As you guys may know, Ottawa is home of one of the biggest Dragon Boat Festival’s. This festival takes place on the 20-22 June 2008 weekend this year. I propose that since we think of ourselves as the Ultimate Fun-eh Khans, we should consider entering a team.
What do we need for the team?
- We need 22 people on the boat. 20 of them paddle. 1 steers. 1 calls ( read drums ).
- The boat needs a minimum of 8 women paddlers.
- The steering person has to know what (s)he is doing. This race runs pretty fast. Any slight losses on account of the steer can cause your position to plummet like a lead anchor.
- The drummer has to be a Josh bundle.
- We need about $1300 for the team entry. Sounds like a lot, but it is about $50 per person. Now this money can be raised from sponsorships. The race proceeds go to CNIB ( charity for visual impariments/blindness )
The race happens in the Mooney’s Bay. All the teams get to practice on 2 different days in June. We will be given a boat, paddles, and life jackets for the practice. We get to race twice on 21st of June. Then depending on our time, we either need to show up on 22nd of June, or not. This is a pretty fast race. It needs endurance and strength. The race itself is 500m. It is over in under 3 minutes. The top teams finish under 2:15. The champions are usually done under 2:00. My guess is that if we are half way serious, we could finish between 2:30-2:45. To do better than that, we have to be serious.
Mona and I participated in this. It was a lot of fun. Teams come up with own T-Shirts. Some teams put on mini shows on the boat as they are steering alongside after the race.
If we want to do this, let me know ASAP, so that a team can be registered right away. There are a very limited team spots available in total ( under 200 ). If you do straight math, that is over 4000 participants. So this is a pretty good size event of the city.
This is a great idea Satvinder and sounds like it should be a lot of fun. Count Thakkar family in. I request others to respond to this email immediately since it requires a lot of work from Satvinder and Mona to organize for the event.
I see this would be a good motivation to hit the gym although it would be hard to match Anu’s muscles and power in such a short amount of time.
Meanwhile, Manish needs to stay away from the blue pill and conserve the energy.
By: Dhanya on May 3, 2008
at 8:34 pm
I don’t think that the situation is in Manish’s hands.
By: Satvinder on May 3, 2008
at 9:12 pm
BTW, I just checked the team slot status. All the spots are taken. I have placed us on the waiting list. Let us assume that we are participating, and start making some (bi|tri)ceps and lots of cardio. The end result will be good regardless. Please do let me know of your interest. If we do get a spot, we should be able to react on a dime.
By: Satvinder on May 3, 2008
at 9:12 pm