By Donna Cochran
Spirit Point Dragons came home with silver at Comox Marina Park on Saturday, Sept. 14, capping off a glittery dragon boat racing season by medalling at every festival.
Vancouver Island Paddling members hosted their second annual festival, bringing together 39 teams, women’s and mixed, to compete in standard 20-paddler and short 10-paddler boats.
The 200-metre sprint races required precision starts and flawless timing. Spirit Point Dragons met the challenge. In the first and second race, we placed first with best times of 54.93 seconds and 1.00 minute. The combined race times placed our team fifth overall for mixed teams.
The docking of the boats in the confined marina space proved challenging and delayed the races over the course of the day. In addition, the pending rain forecast held off until the start of the semi-final races when the wind came up and the clouds opened on the racers. Given these conditions, the organizers decided that the semi-finals would be the last races of the festival.
In the final race, Spirit Point raced in the outside lane so had the challenge of wind and choppy water from passing boats. We held our own and came a respectable third with a time of 1:03.26 behind second-place Wave Cutters (1:01.96) and first-place Mid Island Masters (59.06). With the combined three race times, Spirit Point still maintained fifth place overall in the festival and earned a silver in B Division.
Paddlers included Cora Platz, Donna Cochran, Sheena Frisch, Robyn Huntley, Melynda Okulitch, Ann Marie Davidson, Gwyneth Ortlepp, Wendy Eggertson, Leah Chang, Louisa Taylor, Rob Huber, Stewart Rimmer, April Ray, John Ortlepp, Sam Goddard, Andrew Okulitch, Chris Ortlepp and coach Michael Peirce. Special thanks to guest paddlers Mahdu Bannur and Janet Bright, from Fairway Gorge Momentum Club, and to our former coach, Mary Rowles.
Audrey Denton did a superb job as drummer, keeping us on time and motivated for each race. Given the changing weather conditions and tides, steersperson Tom McKeachie showed he could handle it all. While Wendy McEachern wasn’t able to paddle due to injury, she graciously was the team dog-handler for the day.
A heartfelt “paddles up!” to team manager Barry Green and assistant coach Lynda Green for their support this past season. And a big shout-out of thanks to the Driftwood for letting us brag about our results all season. See you next season.