Two of Lowell’s three teams during their latest competition.
Lowell High School Wins First Place in Dragon Boat Championship
By Carlie Chiu
Special to AsianWeek
Lowell High School triumphantly took the top place in this year’s seventh annual Northern California International Dragon Boat Championships, after a very narrow defeat in last year’s race. This year’s race was one of the closest races in the history of the championships, with a total difference in time of only .06 seconds. Lowell beat Abraham Lincoln High School. paddling to the finish line in the 500-meter race with a winning time of 2:36:91.
The dragon is the most venerated of the Chinese zodiac deities and symbolizes control over the water. According to legend, Qu Yuan, a Chinese statesman and poet, drowned himself in the Mi Lo River in 400 B.C. to protest the corrupt regime of the Chu Dynasty.
 Fisherman who saw him raced out to save him, but failed. To prevent his body from being eaten by fish, they beat the waters with their paddles and threw rice dumplings wrapped in silk into the water as a sacrifice to his spirit.
The fishermen’s race to save the poet is reenacted in the form of dragon boat races, and is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth moon of the Chinese lunar calendar. Each anniversary, dragon-headed boats race out on the waters to commemorate Qu Yuan and to scare away demons.
Most dragon boats have a unique concave hull design which originated from Chinese fishing boats thousand of years ago. These multicolored boats are sometimes decorated with ferocious-looking heads, scaly bodies and elaborate tails. Measuring 57.5 feet long, they are almost the length of a large metro bus.
Each crew consists of 20 paddlers, one drummer and one steerer. Teams race along a straight course ranging from 250 to 1,000 meters. Top speed only comes when a well-timed stroke of the blade hits the water as horizontally as possible at the same time as with a quick pull-back, driven by a torso rotation.
The goal is to generate enough speed to form a cresting wave below the boat, causing it to rise high and smooth above the water.
Typically, a seasoned Dragon Boat team will have a stroke rate of 70 to 80 strokes per minute and can travel over the water at up to 13 feet per second.
The Northern California International Dragon Boat Championships took place at Lake Merced on Sunday, Sept. 29. With 16 teams competing in four divisions, Lowell dominated, taking first and fourth place in Division A, and third place in Division D. Overall, Lowell took first place, followed by Abraham Lincoln High School in second place and the Bay Area Dragons in third place.
“After being defeated by last year’s opponent by such a close margin, it gave us motivation to do better and we practiced harder and worked together as a team to achieve our goal of winning. Not to mention having fun at the same time because that is what Dragon Boat is all about,” said senior co-captain Dennis Lee.
Lowell’s team is comprised of 64 students divided into three teams, headed by coaches Lisa Chan, Brian Danforth and Bryan Wong, along with three co-captains, seniors Anny Ching, Dennis Lee and Kevin Lee. The Cardinal Crewzers (Team A), The Red Tide (Team B) and the Cardinal Dragons (Team C) trained together two days every week in preparation for the big match.
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Lowell High School’s Dragon Boat team.
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There has been a dramatic increase in student participation and interest in the Dragon Boat team since the establishment of the organization in 1996. Lowell began participating in the races in 1998, sponsored by counselor May Choi. The team started off being just 18 people and grew to approximately 50 in 2001.
On Oct. 8, a press conference was held at Lowell High School where Fiona Ma, supervisor candidate for District 4, recognized Lowell’s Dragon Boat team for its superb performance. She has commited to help support the team to raise funds for team supplies and upcoming trips.
“Our Dragon Boat team doesn’t get any funding because it is not recognized as an official sport, so we have to do all the fundraising to raise money ourselves,” said Anny Ching, drummer of the Cardinal Crewzers. “So it’s really nice to have someone like Fiona Ma help us look for sponsors and helping us raise money for a great program.”
With more people joining the team, Lowell High looks forward to a great year of competitions. The next competition will be the California Dragon Boat Association high school race in April of 2003.
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