Forget the Island 2004....

Let's have some collision stories....
Leave out the teams and event names .... Just describe what happened, causes, effects, costs, injuries, and the feelings of the crews and results....stuff like that
Remember this is for fun, no finger pointing.......FOR A CHANGE!!!!

Best I have ever heard about is from the Hong Kong Island Paddle Club. From their 2003 club magazine, "Fiasco on the Beach". Reprinted without permission, but I'm sure Des won't mind.

Joined in progress...

"In one defining moment we were caugth by a wave from the side and took on some water causing us to veer further to the left. We bounced off of boat #4 which apparently then went left to create a domino effect with all the other boats in the race!

Total carnage!

However, while all this was going on, I was in the process of straightening us out and we were almost clear when boat #1 in the furthest lane to our left was hit on the right stern side by either boat #2 or #3. It veered righ across in front of boats #2, #3 and #4 and ploughed right into us with such speedd that the bow rode completely up the gunwale between the left-had stroke and the drummer.

We capsized to the right and the sea was suddenly filled with masses of flailing bodies, paddles and inverted dragon boat hulls. As we surfaced, lungs straining for air, I could see that only one boat of the original six starters had crossed the finish line, our rivals Ma Wan in lane #6! I had effectively wiped out the five other crews."

the most entertaining one?
the 2004 3000m at the GWN's outer harbour...

mayfair is gaining on big fish at one of the turns closest to where all the spectators were gathering. mayfair tries to take an inside route, so the front of their boat is getting awfully close to the tail of big fish's boat.

so the cox of big fish sticks out his foot and kicks Mayfair away. so fun to watch.

Windsor Ontario last summer, small regatta, the waves were so big that in one race all three boats were swiped out one within 2 seconds of each other ..... 66 people bobbing up and down in the Detroit river and boats upside down being swept down current.....

not exactly a collision but now that it's over and everyone safe it was fun to watch......

Okay, that Men's final at GWN a year or so back where the boat Richard was steering rocked violently as they approached the finish line, tipping out several paddlers include Richard as cox, who was litteraly catapulted out of the back of the boat.

Island on Canada Day....
The teens group I think....

Two kids finish, then a third one flips...... resue boat come rushing to the scene.......flips the other two guys over with their wake....... three in the drink......

Island on Canada Day....
The teens group I think....

Two kids finish, then a third one flips...... resue boat come rushing to the scene.......flips the other two guys over with their wake....... three in the drink......

So which teams have been on the short end of a collision and how often?

I have one team to nominate, Eye of the Dragon in Vancouver. They are a visually impaired team and over the last 5 years or so they have been t-boned on at least 3 occassions. They have had people hit so hard they were nearly catapulted out of the boat. The intersting part is this is the visually impaired team and they are the ones getting hit, so who are really the visually impaired not Eye of the Dragon.

Any others for this category?

So who's getting hit out there?

Notable collisions:

2003 Pickering - Mayfair & RBC
2004 GWN 3000m - Mayfair & Big Fish
2004 TIDBRF - Mayfair & Blades

I'm voting Mayfair.

Mayfair and Imps - TIDBF 1999

Don't get me wrong Mayfair, you haven't always been at fault. Some crews just won't get out of your way - Big Fish , and others just like to snuggle with you!

I like that word....Snuggle.
So instead of riding wash crews now will take snuggle rides

I wasn't steering that boat. This year is the first year I am steering races... (So maybe I will make next years list).

I did end up in the water though (how we will never know) James and Jeff shut up. We got sucked into the IMPS/Canadian Men’s teams wake right off the start. Never experienced anything like it since.

Our Cox, Scott miraculously managed to stay on board. To this day I have no idea how he managed that given that at one point the left side of the boat was below the water line and sucking people out as we still traveled at full speed.

Cheers

About 5 years ago, we were in a heat that included Chatham Raging Dragons and 2 local Owen Sound teams.

We hit the 200 metre mark and all of a sudden, our steers yells "Hold The Boat". It takes a split second to react to this strange command and so he shouts again. As we held,a boat passed perpendicular across all 4 lanes directly in front of us. We were in lane 2 and they were in lane 4.

Fortunately for Chatham, they were far ahead so the "almost" crash had no impact and lane 3 was idling behind so no problems there as well.

Dragon heads actually nudged each other, ever so slightly and we were in shock watching this pass in front of us. This would have been the most devastating crash that never was (thanks to our steers). We still chat about it 5 years later.

The Owen Sound steers just didn't have the experience to handle the huge novice crew that was assigned to him.

A "steer" is an animal

A "steersperson" steers a boat

A Nob Is A Knob anyway that it looks.

back to stories please..............

Stratford 2002...First heat...Longboat (if I remember correctly) got swallowed up by Mayfair's wash off the start and drove their dragon head into Mayfair's seat 8 - about 30m into the race . Luckily the race was called and restarted.

What I find absolutely amazing is that crews that have gone wildly out of control don't simply HOLD THE BOAT. How long does that take to say, or do? If you lose it, hold the damn boat before you hurt someone.

A little "rub" like what happened to Mayfair and Baycrest is one thing, both boats travelling in the same direction have a little side-to-side contact. <thunk>. As long as no one is chopping with their paddles and everyone gets their hands out of the way, no big deal. Hopefully. But when a boat veers across several lanes at full speed like in Silver's example up there, people could get seriously hurt.

I have a picture I took at the Cape Town Club Crews where one crew veered right, passed in front of one other boat, and then t-boned the next crew over. What the hell? Was there no opportunity for the steersperson and drummer to call "stop", or "hold the boat"?

Reckless endangerment like that should get a team DQ'd for the entire regatta.

women's final, Pickering 2004.
Same thing, crew went from their lane across two other lanes, taking out a total of three crews out of the race.

I'm counting the Mayfair incidents....I'm up to five now ???
What the hell are you guys doing ?

Hey! Crew's just like to be near us dude! Seriously, the incidents that are being addressed are over a period of 8 years. There are only two incidents when we collided were our team was responsible. The first was about six years ago, both were side collisions, no head on ramming.

GWN - about 5 years ago - Smoke on the Water t-boned Who's Your Momma at ramming speed just after the start. WYM paniced and after a lot of jumping around flipped the boat. Then they remembered they couldn't swim and started to scream and some of them tried to climb up on the overturned boat. The boat then started rolling, trapping some of them in the air pocket under the boat which convinced the others that they had drowned. By then Smoke had paddled back to try and help. To make matters even worse it was the same year Titanic came out and many of the WYM crew were convinced they had hypothermia and when the first aid crew disagreed and refused to call an ambulance they started driving themselves to the hospital. The Smoke cox told us that night he had a nightmare that his house was falling over to the right and he couldn't do anything about it.

What I find absolutely amazing is that crews that have gone wildly out of control don't simply HOLD THE BOAT. How long does that take to say, or do? If you lose it, hold the damn boat before you hurt someone.

The actual quote from our steers person was "Hold The F........G Boat, Hold The F.......G Boat." He could see what was happening as he is proactive, changed the tone of his voice to project the panic of the situation. He did a darn good job to avoid a potential huge collision.

This may even of been in the good old days when life jackets weren't mandatory.That part, I can't remember.

Ask Simon about the 2000m men's race in Rome. The TCBA senior's had four separate contacts with a Chinese team, but this was mild compared to the carnage elsewhere on the course.

Oh my God.. I had front row seats for the men's 2000m. in Rome.. Extreme dragonboating at its best. This one certainly takes the cake..

To my annonomous brother who posted at 2:45 PM. Take a pill man, that conversation ended a long time ago and the general consensus is - your wrong!!!

Following is the funniest set of pics taken of a collision. Venue was a mini regatta in Portland in 2003.

http://vl.dyndns.org/vo2max/pics/view_album.php?set_albumName=2003-08-Portland-MikeJordan

I've never seen so many collisions in one day. Must have been 15 or so. Ever third race.
Rob from GWN was repairing dragons heads full time -- they were popping off like corks on New Year's!

It was total carnage.

hmmm...don't remember there being so many. What was impressive about that event was about 150 teams...pretty much all with their own steerspeople. It was pretty amazing that people were losing control of their boat and crossing the 8 lanes that were there...

I remember watching one race where the person zigzagging across lanes finished thee race!

Windsor was pretty amazing too. No crashes in my race, just all three of us capsizing. Yay Detroit river.

As for near misses: London 2003 - relay race. MGP Navigators being an extra boat in the race nearly did a head-on collision with JetStart.

I noticed Mike Jordan's great pictures. That actually wasn't a potential crash. It was a workout for The Portland Syncro Dragons. They are a show team that performs at various events.