DRAGON BOAT CHALLENGE

DRAGON BOAT TEAMS WANTED FOR THE CANARY WHARF DRAGON BOAT CHALLENGE 2008

in West India Dock

Wednesday 6th August, Wednesday 13th August, Wednesday 20th August & and a Grand Final on Wednesday 27th August

 

 

A crew of 10 people sitting side by side speeding down a course in a boat over twenty foot long with a carved dragon’s head at the front and tail at the back. A drummer in the prow, beating time on a large drum. A steerer at the stern, keeping the boat on course with a giant paddle - this is dragon boating!

Dragon Boat Racing is a unique sport - you don’t need any experience to participate, anyone can do it, just get in the boat and off you go. It caters for all ages, mixed abilities, male and female in one crew. Between 7 and 11 people in each boat means that it is lively, spectacular, colourful and very exciting, lots of noise, lots of action,

AND ABOVE ALL ITS GREAT FUN!

Come and take part in an exciting fun night out to establish the Dragon boat champions of Canary Wharf 2008

TEAMS - maximum 10 paddlers + drummer - minimum 6 paddlers

Entry includes:

AND a place for the top six teams from the heats to battle it out in the final on Wednesday 27nd August to find The Dragon boat champions of Canary Wharf

 

All this for only £150 per team

We require that each team will match fund an additional £150 sponsorship.

All the profit go to support the Watersports Centres charitable work with local young people which includes our Youth Afloat Project during the Summer Holidays. Last year, with the help of this event, we were able to provide places for over 2,000 young people aged from 8 to 18

FOR BOOKINGS AND MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

judi@dswc.org or phone 0207 537 2626.

Download a sponsorship form.

Download Crew returns and Consent Form.

Dragon Boating, Myth & Legend

Dragon Boat Racing is an ancient chinese tradition that goes back over 2000 years and has become shrouded in many myths, legends & superstitions. The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This is usually around midsummer’s day.

THE BATTLE OF DRAGONS

One explanation for the origin of the festival is connected to rain-making magic. Summer is the driest period of the year and rain is needed to grow the crops. The races were held each mid summer, re-enacting the battle between Lung, the dragon of the air and Le, the dragon of the water which were said to fight in the clouds thus causing rain.The races were thought to stimulate the real dragon gods to fight in the heavens.

HUMAN SACRIFICE

Another theory its origins , like many other midsummer celebrations all over the word, was as an attempt to come to terms with the fear of decay and death which accompanied the passing of the longest day of the year. The powers of darkness might be appeased by a sacrifice, and one way of achieving it was by a mock battle, the losers symbolising the sacrifice. In fact, dragon boat 'fights' frequently provided real victims because boats would sink and men would drown. It is said that no one would attempt to rescue the men on the grounds that they had been chosen for sacrifice by the very fact of their boat’s sinking. Luckily this part of the tradition has not been practiced for some centuries.

DEATH & CORRUPTION

By far the most popular legend, saddest and most romantic is that of Qu Yuan. In the third century B.C., China was divided into a number of small kingdoms, each struggling to gain control of the rest. In one of these kingdoms lived a wise counsellor and warrior statesman called Qu Yuan. He was a loyal aide to the Emperor King Huai, but through deception and plots laid against him by corrupt court officials, Qu Yuan was removed from his position of high office and banished from the royal palace. In the years that followed his banishment, Qu Yuan became a wandering poet who was much loved by the people he met on his travels. He wrote of his love for his country and its’ people and lamented his fate and that of his Emperor still surrounded by those corrupt officials. Eventually he presented a petition to the Court listing all his grievances. When this was rejected out of hand by the King, he made the ultimate protest and committed suicide, drowning himself in the Mi Lo River. When Qu Yuan's followers heard of his death, they took to their boats to search for his body and to protect it from being eaten by fish, they beat the water furiously with their paddles, and threw rice dumplings into the water as food for his spirit. It is said that some days later a man met the ghost of Qu Yuan. He told him that the rice had been taken by the Dragon water god that lurked beneath the surface of the river. In futurethe rice should always be wrapped in bamboo leaves and silk, and tied with multicoloured thread, as protection from the dragon god and his water spirits. And so it came about that every year thereafter, on the anniversary of his death, that the Chinese began to commemorate Qu Yuan’s final protest, by holding a Dragon Festival, on the fifth day of the fifth moon, which was celebrated with temple rituals. This festival grew to include the custom of eating tsung-tzu, lumps of sweetened glutinous rice boiled in a wrapping of leaves and tied with raffia, and the launching of boats to look for Qu Yuan’s remains as well as the custom of Dragon Boat racing, with drums being banged to symbolise  the act of frightening the fish from Qu Yuan’s body. Eventually the festival and the races spread throughout the coast and river communities of China