Richard and Karen's Excellent European Vacation 2014: Ravenna Dragon Boat Race Course Practice Day

Let's jump ahead a couple of days. We'll return to Iceland in a later post. Today was our first day at the race course for our only chance to practice in the Champion boats (new to us). Of course, this is the purpose of our Excellent European Vacation, for Karen to compete in the Club Crew Dragon Boat World Championships! Click here for more details: World Championships
What a day! A 6:30 wake-up call, breakfast and the team on the bus at 7:30am! Richard stayed at the resort with the other supporters. Good thing as it got worse as the morning progressed. The storm of last night (lots of spectacular lightning and thunder, wind and rain) continues even now.

Our younger sister team, Fast and Furious (50+) were on the water first. The race officials were scrambling to get practices going after the disastrous night. Much of the volunteer work that had been done on Sunday (signage, tent assembly, etc.) had to be redone so boats were not in the water for the scheduled practice sessions. F & F had to put their own 12.4 m long, 250 kg boat in the water. After fighting with the shoreline vegetation they were on their way. We watched them head out to the race course then went off to our own practice and trial sitting in the boat.

Fast and Furious

Coach Ben has us try out the Champion boats. Great foot rests!

False Creek raises the Canadian Flag

Then things fell apart weather wise. During our warmup a few returning boats ran into trouble. Champion boats aren't quite as stable as the BUKs we are used to. 2 boats got broad-sided by waves and tipped over, filled with water and swamped! 2 other steers people fell off their boats! All got back to shore safely and the race officials called off the remaining practice sessions. We didn't get our chance on the water which may have been a good thing. Even the portashowers weren't safe! We've got an 11 am practice scheduled for tomorrow, the day of the opening ceremonies.