Saturday, September 23, 2006

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Dragonboat race ... and she's a winner!

Posted by Hippobean at 11:59 PM
Nobody told me it was soooooo much fun! The Hippo absolutely loved it! We had 2 good practices at the Redwood City Marina (she got really sore after the first practice, exercising the muscles she didnt know she had!) and when the day of the race came, San Francisco welcomed us with the unusual warmth of the brilliant sun. Actually winning the race had been a brief timid imagination for me. Pure dream I allowed myself only to contemplate. Now that we actually won and took home the trophy and gold medals was more than a dream come true. Yeeeee haaaaa! Grad school had started so the Hippo has no time to do anything else but study; otherwise Ken's offer to find me a team to join would have been accepted wholeheartedly.

paddlers
 Can you spot the Hippo?

 See all the pics!


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Hot off the press!

~September 23, 2006

AlphaDetail, 2nd year dragon novice dragon boat team came to Treasure
Island to participate in the 11th annual San Francisco Dragon Boat
Festival and went home winners of Novice Division D. For their efforts
they took home a spectacular ebony trophy, and 27 dazzling gold medals.

AD Press

:-)

Congratulations AlphaDetail on yet another fun filled dragon boat
excursion. I hope that everybody had a great time. Our trend is
directionally upward as we beat 2 teams last year, and 5 teams this
year. I calculate that our talented paddling team had 25 members that
took paddle in hand, and the average number of practices was only 1.
The potential is yet to be tapped!

The weather on Treasure Island was very nice, a bit windy on the water,
but on land it was comfortable. There were over a dozen edible treats
vendors, and a selection of merchandise booths to visit. The kids got
to visit "DragonLand" a place where kids can go to do some arts and
crafts as well as play a few games. A stage showcased all sorts of
local talented performers from Taiko, to Tahitian dancing.

The AD races went as follows: in the morning we came in 5th, less than a
half second behind the fourth place boat. In the mid-day semi finals AD
went out with a full crew and romped into 4th again only a half second
behind the boat in front of them. That placed us into the Division D
finals where even though we were a few paddlers short of a crew we
fought into the stiff head wind. The competition was close as everybody
came of the starting line but AlphaDetail forged a straight line slowly
and steady pulling in front of the challengers 10 strokes at a time to
win the heat by over a second! It was an exciting race for sure.

Until next year.

Paddles up!!!

Ken\

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