This was my team "The Liberty Bells" that did me so proud in the Dragon boat race on Sunday.
We were put together on Wednesday and some of us hadn't even met, let alone rowed a boat so we were not expecting much.

We all arrived at 8.30 am for the team photo and set off on our maiden voyage in lane two.

55 seconds later and we had tasted our first victory. We had a taste for it and everything was getting very serious.All of a sudden we were discussing tactics.




Three more races later including a fastest time of the day and we were into the semis.


The semis were tough but we scraped in as fastest runners up. We had lost our rhythm and we were all pretty pissed off. It could of caused a bit of a rift in the boat but we all settled down, took our last chance and promised to give it everything. (told you we were all getting serious)

What a final !! we were all going for it right from the start and for the whole 200 metres all three teams were neck and neck .

We gave everything and it was really nerve racking watching the dragons head of the other boats slip slightly in front and then behind again. We could all feel the boat lurch forward as we pulled our strokes and everything felt right.

Our boat was in front right till the finish and when we crossed the line it went to the judges for a photo finish.




We got onto the podium but sadly for us it was a bronze medal. Boo hoo.

The judges gave us a time of  55.80 and the 2nd place 55.50.

The winners did it in 54.90.

We found out that far from it being a fun event for a local charity the winning team had been training for weeks and were also rotating paddlers.

The runners up were locals to the pub that hosted the event ( my family's pub).

We were  the surprise package.