectators who contribute to the spirit and positive energy of the event. Long canoes adorned with mythical Chinese dragons slip through the water. Brightly dressed paddlers, arms glistening in the sun, muscles straining, shout encouragement to one another. People lining the shore scream and cheer in support. Paddlers sit in pairs facing forward, and the first two set the pace. The drummer, urging the paddlers forward, synchronizes the beat of the drum to the pacers to signal the need for more or less power. The steerer stands at the back of the boat.

Mixed teams, women’s teams, breast-cancer teams, and community event hospice teams race down the 500-metre, four-lane course. The first team to put the nose of their dragon across the finish line wins. Mixed teams must have sixteen to twenty paddlers, with no less than half being female. Breast-cancer teams consist of twenty breast-cancer-survivor paddlers and a female drummer. The steer person may be male. The community event hospice teams, unique to Stratford, require a maximum of sixteen paddlers with no less than half the paddlers female.

The Stratford Dragon Boat Club is open to anyone who wants to learn to paddle. The Stratford Women’s Team is one of the longest existing all-female dragon boat teams in North America. Seven paddlers from the Stratford Juniors, ages eleven to eighteen, have raced at the world championships.