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Dragon Boat racing involves teams usually of up to twenty paddlers in a 40 foot boat with a drummer and helm, a stylized Chinese dragon head on the front and a dragon tail on the back, racing down a course. The boat is controlled by a person who stands in the back using a fixed steering oar (like a rudder) or a paddle. |
Dragon
Boating traces its roots back to 278 BC. The sport began after a beloved
Poet-Statesman named Qu Yuan drown himself in the Milo River what is now
China in an act of political protest. The fishermen and villagers raced to
the spot of his suicide and threw dumplings in the water and beat upon the
water with their paddles to keep the fish from eating his body. The modern
era began in the early 1970’s when the Hong Kong Tourism Board started
inviting teams from all over the world to compete at their annual event.
Today, 50 million people race dragon boats each year.
The Controlling
Organisation is the
International
Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) was formally
constituted in 1991, but it has been organising International Dragon Boat
Racing competitions, for non-national crews around the world since June
1976, when overseas crews were first invited to race in the traditional Hong
Kong Festival Races.
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