On Sunday the 6th of September Race the Dragon were involved in a charity fundraising event at Albert Village, Swadlingcote, which in the last 2 years has primarily benefited several charities including Marie Curie Cancer, this year Help for Heroes were the focused charity. During this event, of which was entered by teams representing local companies including: Tesco, Autosmart and pontoon and dock. The event had two large pontoons installed on the beach to create a team boat loading area as well a separate pontoon which was fitted out with a sound stage for the live band and also a catwalk specially for the fashion show, we installed a large marquee which accommodated the bar, serving a selection of local real ales and ice cold beers.
At the other end of the event field there was juggling, face painting and raffles to entertain the spectators throughout the day, as well as a range of “come and try” water activities including canoeing, kayaking, stand up paddle boards and zorbs.
The day started warm and everyone turned up with a positive attitude about the day and the competition ahead, people had their faces painted in combat paint and all teams had different matching clothes to represent themselves, ranging from the Vikings to the Superhero’s, Pirates to the Smurfs.
It was a 2 boat race format with some 3 boat races for the finals witch made the intensity of the day increase just that little bit more, due to the calm lake the first few races flew buy with times just under a minute at first it was really fun but then people started to show their competitive sides, asking the event team for more padding technique advice, which we gladly Provided
The second round was great with the first of the 3 boat races taking place it was a sight to see, the crowd roared across to the teams as they powered along the water, this definitely helped them out as times became faster than the first round. A member of the crowd said‘It’s a great spectator sport as well as a physical one’ we really do hear this at every event we operate!!
There was an hour lunch after the second round of racing where the fashion show took place on the catwalk pontoon, the most extravagant and quirky dresses worn by some lovely models were flaunted up and down the catwalk for all eyes on looking crowd to see, congratulations to all the models who took part, and who also even got involved in dragon boating too during the day.
The third round had now commenced and was paddling at full speed ahead, everyone had been fully briefed and all members had at least a race to practice their skills, there were 3 teams that stood out the most in round 3 who went on to the 3 boat final these were Dragon Heart (RJH Construction 1), Just Row With It and Eragon (RJH Construction 2) who averaged a time of 45 seconds for the final race but it was team Dragon Dragon Heart (RJH Construction 1) that came out on top with the fastest time of the day 45.06.
