Aoraki Dragon Boat
Association (Inc)
Christchurch, NZ

A special thanks to our supporters at...

• Canterbury Community Trust
• Airways NZ
• Pakworld
• Elite Business
  

The 2009-10 season is over, but Saturday training is still available. Please email Aoraki Dragons if you are interested. More...

UPDATE: We intend to take a boat out on any Saturday morning when the weather is safe. Click here for MetService forecast for Saturday.

Meanwhile, Meri and Jillian from ABOL have had a very successful time at Peterborough, Otario for June's IBCPC Regatta. See ABOL's new website for details, pics.

National Championships: 27 and 28-March-10

The NZDBA National Championships dragon boat regatta was in the South Island (Lake Hood) this year, and Aoraki was proud to provide most of the planning and running of the event. Congratulations to:

• Hamilton City Watersports - "Champion of Champions"
• Tu Meke Dragons (Christchurch) - runners up (Adults)
• Ridge Riders Under 23 (Christchurch) - third place (Adults)

And Christchurch Schools cleaned up the Secondary Schools Championships:

• Shirley Boys High School - Boys Grand Champion
• Christchurch Girls High School - Girls Grand Champion
• Hillmorton High School - Mixed Grand Champion

South Island Champs: 6-March-2010

Mid Canterbury hosted a fantastic day of racing at Lake Hood on Saturday 6 March for the biggest local event for the Southern Calender. Adults and High School raced on the same day, with a few innovations to the venue and prizes. More...

Early Bird Regatta: Sunday 21-Feb-10

South Island paddlers had a fantastic day on the water at the Early Bird Regatta. The brand new venue at Pegasus Lake was just perfect! More details in Newsletter 8...

Ice Breaker: Sunday 6-Dec-09

Teams had their first 'regatta' on Sunday 6-Dec-09 at Kerr's Reach. Round One consisted of five 300m heats, with 3 boats per heat. Round Two was a 300 m race, followed by "The New Sweeps race", giving six trainees the chance to show what they can do in race conditions. Then Round Three stretched them out to five hundred meter races, which were again thoroughly enjoyed. Some teams called it quits whan it came to the 2km races, so we dropped back to ten teams, with five in each 'flight', in 30-second staggered starts.

The day before (Saturday 5-Dec) Aoraki put on a demo race at the Kaiapoi River Festival.

We have received the following invite: "Hong Kong Tourism Board/ Dragon Boat Association will stage the 2010 Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races between 23 – 25 July 2010 at Victoria Harbor. Provisional entry form should be submitted by email to hkdba@hkolympic.org ASAP.

Further: "In order to accommodate more BCF teams to join our first ever BCS Races in Hong Kong, the racing class is now amended from standard to SMALL BOAT WHICH REQUIRE 12 PADDLERS ONLY.  We are more than happy to have more overseas BSC teams to come over Hong Kong for the races and for enhancing the awareness of breast cancer to women all over the world. Elise Wong, Hong Kong Tourism Board".

Official (supervised) training for the 2010-11 season will begin in late October.

Latest updates:
Aoraki AGM is scheduled for Wednesday 18-August.
And there will be a "Launch Meeting" around early/mid October.
Aoraki plans to run Sweep training sessions again this year. In 2009 we ran three Wednesday (7, 21 and 28-Oct-09).
Boats are under cover for the winter: Thanks to those people who helped move the Dragon boats under shelter at Owles Terrace on 1-May-10.
Aoraki invites School and Development paddlers to meet online...
on Facebook...
The New Champion Dragon Boats arrived in November-08... Then Four more arrived in March-09. More...

Don't forget to fill in your team's Safety waiver.