What a brilliant start to the 2009 Dragon Boat Race Season. The ExeCalibre team participated in the Liverpool races for the first time, squeezing as many people into as few cars as possible to make the long journey from Exeter ‘up north’! Some of us arrived on the Friday to participate on Saturday – JoJo as chief support and mascot, Steven as coach and organiser, and Scott, Lisa, Chrissie to take part in their Great Britain trials, in which they did so well that Scott has already got himself a place in the Junior Team. Chrissie and Lisa came in the top 5 in the pre-trails, which puts them in a really strong position for the actual trials in June. If they keep the training up then they stand a very good chance of getting a place in the GB team - fingers crossed. Well done Scott and watch this space for more news about the race in Prague!

In addition, Lisa carried out her first race helm which she did magnificently with only a couple of hiccups including a boat trying to nudge us along and into the wall from behind, and the fact that it was a really windy day making it a little harder to get out of the harbour and round the corner. It was so windy in fact that we gave up on attempts to keep the gazebo up and took it back down again. The Exeter event usually means a nice hot sunny May day, so we hope to go from wearing extra layers of clothing to keep warm, to putting on sun cream and shades!

We had an excellent ladies race with the Dutch Dragons, changing our name to ‘Excalidutch’ for the purposes of this race! We came in a very close second, and were cheered and clapped in from the bridge like royalty by the rest of their Dutch team. As we got off, each two opposite team members put their paddles up into an arch, and the next two walked through to applause, put their paddles up, and the next two came through and so on until we were all on the pontoon, at which point we realised that it couldn’t take that many people and we all sank into the water up to our waists! As it was the end of the day and we were on a high by starting the season with 13 points, none of us really cared anymore about getting really wet!

We also had fun squeezing all of us into bunk beds in a local hostel, and checked out the local entertainment which included visiting The Crown pub where Ed obviously decided that we hadn’t been paying him enough attention and proceeded to fall down the narrow part of a spiral staircase and then pass out and keel over, and this was before he’d even had a post-race celebratory drink! As it was a bank holiday and none of us had to rush back to work the next day, this led onto a birthday party and time on the dance floor with various members of other teams including our new Dutch friends in Walkabout.

The excitement continues as we get ready for the event hosted by Exeter’s Exe-calibre team down on Exeter Quay on Sunday 17th May between 10am-5pm when it’s all hands on deck from 8am to make sure that everything is ready for the smooth running of our own event on home ground. We have a very strong team and are hoping for great achievements on the day to add to those gained at Liverpool. If you haven’t told all your friends and family to come along yet, then make sure you do – see you all there.

Full Race Results (pdf file)