In late April the idea of having ScotiaMcLeod’s Rosedale office pull together a Dragon Boat team to compete in the Toronto International Dragon Boat Festival came to life. It was a daunting task as the crew had no prior Dragon Boat experience and there were only 6 weeks until the competition, which reflects a relatively short period considering most teams train for years.
The team was named “The ScotiaMcLeod Fixed Floaters” and comprised the following individuals (seen below): Mo Vikrant, Gord Love, Amy Bilinghurst, Teresa Clarke, David Beevor, Daly Padro, Andrew Titley, Cristina Vikrant, Lisa Gibson, Maymar Naman, Susan Neill, Bonnie Shaw, Tara Quinn, Maddy Marchese, Kevin Martin, Bev Moir, Ada Lau, Mary Ellen Dewis, Ron Foreman, James Dunne, James Fukuhara, Joanna Protasowski and Sarah Jones.
Bev, second from right, near side
The team trained every Tuesday night, however, due to the short notice, it was nearly impossible to train all together at the same time. With a late start, the goal of the team on race day was to simply complete the race (without embarrassing ourselves), while at the same time, raising money for the Canadian Breast Cancer foundation.
Saturday, June 20th (a very rainy and miserable day) was the first day of the two day regatta on Centre Island. There were two races that day which would seed each competitor in their divisional final. The races were 500 metres and the Fixed Floaters had a time of 2 minutes 39 seconds for their first race and a time of 2 minutes 32 seconds for their second race – an improvement indeed. This resulted in the team being seeded fifth in their division.
Bev, top, second from right, beside coach Dave Poirier
Race day (June 21st) was a beautiful sunny, warm first day of summer. The Fixed Floaters were nervous yet excited at the prospect of racing their first final race ever. As the team paddled out the start line the butterflies were tingling.
According to the results from the previous day, the team was expected to place fifth. When the starting horn went off, the Fixed Floaters paddled their hearts out and finished 1st with a time of 2 minutes 20.21 seconds – a full 19 second improvement from their first race! They beat the second place team by 65/100ths of a second.
The heart, determination and dedication of this team contributed to their spectacular finish. A made for TV Disney movie is sure to follow…
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