July 7, 2000

Report to: Ownership, Management, Staff and Campers of Red Pine Camp
Re.: Red Pine Camp Monster Dragon Boat Team 2000
From: Bruce M. Firestone, Captain of the Boat, National Capital Dragonboat Festival 2000

Dear Red Pine Camp:

Last year, some Week 6 campers asked for and received RPC's blessing to enter a team in the National Capital Dragonboat Festival 2000. The Camp, led by its wise and venerable ownership and management, gave its blessing realizing, of course, that the Camp had quite a stake in the outcome- a poor performance by the RPC Monsters in the Festival would not speak well of the years of training provided by RPC of its members! We are after all not just any old campers, we're Red Pine Campers!

In true RPC tradition, a sign up sheet was posted to the board and volunteers and guinea pigs duly autographed it. A Dragonboat team is made up of 20 paddlers (a minimum of eight women and a maximum of 12 men paddling) plus a steersperson and a cox. Fielding a team of 22 persons in a busy world like ours is similar to herding cats.

Dragonboat racing is a 2000 year-old Chinese tradition and one that is, I believe, headed for the Olympic games in 2008. It is quite a spectacle when performed at a high level. It has a unique 'half' stroke to it- paddlers are packed tightly together in each canoe. Power is generated using a far forward reach; the paddles are, however, removed at just past the halfway point of each stroke. This 'choo choo' train type of stroke is unique to dragonboat racing, I think, but when you see the elite level boats achieve speeds of 18 kph, well, it is a very impressive sight.

Architect Frank Ling started the Ottawa festival seven years ago. You can learn more about the Ottawa festival at www.dragonboat.net. In its first year, there were eight dragonboats and eight teams. By 2000, the field has grown to 162 teams with 120 returning from last year and 42 rookie boats. Ottawa's festival is now the largest in Canada, larger even than Toronto's (which has 150 entries this year). It reflects the participatory nature of the people of Ottawa- we just seem to enjoy participating in outdoor activities- we have the longest outdoor skating rink in the world; we close our Parkways to cars on summer Sundays so folks can roller blade, bike, run, etc.

Over the winter, some of our enlistees thought the better of it and decide not to paddle- too much pressure to perform at the highest levels, we can only suppose! Just kidding- people do, after all, have a life outside of Dragonboat racing.

So, we bring in a few ringers from Carleton University (where I, the self-appointed Captain of the RPC 2000 team, teach from time to time). Dr. John Callahan, one of the Business School's most brilliant Profs and former RPCer, is volunteered for the job along with business school (recent) graduate, Fred Carmosino and architecture student (and future steersperson) Jessica Hillary. We also recruit Carleton rowing team members including the beauteous Katy Heath-Eves and the towering and talented Jena Nordenstrom, who, by default, becomes our coach, since she is the only one in the boat who REALLY knows what she is doing. Anne Makhoul (the future energetic cox of the boat) also recruits from her soccer team and neighborhood bringing in the intense Louise Violette and the calm Joyce Farrell. Other women paddlers include the beatific Ruth Cooper, lawyer Susan Richer and her daughter Marie. You can see the whole team at www.manchester.on.ca (click on "RPC Monster Dragonboat team" and scroll down to see team names and team achievements in the 2000 Festival).

Rookie boats are given two practices to prepare for the Festival races and are generally thought of as cannon fodder for the 'real' competitors. Rookies are given 45 minutes of coaching, twice.

Our coaches, Scott and Jena, teach us the secret (winning) war canoe racing formula, which we are prepared to share with you for a fee. (The fee is you have to read the rest of this report.)

Look out war canoe racers at RPC, here come Week 6 campers who have learned some new strategies!

Our best time in practice is 2 minutes and 47 seconds; our worst is 3 minutes and five seconds. In 1999, the 60th placed boat was timed in 2 minutes and 53 seconds. This is important to understand since our objectives are simple: 1. don't embarrass Red Pine Camp, and 2. make the cutoff for the Sunday finals. All 162 boats will race twice on Saturday. Race officials take each boat's one best time and then the top 60 boats move on to the Sunday finals.

Warren Creates, one of the Directors of the Festival, tells me that with 120 boats returning and competition heating up, the 60th placed boat will probably be around 2 minutes and 44 seconds this year (it turns out that Warren is way off, the 60th placed boat in the 2000 Ottawa Festival is much better than this- they come in with a time of two minutes and 37 seconds!)

We know, in any event, that we will have to race much faster in the Festival to qualify, better than anything we have been able to achieve in our two practices.

Festival Saturday dawns sunny and warm. Ten thousand people show up to cheer on their favourite boats. It is intimidating, I must say, to see the other boat teams- the average age of our team has to be 50% higher than the average of the other boats. In the holding area, as teams get ready to compete, the other teams wish us well in a way that you know they are thinking: "What are a bunch of middle aged parents doing here?"

In our first race, we are grouped with the other rookies. We bring our boat into our lane (Lane 5). There is a crosswind. We compensate by drawing on the port side of the boat. The other boats are having difficulty getting set. Boat 4 drifts into our lane. We tell them to: "Draw on the port side. Draw on the left," we scream! They think we are asking them if, perchance, they have left their crayons at home. They smash into our stern turning us 45 degrees to the course. The race officials use that moment to say "Attention Please" and "Bang" goes the start gun.

Now at this time, I should digress- our cox has called in sick so plucky Anne Makhoul has volunteered to step up from paddler to drum banger; Louise Violette has managed to get herself knocked out in a soccer match (yet decides to paddle anyway) and we are about to set sail with a full crew who have never actually all paddled together before. The most important positions in Dragonboat racing are: cox, steersperson and the two bowmen who, together with the cox, set the pace for the team and pull the boat (our two bowmen are Fred Carmosino and Nick Lambros, Manager of Darcy McGee's Pub- they do a great job and, most importantly, the Pub is headquarters for the after-race party). Our cox, Anne, is only able to get in virtual practices (that is, she received via e-mail a second by second breakdown of the count and she practices with her ten year old son and a stop watch in her basement. Yet Anne gets so good at coxing that, by the afternoon of the Sunday finals, she is guest coxing in top competition boats!)

When the gun goes off, your team promptly shoots off at a 45-degree angle, crossing three lanes, bumping two other boats before finally finishing the race as a DQ boat (that doesn't mean Dairy Queen- we are disqualified). Being good RPCers, we do not protest the race result (Steel-sinewed Rob Blake shows good sense here and restrains the Captain of the Boat). Like I said, rookie boats are cannon fodder- none are expected to qualify for the finals and when you watch how carefully the starters place the top ranked boats (equally) at the start of their races, you realize that they REALLY don't care about the rookie races.

The unhappy news is that your team has to race again right away (not much recovery time- the rookies race last and then get their second races first and, of course, the DQ boats go soonest).

We are out on the course a second time with the other DQ boats. This time, we are ready to go and we are hugging the starboard (downwind) side of our lane, praying that our neighbor won't bash us again. Coach Jena tells us, in her nicest manner, that we are to be quiet in the boat (hardest for the men, of course). I whisper to Rob Blake, Co-Captain of the Year 2000 RPC Boat (he and I are turbos in the stern along with the quiet and dignified Tom Denesyk, Dr. Andy Robert, aka the "Wise", Rasputin-like Allan Mann, and the youthful Bill MacDonald)- "ssh, Robbie, let the girls do it." Anne in the bow and Jessica in the stern with the long steering paddle have us doing a portside draw for seven minutes while the other DQ boats fiddle. I am exhausted and we haven't yet started the race. The Race Officials finally lose patience and the gun goes. But Makhoul and Hillary have done their job, Rob Blakes's paddle width is all that comes between us and another disqualification on the starboard side- that's how far away we are from the buoy but no other boat is close to us. Now it is up to the paddlers.

We start with paddles in the water at a 50% reach: with six super fast strokes (6-5-4-3-2-1), we are now at a 75% reach and the boat is starting to come out of the water- it is beginning to plane. Then there are 20 strokes at full reach, using arms only, still very fast. Next, we slow down somewhat to race pace- full reach using the large muscles in our backs (with a twist) along with our arms. At mid race, Anne calls for a power 20 and with 150 metres to go, we sprint. At dockside, my ten-year-old son, Matthew, gives me an unofficial time; it is so good, I don't want to tell the team until I hear it officially.

Your team has rocketed down the course finishing first in the heat in a time of 2 minutes, 34 seconds and 37 hundredths of a second.

We are 42nd overall (out of 162 boats); we are rookie finalists! There will be a tomorrow for the RPC Monster Dargonboat team!

___________________________________________________________

Folks- I hope you enjoyed the story and I hope you will see some of it posted at Camp and in the RPC Newsletter this winter. It was a great experience- truly worthy of the Camp. It is a great team building exercise and a wholly satisfying one. It is great for your kids to see their parents competing and 'winning'. I would recommend this for anyone. Next year, Anne Makhoul will be a worthy Captain of the team, I am sure. You can reach her at anne@epi.ca. There is no reason why we can't have a RPC I and II plus we are looking into the possibility of some sponsorship for next year to help with t-shirts, hats and the entry fee. All the best and have a great summer,

Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Captain of the Red Pine Camp Monster Dragonboat Team 2000 (bmfirestone@hickling.ca)

ps. On the Sunday we finished 12th in the Challenge Cup (out of 30 boats) and had a lot of fun in an intense rain storm, in what turned out to be a once in twenty-five year storm. You can see a wet but happy team, as mentioned above, at www.manchester.on.ca.