African Sands Blog » Cape Town Activities, South Africa Travel » Dragon Boat Racing in South Africa
Dragon Boat Racing in South Africa
There are many things that you can imagine doing in South Africa, but Dragon Boat racing may not be one of them!
Well, now you too can enjoy this ancient sport! Dragon Boats are long paddled boats crewed by a team of 22 people, with a drummer on board to give rhythm to the stroke. It is a fun and interactive activity.
This spectacular and exciting team sport originated in China over 2400 years ago and was introduced to South Africa in 1992 when two beautiful wooden flag-catching dragon boats were presented to Cape Town by a city in Taiwan. Johannesburg now has a fleet of these boats and in February 2006, the Western Cape Dragon Boat Association took custodianship of two more, bringing Cape Town’s fleet of flag-catchers to four.
The Western Cape Dragon Boat Association is based at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, and this is thus a perfect way for you to gain a unique experience exploring the V&A Waterfront basins from the decks of a Dragon Boat! It is fun and adventure filled.
Members of the public can join in the practice sessions, you just need to contact either the Western Cape or Gauteng associations and book your place.
This unique sport is also fast becoming a top corporate team building exercise as it is a fun day out and makes people work together in order to get the maximum potential from the boat. It takes great team work just to make the boat move forward properly!
So, paddles steady! Ready, steady go!
Written by simone
Although I currently live in England, my home country, South Africa, will always have my love and passion. It is a beautiful land with so much to offer everyone. I want to share my pride with everyone. I think everyone should be able to have incredible, magical memories that last them a lifetime! http://www.africansands.com http://bog.africansands.com
Filed under: Cape Town Activities, South Africa Travel · Tags: Cape Town, China, dragon boat racing, explore, gauteng dragon boat association, South Africa, taiwan, team building, travel, v7A waterfront, Western Cape Dragon Boat Association
Great site and I enjoyed reading the great stories about dragonboating in South Africa. I absolutely agree with you as a fellow dragonboater for Australia, we too are finding a lot of corporate interest in the sport. It definitely takes a lot of team work to paddle a dragonboat – all as one.
Cheers!
Jo
DragonboatingInternational.com
I bumped into another {great|good} post today….
I saw this really good post today….
great post,however i get some difficulty in understanding the last paragraph, could you please explain a little bit further?
Thanks for the comment.
The last paragraph is a trend that we have noticed with Dragon Boat Racing. Because it is such a good team sport, many companies are using this sport as a way to try and get their own “teams” to work together. It is a great day out and most people really enjoy themselves. By having to work together and share responsibility and keep in time to make the boat move forward it makes people think about their actions and work together to achieve a common goal. Many people take the positive feel good factor that they experience Dragon Boat racing back to the office with them.
I’ve been reading a few posts and definitely and enjoy your writing. I’m just setting up my own blog and only hope that I can write as well and give the reader so significantly insight.
Really interesting post, keep up the good work!
Is there any update on this blog post. I am really interested.