By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
Over 400 competitors from 16 teams battled it out on the waters of Osoyoos Lake last weekend in the 5th Annual Dragon Boat Flag Race. The event, which is purposely held in the early shoulder season for tourism brought the paddlers and their supporters and partners from as far as Vancouver Island.
Organized by the Osoyoos Lake Paddling Club which fielded two teams – one mixed and one women’s – the event was a total success according to Peter Munroe, club president.
“It was a beautiful day, great location and the weather, we just couldn’t have asked for anything more,” he said.
“The club in general did a fabulous job of putting on a first class festival,” adding that the feedback from visiting teams has been overwhelmingly positive. Not a trivial feat given that the club members were also racing.
Unfortunately for the home town heroes there was no ultimate glory, that instead went to three teams from Kelowna including: Mixed Champions – ODBRC Paddleholics and; Women’s Champions – ODBRC Dragonfire. And for the 2 km Challenge race saw the women’s team ODBRC Flowriders take first place completing the loop in 10 minutes and eight seconds.
The challenge race is gruelling given it comes at the end of a day of racing and at 2 kms in length involves at least 10 minutes of intense paddling for the fastest team.
The tightly packed timetable executed with military precision saw 32 races take place from 8 a.m. on Saturday morning to 3:39 p.m. in the afternoon with each team racing twice in the morning followed by a knockout format in the afternoon.
The seemingly impossible feat of successfully conducting 32 races across about a 7 hour timeframe (45 minutes for lunch in between) fell to race managers Penticton Paddle Sports which also runs the far bigger (anywhere from 60 to 85 teams) Penticton Dragon Boat Festival in the first week of Sept.
“We do all the work, but they do all the timing and everything like that, they know what they’re doing,” he said, adding that safety is a priority.
A dinner on the beach, with Oliver Eats feeding over 400 people also went off like clockwork with the party continuing until 10 p.m. and beyond at other venues around town Munroe laughed.
Munroe is thankful for the community support and sponsorship received for the event including the Town of Osoyoos and also Safari Beach Resort where the event is held.
He points out that not only Safari Beach benefits from the weekend’s room nights but other providers of accommodation, F&B outlets and merchants around town that are patronized by the flood of dragon boaters.
Safari Beach Resort was dragon boat central on Saturday Sept. 21.
