Pool of Life News Liverpool 2009 League Race
Liverpool 2009 League Race
A cold and very blustery Sunday morning at Liverpool greeted the Pool of Life BCS team for our first race event of the season! But we kept cheerful and positive and just thankful it didn’t rain.
We proceeded to erect the Pool of Life gazebo so that we could sell our cakes and merchandise. A big thank you to everyone who supplied all the delicious cakes and also to Ali for donating her lovely merchandise. We raised a fantastic amount of just over £200 – so at the end of the day there was very little left on the stall! Thanks go to Ali and Anne who did a brilliant job manning the stall all day in conditions that could have been kinder. Our tactics were to sell as many cakes as we could to the other teams hoping that they would gain a few pounds and hopefully slow their boats down to give us a chance! Unfortunately, that didn’t work but they sure enjoyed the cakes!
The Pool of Life team took shelter from the cold and wind in Linda’s gazebo – Linda who is fondly referred to as “brown owl” can always be relied on to come to the rescue!
“Hope” looked brilliant with her newly painted head and tail. Everyone admired her and it was thanks to Clare and her daughter who spent many nights painstakingly giving her a face lift!
Our first 200m race was at 11 o’clock and we were up against Excalibre and our own Amathus Open as well as a visiting Dutch team. We welcomed two new recruits, Lynda and Karen who were getting a taste of dragon boat racing for the first time. We also had Lynda’s husband, David, paddling with us who thoroughly enjoyed the experience!
Also we mustn’t forget a big thank you to our supporters from Amathus who paddled with us on the day.
Off we went down to the 200m start line, over the waves with the wind in our faces. It felt more like we were out in the English Channel than in the Liverpool Docks. We found the boat was too heavy on the right for our first race and some readjustments would have to be made for the next race. The other teams were already on the start line and struggling to keep their boats on line in the strong winds. We eventually came under starter’s orders and down the course we went giving it everything we had! Although we came fourth with a time of 1min.08secs, we realised we had to run our own race and just try and improve on our personal time in the next race!
Gerald, our helm, nicknamed Admiral Nelson last year due to his right arm being in a sling and a “dicky” left eye decided to take our boat alongside the pool boats, only to be told by Syd, one of the boat marshals, that we had to move it. Well, I can only say I’m sorry we don’t have any video footage of this manoeuvre. With David and Anne at one end of the boat and Marion in the middle and Gerald at the other end they proceeded to turn the boat round 180º! Wendy stood on the pontoon holding the rope that was attached to the boat. All she could hear was a domestic going on in the boat with Marion shouting, “We shouldn’t be doing this” as she gripped onto the sides and Gerald telling her to shut up as the boat turned in the confined space between the pontoon and the dock wall! With a sigh of relief, however, the boat was safely returned to its designated mooring space.
Our next 200m race was at around 11.45am. This was to be the first “Tail Race” to decide who would be either 20th or 21st! We had now readjusted the boat and David had taken over the helm to try and balance the boat. We were up against Kingston Pretenders and the conditions had certainly not improved from our first race. Again we gave it everything we had as we battled against the adverse weather conditions but came in behind Kingston with a time of 1min.7secs.
It was, however, time for some lunch and perhaps one or two of our tempting cakes before the 500m races commenced. Watered and fed we now regrouped for our first race at 1.00pm. The weather had improved a little but we were up against Secklow 100 and BA Hurricanes. Although we came in third with a time of 2mins.33secs we felt the boat ran better having slowed the rate down.
We met Kingston Pretenders again and Typhoon Fury in the first of the semis for the Bowl. Although we came third again with a time of 2mins.37secs we now seemed to be enjoying our races and having some fun!
It was now time for our last race of the day and we found ourselves in the Bowl Minor Final along with Typhoon Fury and Prescott’s Pirates. The Pirates were another charity crew who were burly rugby players training to cross the English Channel to raise money for one of their players. We had a little banter on the start line with them saying that if they wished we would give them a head start! But we knew it was us that would need the head start! We came third with a time of 2mins.37secs – exactly the same time as our previous race.
The crowd were always there to cheer us on and we had a good day’s racing. Our new ladies and supporters were certainly not put off by the weather but, in fact, looked forward to when the Pool of Life Breast Cancer Survivor Team would be racing once more!
A big thank you again to everyone who helped on the day – you all know that we couldn’t do it without you!
Happy paddling!
Big G
