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Quarry Lakes, Fremont: That's racing... |
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Written by Marco Gabbiani
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Sunday, 29 July 2007 |
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 Marco  Quarry Lakes, Fremont: That's racing...
By Marco Gabbiani
Finally, I was involved in some real on water excitement at the Fremont 2007 races. Mind you, not quite the excitement I had in mind. I was looking forward to an even better medal haul than Redwood Shores. The performances of BAD in the heats were very promising. We were leaving all our competitors in our wake, but the real contest would only emerge in the finals. As the wind picked up, so too did the number of odd events. Here is a selection:
One: The BAD 1 mixed semi final witnessed the Galileo High School team embarrass themselves as they leisurely tipped themselves into the water before the start. The scene became farcical as each dragon boat paddled over for a closer look and offered uncertain attempts to rescue the waving-but-not-drowning students. Much as I detest wearing PFDs I could see their value when I saw a Lincoln student lose self control while struggling in the water. In the end not a single student was rescued by a fellow dragon boat, but plenty of time was wasted. Oh, and we won the heat comfortably.
Two: Police were arresting toddlers who had been taking a dip in the inviting waters of Quarry Lakes after roasting themselves in the baking East Bay sun. This was in breach of the event contract with the outrigger association I overheard the Policeman say. He seemed like a nice guy, he shook my son's hand and had a friendly smile. I guess there is zero correlation between good PR and common sense.
Three: Well, if you were at Fremont you know what this one is about. The Men's final. Last race of the day. We were hurting because we only placed third in the Mixed final. Sure we had a tough start, but we did not overcome the deficit. Even worse, we lost second place to a very strong Lincoln High School team. I was itching to go as I had not raced in the mixed final. So, after jockeying at the start line for the umpteenth time (thanks to poor starting instructions, plenty of wind and sneaky steerspeople), we were ready to "unleash hell" 1.
 John's Birthday
In hindsight we should have stopped paddling to help DW and in hindsight we should have held our boat as soon as we made contact. But at the time, the people making the calls were not aware that we were at fault. Again there was plenty of confusion in the water with too many dragon boats milling around and not doing anything useful. The race organisers are clearly not well prepared for this sort of thing, nor are most of the dragon boat crews. Dragon boats do not make good rescue craft, they sit low in the water, have a poor turning circle and are laterally unstable. The best thing to do is hand over a bailer and get out of the way of the rescue craft. Fortunately Quarry Lakes is about as dangerous as swimming in a puddle. I used to paddle in the Chinese New Year Festival in Darling Harbour which is right in the middle of the Sydney CBD. The space on the water is tight and nearly every race involved dragon boats crashing into each other. As a result all the crews were quite used to assessing whether to paddle through or to hold the boat (or "dig it in" as we say down under) during a race.
I was pretty upset; embarrassed, sad, angry, definitely not happy. I don't like losing, even if it is to a better team. We train to win races. This was terrible, we never had the opportunity to see if we could take DW. It appeared they had enough of a lead to hold us off, but we will never know for sure. And I hate not knowing. However, my feelings are irrelevant. Twenty two paddlers in the water is the important point. I ran over to the area where the DW crew was exiting the water after they had swum to shore and apologized to every wet paddler I passed. Not one of them was rude. They had every right to be angry but they were gracious. I understand that not all of DW behaved with this level of decorum but I did not witness any of this. I do recall hearing some load boo's ringing in my ears but I didn't look over to see where they were coming from.
I have to say that in the aftermath BAD showed great sportsmanship. We all felt bad. Anyone who felt responsible for what happened put their hand up and admitted their faults - real or imagined. I was asked to collect money from each of the BAD men's crew so that we could buy DW a keg of beer. I had all the cash in my pocket after 20 minutes - thanks guys, you made my job really easy. I have reserved a 15.5 gal keg of Alpine Gold from the Tied House Brewery in Mountain View. I will keep you posted on the details.
Steering seems to have emerged as a new challenge for BAD. In the past we had the odd race where the steering could have been a little better but we didn't worry about it too much. Now it seems to be costing us races. I don't know if anything has changed crew wise or steering wise to cause this. In Australia (sorry to go on like this) steerspeople have to be officially tested and certified by the the State Dragon Boat association to qualify to steer in races. Australian water conditions are generally much rougher than what BAD usually paddles in so that may explain the difference.
On a very positive note: Hearty congratulations to the BAD women for finally cracking a gold medal after an unusually long drought. It's usually the women that bring respectability to our team performances so it was great to see them in the winners circle again. Instead of playing their sensational catch-up routine at the finish, they lead all the way and hung on to edge out the usual suspects: DW
See you in Portland.
Marco Gabbiani
1. Maximus Decimus Meridias (Russell Crow) preparing his troops for battle in the film Gladiator.
Steve Yan (BAD Men's Captain) preparing his paddlers for the 250m final.
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