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)
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