Organise a corporate Race the Dragon boat event for your company

Sunday 11th May 2014 saw twenty two teams all coming together to compete in what is now, the largest charity dragon boat festival in the North West. Most teams were first timers at dragon boating, but all have got what it took to ... Race the Dragon.

Using four dragon boats, racing on a two-on-two format (two dragon boat racing whilst the other two boats load the next race), each team had a minimum of three timed races during the day. After each race the finish judge returned the times to event control and the results went up on the Race the Dragon Ltd. score board for all to see and compare. Dragon boating is quick to pick up and so, very progressive in nature. By race three, first timers and returning teams were competing on equal footing, which meant until the final qualifying race has been completed, the qualifyers for the Grand Final were not be known.

Once all the qualifying races had been completed, we took each team’s single fastest time only and sorted them into fastest time order, with the four fastest teams overall qualifying for the Grand Final. This last race will be the only race of the day where all four dragon boats will race together and will be a flat out race to the finish. Comiserations went to newcomers "City Response Vikings" who, with a best time of 1.00.88, just missed out qualifying for the Grand Finals by just fout hundredeths of a second to "Iron Oars", who qualifyed with a 1.00.84.

In a thrilling final seeing all four teams crossing the line with just three seconds between them, it was "Gallowglass" who pulled ahead of the others to be became the new Dragon Boat Champions of Salford 2014 with a 1.03.50. In second place was "Sue Ryder Dragons" with 1.05.09. "TalkTalk Revolution" made third place with 1.05.81 and in forth place was Iron Oars with 1.06.57.