The California Dragon Boat Association (CDBA) held their 7th Annual Dragon Boat Race and Festival on September 28 and 29, 2002 at Lake Merced in San Francisco, California. The event was filled with exciting races on both days along with the aroma of delicious foods, handmade crafts and wonderful entertainment. Some of the entertainments presented over the weekend were the Taiko Ren, Touch of Polynesia and Eth-Noh-Tec (a folktale troup). This year the CDBA held its first Celebrity Race with Thuy Vu from KGO-TV (ABC 7 News), Mei-Ling Sze from KTSF (Channel 26, an Asian broadcast), Julie Luck from KRON, Tina Kim, a comedienne, and Andra Chang, the reigning Miss Chinatown USA 2002. The celebrities were the drummers in a five boat race with Miss Chinatown USA's boat winning in 2:31:90.

The races began on a rather cool San Francisco morning with the 4A Hidden Dragons taking the racecourse at 8:30 a.m. for their first heat of the day. In the first round, the Hidden Dragons did well with a time of 2:34:42 and placed 4th. In Round 2 of the Recreational seeding the team did a 2:33:31, just 48 hundredths of a second out of third, and placed 4th again.

On Sunday, the team began the day with an early start at 8:30 a.m. again and competed in the CDBA race and posted a time of 2:30:45 which was good for a 3rd place finish. Our Semi-final race put us out on the water at 9:40 a.m. and we came in with a time of 2:35:35; a respectable 3rd place. Due to our times that were posted on Saturday and Sunday morning, we were able to move onto the Recreational B finals in a six boat race. It was a very competitive race and we were able to finish with a time of 2:37:63, missing 3rd by just 3 seconds.

Visit www.cdba.org for additional information and details about the race.

-- T. Kuramoto, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter