Today I went down to support Chicky at the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival - he was one of the racers. KA, Mike and I got down to Science World at 9:45am. He had said that his first race was at 9:30am. So I called him but couldn't find him.
The 3 of us stood and watched a race that was just beginning. All the boats had numbers on them. In the fist race we watched, team 5 kicked everyone's butt. They were many boat lengths ahead of the competition. We noticed boat 2 as it was the last one coming down the stretch. KA and Mike laughed at how some of them were banging paddles and just looking really bad on the water. Some of the paddlers even stopped paddling during the race! :-) The race finished and I was adjusting my camera when the teams paddled past the spectators. Then all of a sudden Mike says "it's the Ritchie Bros. team!" and points down to the water below us.
Low and behold there was Chicky and he was in boat 2! We all burst out laughing again as the team that we thought looked really bad on the water was their team! Lol - too funny. We told him this later and he admitted that they were doing timed heats and not actually racing. We watched 6 more races and noticed that in each race - boat 5 always won. This was too much of a coincidence. Mike asked one of his friends (who was there racing competitively) and he said that the competitive teams get the center lanes (which means boat 5/8). Chicky's team races again tomorrow - hopefully their time will improve. But I have to be fair. They weren't the worst team there. One of the races we watched, one of the novice boats rammed into another notive boat. The coach was really embarrassed as they weren't able to cross the finish line.
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