The 2012 event was the second open festival at Salford, where nine teams supporting seven different charities came to compete to determine which team would become: Dragon Boat Champions of Salford 2012.  For each team, this was their first chance at dragon boating, so there was a lot of excitement about the day!

A dragon boat team involves up to seventeen people (sixteen paddlers and a drummer), the aim being for the whole team to work together in unison, paddling (and drumming) as one in order to get the boat down the course and over the finishing line as fast as possible.

Raced over a distance of around 230 meters, each team was given a minimum of three timed races during the day, which gave the teams ample time to work with the instructors and use dragon boating as a way to develop team building and team trainings.

Once all three qualifying races were completed, each team’s fastest single race time was used for qualification into the Grand Final, which was one last race between the four fastest teams on the day. This was an exciting race to the finish

The 2012 dragon boat festival

In what turned out to be a bright and dry day after such a wet April, the festival started with a team Captain's briefing, followed by the first teams being called up at 10:00 for their team safety briefings.

The briefing covers all the various commands the helm might give and how the team is to respond, a safety instruction on how to stop the boat capsizing (thankfully quite rare), what to do in the event of a capsize and a demonstration of paddling technique and getting the best out of the day.

Once the briefing was over, each crew member at the briefing was issued a wrist band, which they then had to wear for the rest of the day. The wrist band signified to the event staff that the crew member had been briefed.

Dragon boating is quick to pick up and very progressive in nature. The helms each have extensive dragon boating experience (often ten years or more) and each want their team to win their race!