Paddling to their own beat: Dragon-boat racers ready for Cornucopia Days

Krista Wilson had no idea what a dragon boat was when she first saw the photos, but said she saw pictures of the long, sleek boats often fitted with dragon heads and tails during races and was “intrigued.”

“I had never heard of dragon boating, but they had a slide show with pictures of a race,” Wilson said this past week from the shore at Lake Meridian, where the team she co-founded – the Dragin’ Tails – was practicing for two upcoming races, including Cornucopia Days July 11.

It has been nine years since Wilson, a Kent resident, helped bring the first dragon boat races to the city and since then the competition has grown from 14 teams the first year to more than 40 expected this year.

“It’s really grown,” Wilson said.

Dragon boating is an ancient Chinese sport in which teams of 20 paddle narrow, 47-foot long boats to the beat of a Chinese drum balanced at the front of the ship.

The sport takes tremendous timing and coordination of all the paddlers (don’t call then rowers…) all working together to both get the boats moving and keep them at speed.

“If you’re not paddling in unison, you’re going to have issues,” Wilson said. “What we call timing is the most critical thing.”

The paddlers work on their form, which involves a twist of the body’s core and a strong pull that uses the arms, but is not biceps-driven. The lead arm also remains straight during the entire pull through the water.

“You can feel it more in your core than your arms,” said paddler Laura Bean of Kirkland.

“It looks easy, but it’s not as easy as you think,” Wilson said. “There’s just a sense of power I get when I’m out there paddling.”

“You don’t have to go to the gym. It’s quite a workout,” agreed Cathy Wegner of Auburn, who is in her first year with the team. “I just got hooked. It’s really fun.”

The Dragin’ Tails, one of three member teams of the Kent Dragon Boat Association, is a coed team that practices at Lake Meridian up to three times a week from March to October.

The association has about 60 members, according to Maureen Roberts, one of the coaches. The three teams include the Tails, an all-female team called the Ladies of the Lake and a youth team known as the Akujiki Dragons.

The teams compete five or six times a year in races that are all-out sprints to the shore, usually about 500 meters straight away.

“It takes less than three minutes,” Roberts said, again emphasizing that “timing is critical.”

On the lake, all 20 paddles move in synchronicity and the boat gets moving quite fast as competitors of all shapes and sizes work together.

“There’s places on the boat for all of them,” Wilson said of the varying body types that make up the Dragin’ Tails, adding that many people tell her that dragon boat racing is the first team sport in which they find themselves successful.

But for Wilson, the race itself is not the main reason she continues to compete; It’s the camaraderie.

“All my friends are on the team,” she said. “The competition for me is secondary.”

But come race time, Wilson will join 19 of her teammates and dig in, hoping to pull out a victory on their home water of Lake Meridian, which Wilson said is one of the best places around for dragon boating.

“The thing about this race is it’s really the best venue I’ve ever been to,” she said. “The conditions are always really good.”

And when the horn sounds during Cornucopia Days July 11, you can bet the Dragin’ Tails will be paddling their hearts out to the rhythm their caller beats out at the front of the boat.

“It’s really colorful and a lot of fun,” she said.

LEARN MORE

For more information on the Kent Dragon Boat Association or to get involved with the Dragin’ Tails team, visit www.kentdragonboat.com. Cost to join is $100 per season, but interested parties can try three free sessions to see if the sport is right for them. The Dragin’ Tails practice at 8 a.m. every Saturday and 6 p.m. every Tuesday at Lake Meridian in Kent.