Dragon Racing: A 2000-Year-Old by Carol Olsen
For over 2,000 years, big canoe-like dragon boats have been racing in Chinese waters. These 38ft boats, weighing a ton , are driven at speeds of around ten knots by paddlers hitting a beat as hi gh as two strokes per second . Fourteen years ago, seeing that local fi shermen were still competing in these strenuous, immemorially ancient races run in boats that look like nothing
e lse on earth, the Hong Kong Touri st Association and the Fishermen's Society got together to make Hong Kong the world center of dragon boat competition. In 1976, open invitations were extended. Only men from Nagasaki , Japan, arrived to race the Hong Kong teams. Now however, a record number of 26 overseas teams , including
Sleeping dragons are awakened in the eye-opening ceremony(above) and the pageant1y continues throughout the festival. At lower right , a fig urehead is pinned into the bow of a boat. Photos by the author.
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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1989