Oarsome Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival 2022 raises money for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust
The 16th Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival took place once again on the River Cam at Fen Ditton today, with teams from all around the region doing battle – OK paddling – on a 200m stretch of the River Cam.
Dragon boat racing has an ancient Chinese history dating back 2,000 years: this year’s event saw more than 40 teams took part in the races along the River Cam to raise funds for the Festival’s official charity, Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), ‘the only charity dedicated to making a difference for patients at Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals’.
Up to 10 people paddle each 30-foot boat with a drummer at the front beating time and a helm at the tail steering a straight course. It’s for amateurs and basically offers a fun afternoon out. Each team gets three attempts to improve their race times with everyone having an equal chance of reaching the semi-finals.
The weather at the Ditton Meadows location for the first races since 2019 was perfect – bright sunshine, and a scattering of clouds delivering the all-important rain the land needs. Hundred of people attended the events which took place throughout the afternoon and included a range of bankside entertainments, with food and drink stalls, a mini-funfair and activities guaranteeing a fabulous day out for all. Punters were urged to “come along and support our Robot Appeal fundraising help us reach our target!”.
The Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival, for which the Cambridge Independent is the media partner, is aimed at corporate groups who are looking for a great team-building day out while supporting and raising money for Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie.
Look out for our special coverage and pictures in this week’s Cambridge Independent from Wednesday.
The following companies had hospitality tents by the Cam, where crews and family mingled with the curious. Companies (and their boat names) at the Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival 2022 included:
Arecor, whose dragon boat was named ‘HPLSea’
Bouygues UK, who crewed ‘Cambridge Crewsaders’
Cambridge Commodities, who entered in ‘Phil’s Fabulous Floaters’
Empyrean’s dragon boat was titled ‘The Indelibles’
CDP, or Cambridge Design Partnership, titled their dragon boat ‘Cambridge Design PartyShip’
Endomag raced in ‘Team Pirates’
TWI had two boats, ‘Speed Boaty’ and ‘The Winner Is!’
Tees Law crewed ‘The MighTee Dragons’
Sitec Infrastructure Services also had two boats – ‘Sitec's Dirty Oars’ and ‘The Northern Aquaholics’
Woodland Group had two tents and three boats: ‘Be Reyt Rowers’, ‘Eat The Frog’, and ‘Oar We There Yet?’
Brookend Veterinary Practice called their dragon boat ‘Brookend Vets’
AstraZeneca had boats title ‘Caveat Emptoars’, ‘99 Problems But Winning Ain't One’, ‘Dragon Ball AZ’, ‘In Deep Ship’, and ‘Row Fast Or Row Home’
RING entered with ‘Ten Ring Circus’
“We had a really good day,” said one of the Cambridge Commodities crew.
“We had two teams, it was super fun and a good laugh, with lots of people in fancy dress,” said James Plimmer, a graduate industrial designer at CDP.
“We did alright, we had some really fast times,” said one of the AstraZeneca participants.
The actual racing is a series of face-offs with other boats on a crowded stretch of water. The emphasis is on entertainment, though one crew did complain vociferously to the event organiser, New Wave Events, that a rival boat had jumped the starting gun. Otherwise the level of competitiveness was low and the sense of mucking about on the water was high.
