The Singapore River Regatta Dragon Boat Race

I could call dragon boat racing as a national sport of Singapore based on the enthusiasm and degree of competitive spirit that I witness every time I chance upon dragon boat rowers religiously taking weekend trainings along Kallang River. Before last weekend’s dragon boat race, there was a big Singapore River Regatta race that was held in the Singapore River, Boat Quay, Raffles in which hundreds of participants from different well-known companies (such as banks and airlines) and other associations gather to compete in friendly rounds of boat racing. Many tourists and locals lined up along the banks of the river to watch and take pictures of the exciting event.

The one standing wearing a red life vest in the picture above was our helpful coach that I mentioned in our training sessions in preparation for last Saturday’s dragon boat competition.

I took the following pictures from theElgin bridge along Bridge Rd. It was a nice location to take some overhead pictures of the racers.

Here’s a sample video of five competing dragon boats racing in the event. Don’t ask me which boat placed first for I did not bother to know afterwards. :-)

13.Nov.07 Sports, Videos Comments (3)

Winner In The Dragon Boat Race Along Kallang River

Last Saturday morning was my second participation in a dragon boat race competition held by the bank I work for here in Singapore. A year ago, on the same month, I had the honor to join in our division’s first round in another dragon boat race (my first experience) which landed us a spot in the finals. Eventually, in the final round, we won second place.

This year, a co-worker and fellow Filipino is our captain of the team. He grouped and invited some of us to participate for the department’s team. I heeded the call as I would like again the experience the thrill of dragon boat racing.

Before the race, we had trained for two days (one during a Sunday and the other on Deepavali day). We trained under the tutelage of an experienced dragon boat coach (and I assume a professional dragon boat rower). He taught us some techniques and provided some tips on how to get the most out of our paddle rows (digging deep into the water and swinging backwards in a longer movement). He mentioned that at the start, we should let our dragons kiss the water (each of our wooden paddles has that distinct dragon emblem) and hold the paddles in a slanted way, leaning forward to reach out further when rowing. To add power in our rowing, he told us to simulate kicking with our legs (this we do in our seats, as in when we reach out forward to dip our paddles we simultaneously act as if we kick forward). Our coach also mentioned that to compensate for a tiring forearm and shoulder, let one’s body twist and do the motion for rowing the paddle to unburden the load from the rowing arm.

That’s a lot of tips there from our excellent coach. After two days of training he noted some improvements from our performance. He assured us that if we did this the same way on Saturday’s event we can eventually win the race.

It was raining last Saturday morning. I never saw the sun but only dark gray clouds from 9AM to 12noon. There were times a drizzle occurred, but luckily most of the time there had been longer periods of no rain during the event. Rain or shine though, the event pushed through as everything (the boats, life vests, paddles, tables, chairs, food, water jugs and trophies) was in place and all participants and supporters arrived.

I arrived quite early at Kallang Water Sports Center last Saturday morning so I brought out my digital camera and started shooting some scenery of the place as well as the buildings lining the Kallang River.

The wooden dragon boat heads and tails are overly used and nobody seems to bother repainting them. I guess, as long as these wooden parts are recognizable as head and tail with a slight tinge of orange and green, these can still serve their purposes of distinguishing a dragon boat from an ordinary passenger boat.

There were 11 teams that participated in the event. Ours represent the operations and technology department of the bank. We faced off with other departments such as the human resources, transaction group, international banking, and others.

Now this two cute overloaded dogs were brought along by someone a few of the Singaporean participants refer to as Ang Mo (local calling to white people or those having Caucasian features) who already works in the same bank. The bleach blond dog is a she, fondly called by the owner as Carrot (eh, does the dog look like one or colored as orange?). Now the dark haired one is a he and is called as Fidel, named after the Cuban president Fidel Castro (I think because of the grayish hair of the dog which resembles the graying hair and beard of Fidel Castro. Ugh). Anyway, I adored Fidel the dog as whenever I look closer to his face he would approach me and lick my nose and lips in a friendly manner. Both dogs look like live stuffed toys as they weave quietly in and out of our legs. They attracted lots of attention from the participants; many would crouch down to pat their fuzzy hair and massage their ears and bellies. The dog’s owner didn’t mind these and he would usually encourage us to carry them in our arms like babies.

Our team raced against five other departments during the first leg of the event. We had a great start and was able to charge swiftly, but nearing the finish line our drummer noticed that we gradually lose some tempo in our rowing. Our boat was slowly lagging behind two fast dragon boats. We simply could not outrun them. We placed fourth in that leg. But luckily our team was included in the Rapid Charge competition were losers from the first round and second round have a chance to slug it out for a spot in the final round.

We licked our wounds from the first round and vowed ourselves to do better. We had a very nice start after the horn blared. We paddled like crazy while adding some power in our rows. Eventually, I could see that we were leading and gliding further away from our opponents as we continue with our paddling.

We placed first on that event and secured our spot in the finals. This boosted our morale and confidence for the final round. We learned though that one of our competitors’ boat capsized during the race (could have been that one side applied a heavier force that contributed to tipping the boat). Good news was nobody was injured and was safely brought back to the port thanks to the life vests each one had slipped into.

The final round came with five departments competing again the 200m race. We were assigned boat number five thus we were positioned farthest to the right. We posed our rowing stance. After the horn blared, we dug deep and our boat moved strongly. We were doing fine but we noticed that boats 1 and 2 were way ahead from the rest with boat 1 heading for the finish line. There was no way for our boat to overcome the two. We just continued on with our paddling to hopefully clinch the third place. We were leading boat 4 but we noticed that we were slowly losing some speed. My paddle already clashed with the one in front of me and later my paddle clashed with the person behind me. We were having some panic mode then as we see boat four moving slowly and gaining speed to overtake us. The finish line was nearing and all I could do was add more strength in my swings to contribute to our team’s dwindling rowing efforts. We stopped at the finish line. Both teams’ drummers raised arms in apparent victory. Our team was a little confused as to which team got the third place. A few minutes passed and the final announcement was declared: team number 5 got the third place. Our team was overjoyed with the news. We were all tired, sore, and soaking wet but we did not mind all of these. We were still in a euphoric state after hearing the good news. We won third place and that is all that matters. We still got an award (there were only three trophies for the race).

During the awarding ceremonies, I jokingly remarked to my teammates about our team’s body structure compared to the winners of the second and first place. I noticed that our team consists mostly of thin to average body types, while the second place team have average to medium sized men and women. Finally the first placed team generally has rowers having big muscular and weather-beaten body types (as if they’re professional dragon boat rowers on steroids). Even the female rowers are quite big compared to most of our male teammates. Yikes.

11.Nov.07 Sports Comments (3)

The Dragon Boat Race

The race was held in Jurong Lake, Chinese Garden.

It’s my first time to participate in a dragon boat race. Actually, it’s indeed my first time to row for a dragon boat team. Our office department team has some first-timers in a dragon race (like me). So it was a privilege to be invited to join the team; I’ve been wooed before by an officemate to be a part of the office’s dragon boat team.

During the first round, I’ve been assigned to row at the port side of the boat (left that is). We had a good start, and soon left our competitors behind our wake. We placed first and guaranteed ourselves to the finals.

In the second round, we had to make changes to give chance to other team members to row. I was one of the chosen to be replaced, so I had the chance to take my camera with me and shoot the following pictures.

That is our boat. Number 4. The team had a struggled start during the finals round.

In this picture, it’s hard to determine whether our boat (number 4) is leading or lagging to number 5. Surprisingly, we placed second. Seems to me we placed third based on this picture. I had to ran along the shoreline just to be able to catch up and have a good position in taking pictures of our dragon boat.

Placing second is still quite achievement. Compare that to last year’s department’s position which is second to the last. Indeed, quite an improvement. Consider that we only had two weeks of training. No, make it specifically two Sundays only of training.

Notice the only color available for life vests is pink. Pink, and more pink. Even during training days we had no choice but to don pink life vests. The favorite color of local dragon boaters here is pink. Lah.

In between breaks, I had the chance to take some pictures of other participants, such as this.

…and someone took out the dragon head from one of the boats and just laid it out on the grass…

Other pictures:

This is a Chinese gateway to…

…Koi fishes inside. And more Koi fishes.

The stone guards near the gateway. Seems the rightmost guard has asked his collegues if one of them has farted (from the expression of his face, the smell got into his system). And looks like one felt guilty (hint: stooping down).

Before I exited the park’s main entrance, I chanced upon this magnificent seven storey pagoda.

Also I noticed this pigeon perched on one of the post of the red wooden bridge along the main entrance. As if the pigeon is asking me, in a quizzical manner, “what are you looking at?”.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture before I finally left the park’s premises. I saw this interesting scene wherein some murder of crows (or conspiracy of ravens?) and siege of herons (also not sure) gather in the huge expanse of grassland surrounding the park. Reminds me so much of the Filipino saying Pagputi ng uwak, pagitim ng tagak(English translation: When the crow turns white, when the heron turns white). Isn’t it?

07.Nov.06 Interesting Places, Sports Comments (0)