Review: Oakville Charity Dragon Boat Festival

The Fourth Annual Oakville Charity Dragon Boat Festival far exceeded its own expectations. While hoping to have 40 teams participate, the Oakville crew ended up with 73. Good for them, but bad for us, as a bigger event meant a few compromises.

Here’s my review on this event:

1. Course. Lake Kelso is a nice water to paddle in, as it is clean, clear, and fast. The race course itself though was simply marked in the middle of a lake with sets of buoys. Without any breakers or natural shape to the course length, the lanes were out in the open water. This makes it tougher for paddlers and steerspeople to navigate, especially those in the outside lanes. The worst part is that there weren't any docks at this lake and so paddlers had to load the boats beachside. The dragon boats were basically pulled up to the short beach and paddlers had to climb in through the front of the boat and walk through it to their seat. Most of us had to tread ankle to calf-deep into the lake water while the volunteers who assisted us were in up their hips. Pretty ghetto loading style.

2. Sight lines. While our team pitched our tent with the best view of the water, we could only see about the last 50 meters or so of the race. From water’s edge, near the marshalling area, the boats would come into view for about the last half or so of the race. It was difficult to see the boats from where they started, which was about the middle of the lake. Overall this made for some uninteresting sight lines and hard-to-view racing.

3. Athlete's Village. The gorgeous park was a great location for the Athlete’s Village, with lots of trees overhead, grass underfoot, and picnic tables spread throughout the grounds. Our team sought out a patch of land at the top of a hill, about 200 metres away from the main Athlete’s Village and enjoyed a sprawl of space along with two picnic tables side-by-side. All the tenting spots seemed pretty good, and with few corporate tents out, the paddlers goverened the land themselves, giving themselves as much space as they wanted.

4. Organizers. Email correspondence pre-festival was responded to quickly and politely. I even chatted with a couple of the organizers on the phone a couple of times about regatta details. On race day itself, however, the volunteers seemed a bit flustered and uncertain. To me it became quite clear that three different organizations were running the show (ie. Oakville Rotary Club, Burloak Canoe Club people, and volunteers) and they weren’t all sure what the others were doing. My biggest frustration was securing a drummer and a steersperson for each of our three races, which was promised to me via email early on. At every race however, the organizers were scrambling to find someone who could help me out, making me feel scrambled as well.

5. Facilities (ie. Porta-potties). No shortage of portable toilets at this site, although they were already stinking at 7am, when half the teams hadn’t even arrived yet. While the site has permanent, housed toilets, these were taped off for “private use” by the people who were eating at the BBQ/Beer tent. The shape of the venue allowed for the toilets to be clustered in three main areas—one in the heart of the Athlete’s Village, one at the top of the hill, and one at the very base of the hill, nearest the marshalling area. The longest line ups were at the Athlete’s Village toilets.

6. Food and entertainment. I wasn’t expecting a lot, and there wasn’t a lot, although the live bands who kicked it up were playing all morning. The announcer didn’t provide very much race commentary, but was reliable for announcing boat marshalling times and giving warning to teams to hurry up. There was only one main food vendor, which was totally fine with us because our team over-indulged and brought enough “potluck” foods to feed three or FOUR teams. By the end of the day, we were packing up our sandwiches, cakes, cookies, and piles of food, despite gorging out for the 8 hours.

7. Awards. Not sure how these turned out as the awards as our team didn’t make it in. The divisions this year ran A through G, with 10 boats in each division. The top five teams were called “Championship” and the bottom five were “Consolation.” We finished fourth in Consolation-C. Pretty good, and above what we expected, although out of medal contention.

Summary
Cost: $800 Number of races: 3 races/one day

Scores (out of 5):
Course: 3
Sight lines: 2
Athlete’s Village: 4
Organizers: 3
Facilities: 4
Food and entertainment: 3
Awards: 3
OVERALL SCORE: 22

For us, this was a first time “little” race, and we chose to do it particularly to train for and warm up to the bigger and more important GWN. The cheap $800 cost was great, and a lower barrier for entry. Unfortunately, I think the regatta grew too quickly this year, and wasn't quite well managed as well as it might have been in the past. It simply lost the simple and easy feel of a small regatta. At this growth rate and low cost of entry, they’ll probably grow another 20-30 boats for next year, but then plateau once they can’t handle it, and people start looking for the other “smaller” festivals.