Cape Town Paddlesnappers Dragon Boat Club

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

• To promote an interest in Dragon Boat Racing
• To maintain the culture and traditions of Dragon Boat Racing
• To encourage a high standard of participation in the sport through the formation of crews and by racing dragon boats among members and others.

HISTORY OF THE CLUB

The Cape Town Paddlesnappers Dragon Boat Club is the oldest club in Africa, emerging in 1995 and officially forming the following year. The majority of the founding members were paddlers who had competed at the 1st IDBF World Championships in Yue Yang, China in 1995 and the 1st Cape Town International Dragon Boat Festival in 1995 under the banner of the newly-formed South Africa Dragon Boat Association (SADBA). Over the years, members have been drawn from many different sporting backgrounds, and people with little or no former athletic experience have also caught the dragon boat bug and become, after a few months of training, paddlers of note!

Paddlesnappers has progressed steadily through the years, maintaining its status as South Africa's paramount club, and as a primary feeder to South African crews touring abroad. Club members have been represented in a number of World Championships (China 1995, Hong Kong 1997 & Nottingham 1999), World Club Crew Championships (Rome 2002 & Cape Town 2004) and international festivals (Macau 2000, Taipei 2004, China/Taipei 2006 & Taipei/Hong Kong 2007) as well as numerous local and national regattas. Many paddlers on sabbatical from abroad have joined us for sessions and regattas, and former members have gone on to found or paddle for other clubs in faraway places.

On the local scene, Paddlesnappers have consistently proven to be a strong team, winning gold medals in the annual Cape Town International Dragon Boat Festival against clubs from New Zealand, Germany, USA, Denmark, Holland, Italy and the UK, as well as local teams. Paddlesnappers have also won the SADBA floating trophy for the best overall South African club every year that it has been awarded since 1995.

Over time the club's paddling style has been refined and formalised and we have come to specialise in mixed (men and women together) racing in both standard fibreglass and traditional Chinese wooden boats. A strong spirit of technical rigour and experimentation pervades - as befits a club with six former or current coaches with hard science degrees. Any new ideas are considered, debated and often tried on for size. New members quickly become proficient in the Paddlesnappers' style and learn all about racing from the word go. In recent years as interest has grown, we have paddled all year round, enjoying both the cold and dark of midwinter and the heat of midsummer. Fitness sessions have become an integral part of our training, and ambitious members are encouraged to cross-train, with running and rowing being particularly popular.

As the sport continues to grow throughout the world, Paddlesnappers aims to increase its interaction with foreign clubs and focus on future tours locally and abroad, whilst maintaining its blend of social and competitive paddling and preserving the unique spirit that it has developed over a dozen years of good times.

The committee:

• Chair: Des Yeo
• Vice-chair: Vince Naude
• Secretary: Craig Barrett, secretary@paddlesnappers.com
• Coach: Martin Poole
• Captain: Dagmar Atkinson
• Treasurer: Gillian Morris