max ebb: enterthe dragon

It was the sound of the drum that alerted me to the presence ofsomething unusual approaching.

No one really thinks of the corner of the docks, where the main marina chan¬ nel makes a right angle turn, as a blind corner. We can easily see the mast ofany approaching sailboat over the tops ofthe berthed boats, and because the launch¬ ing ramp is near the mouth of the har¬ bor there’s seldom any small powerboat traffic in this partofthe marina. But that drum sound had to be coming from somewhere.

“Jibing! Heads down!” I shouted with no more advance warning to my new crew, and spun the whreel.

It was a good thing I did. As §oon as my boat began to answer the helm and swingwide ofthe corner, I was suddenly looking at the business end of what looked like a Venetian war galley fitted out for the Chinese NewYear parade. Our closing speed must have been 12 knots, and my turn gave them just enough room. For all I knew there was abronze ram fitted just below the waterline un¬ der that dragon head.

“Hold water!” came a shout from the approaching boat, and with a burst of foam around at least 20 paddle blades shifting abruptly into reverse, the thing came to a quick stop.

I gotabetterlook aswe coasted across its bow. The boat must have been about 50 feetlong, with acarved dragon’s head on the stem and a dragon’s tail on the stern. The drummer sat up front, look¬ ingbackat the 10 or 12 thwarts, each of which supported two paddlers. Back aft there was a steering oar not unlike a whaleboat-style steering oar. I had seen outrigger canoes often enough in Hawaii — but this rig was a whole different beast.

“It’s a dragonboat,” whispered one of my new crew. “Veiy big in Canada, and just beginning to catch on down here."

And then came the biggest shock of end, although she hadn’t said exactly why not.

In fact it was Lee’s unavailability, alongwith some other crewwho couldn’t do the upcoming season of winter rac¬ ing, that had prompted me to hold a practice sail in the firstplace. Maybe the time interval between the summer YRA season and the Midwinters is too long, or maybe the race scheduleisjustalittle too dense in August and September to prevent crew burnout. But forwhatever reason, I find myselftraining most ofmy new crew in the fall.

“T

J_^ee?” I hailed as I jibed back to pass closer to the stern ofthe big canoe.

or three."

all: the helmsperson, grinning at me as she casuallyleaned against the steering oar, was none other than Lee Helm. Lee is a grad student at the University, and one ofmy occasional race crew. She had notbeen available forpractice thisweek¬

“Just a little cross training,” she an¬ swered. “Sony we didn’t, like, see you coming around the bend.”

“No problem at all,” I lied, eventhough we had come within inches of reenact¬ ing any one of several famous maritime disasters.

“This thing has such a small rudder area,” she explained, “and so much weight distributed all the way out to the ends in the form of crew, that it doesn’t turn worth beans. But like, it sure can stop fast!”

“Good thing, too,” I replied as we started to move out ofeasy hailingrange.

“Paddles up!” she shouted athercrew, to which they instantly raised their paddle blades into position to begin the next stroke. On the call of“take it away” they started to paddle inperfect synchro¬ nization, asifall the paddleswere locked togetherlike the drivewheels on asteam locomotive. The drummer went back to work to keep them in time, and also startedto critique theirindividual minute aberrations from perfect timing and form.

While I briefed my new crew on the finer points of approaching a dock un¬ der sail, Lee put her 20 human engines into high gear and sped off toward the mouth ofthe harbor. Butthen, undoubt¬ edly to show off, she looped back and approached my boat from astern, pass¬ ing close aboard on my starboard side. Her boat must have been going seven knots to my five.'

“Didn’t anyone ever explain to you people,” I said to the sweat-stained pad¬ dlers as they passed alongside, groan-

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ing with exertion gasping for air, “that 5,000years ago someone figured outthat you can prop up an animal skin with a stick, and ifthe wind is blowingyou can save yourself an awful lot ofwork?”

^\fterthe sailswere folded I sentmy crewup to the yacht club barwhile I did some final tidying up, then checked the docklines and locked the hatches. But therewas a crowd on theguest dock as I passed. None of these people looked to me like yacht club members — way too young. Abouthalfappeared to be Asian, and the rest probably had ancestors scattered evenly around the world.

As soon as I noticed that some ofthem were holding paddles and lifejackets, it was clear enough why they were there. Then the dragon boat came up the fair¬ way at abouthalfspeed, and coasted up close to the guest dock. Lee broyght it neatly alongside with various combina¬ tions offorward, reverse and side thrust fromvarious sets ofpaddlers, plus a row¬ ing action with the steering oar to “till” the stern into place, as one ofthe people on the dock described it.

In the next couple ofminutes the old crew got out, most of them traded paddles and lifejackets with the new crew, and the boat was off again.

“Busy practice schedule today,” Lee remarked as she borrowed the nearest hose to rinse the salt off her paddle.

“How did you ever get mixed up with this crowd?” I asked Lee when she was putting away the hose, and was a short distance away from the otherteam mem¬ bers. • “Like I'said, cross training.”

“Come on, Lee. You get all the exer¬ cise you need from windsurfing.”

“Not enough wind in the winter,” she said. “Have to get my aerobics in at least three times aweek, and I really hate do¬ ing exercise indoors.”

“But still, Lee, Being on the water without a sail? I never thought I'd see the day . . . .”

“Okay, Max,” she confided, looking around nervously to make sure none of the team were listening in. “I do have an agenda, and it ddes involve sailing.”

Lee always has her own agenda. "What’s the sailing angle?” I asked.

V_^onsider the average age of the averageyachtclub member,” she said as she pointed up at the-clubhouse dining room. “The last time you invited me to one ofthose dinner meetings, I sat at a tablewhere everyone elsewas old enough to be my grandparents.”

“The dinner meeting crowd does tend to self-selectfor certain characteristics,” I allowed. “You can't callthe racingcrowd geriatric."

“Sure I can, compared to my other friends. The racing members are pretty ancient too. and like, the people I hang with at the post-race parties are mostly crew who aren’t members anyway.”

“All right, what’syour point?” I asked suspiciously.

“Now that you recognize the problem with the high average age, think about how thejunior program has flopped. . .”

“Nowwait a minute, Lee,” I protested. "I thought ourjuniorprogram last spring was a big success, and we're planning on more of the same next year. And be¬ sides, how are those juniors going to change the metnbership demographics? They're pre-teens, and won’t be inter¬ ested injoiningayachtclub fordecades.”

“Think, Max. The parents! An active junior program gets young families in¬ volved. But like, all you hadwas a dozen or so kids in the program last year, and only two or three of them at most are likely to stickwith itenough to evercome back. And how many adults did it take to make that happen?”

I started to answer, ready to remind Lee how much fun itwas to take abunch ofmiddle school kids out for their first,

second, and third times sailing on a big boat. She had even come out herself a couple of times to help. But Lee barely let me open my mouth.

“One adult for every two kids, on a good day,” she interrupted, answering entry bar. And like, it also gets the most kids out on the water with the fewest grownups in charge. Heck, it’s even

"So, the endpoint ofthis masterplan?" "Hostile takeoverofthe yacht club...

her own question. "And like, most of them didn’t really leant to sail anyway. Boat's too big, too many safety rules, not enough hands-on sailing — and virtu¬ ally no chance to take any responsibility for anything, despite all the rhetoric about “life skills” training. I mean, gimme a break. To learn life skills, you have to be allowed to make a bad call or three.”

“Well sure,” I said, “but there is avery real safety concern here.”

“You’re right, they let almost anyone drive thatvan down to the marina. That's the dangerous part. And the real bottom line is that only about one in five kids will have any real interest in sailing, no matter how exciting we make their first exposure.”

“And your solution?”

“Paddling!" she said, pointing to the boatload of beginners that was pulling away from the dock.

There was a world of difference be¬ tween the team that Lee had been train¬ ingwith, and the team thatwas attempt¬ ing to paddle the boat now. Even I could spot their poor form and difficulty in keeping the two ends of the boat pad¬ dling at the same rhythm.

‘That’s a new team, and this is just their second time out,” explained Lee. “But like, they can still do it. They go six knots instead of seven, but the point is, they can make the boat go and they’re having a great time. Just about anyone canjump in one ofthese boats, pick up a paddle, and with somewhere between zero and 30 seconds of instruction, they’re doing it. This is accessible to ev¬ eryone, and I think about half the kids who try it once will want to come back for more — a way, way better ratio than with sailing.”

“Do you really need these big mon¬ sters for this kind of activity?” I asked. “What about kayaks, or open water row¬ boats?"

‘Those work too, but they all require more skill. This has the lowest possible cheaper than a playing field, ifyou look at the numbers.”

Lee proceeded to cite some stagger¬ ing figures for playing fielcls now under development in nearby inland lots: $2 million dollars per field, and $50,000 or more peryear for maintenance and land¬ scaping, depending on the staffing level. She claimed that a dragon boat program could keep more kids occupied in a com¬ petitive team sport them a playing field, that paddling was better exercise than baseball or even soccer, and thatitcould be done for about one-tenth the cost per kid.

“And like, you don’t have to buy, grade, fence, or mow the water surface," she concluded.

“T±’11 buy that,” I allowed. “No need to convince me that kids are better off competing on the water than on the grass. Especially those kids that seem to get missed by school phys-ed pro¬ grams, the ones who don’t quite fit into thejock culture.”

‘“Zactly,” Lee agreed. “Water sports have tremendous appeal for kids who don’t do anything else remotely athletic. But like, getting from here to abigyouth program is going to be a challenge.”

“What’s your plan?” I asked.

“Phase one is complete. Thatwas get¬ ting a boat. The marina has miles of inside-tie berths that aren’t marketable to anyone else, sowith a little pressure from the City recreation department and the Harbor Commission, we got a free berth. The boat itself came from one ofthe two local dragon boatracingassociations. It’s reallyjust on loan, but they see this lo¬ cation as a sort of ‘expansion team,’ so they lent us the boat to help get the site going.”

“But don’t you need something like two kilometers ofwaterto practice prop¬ erly?” I asked. “It doesn’t look like you’d want to take that thing out in the Bay."

“Two K is for racing shells. Our races are usuallyjust 500 meters, and take a little over two minutes. They have to be short, because the way the big regattas work, the host club provides a set of maybe six identical boats, and there are like 50 teams all taking turns in a kind oftennis ladder arrangement. There are lots ofcategories too, divided by age, sex or corporate affiliation. Anyway, there’s more than 500 meters ofopen protected water inside the marina.”

“As long as you watch those blind corners,” I noted.

“Yeah, soriy about that,” she apolo¬ gized again. “But like, the next step is the programmatic expansion. We’re working with one ofthe local youth pro¬ grams to get a youth team going, and this will grow over the next few years.”

“Do you have money for paid staff?” I asked.

“No, but plenty ofvolunteers from the team. And the real thing about dragon boats that makes this work is that the learning curve is very short and shallow compared to sailing — so like, a counse¬ lor from the youth program can be play¬ ing coach by the end ofa season. Maybe not good enough to coach a real team, but good enough to staya couple ofsteps ahead of the kids. We’ll still need certi¬ fied steerspeople in the boat for safety and boat handling, but steering these . things is so much fun that we already have volunteers lining up for that.”

“And that’s phase two?"

“For sure. The youth program will be runningthis winter. Phasethree involves the yacht club, making a special mem¬ bership deal forthe adultteam members to use club facilities. Same deal you give to the students over at the University Sailing Club.”

‘This is the first I’ve heard ofit,” I said. “Offhand, I don’t see why the Board wouldn’t go for it, though. That is, ifyou don’twake up the liveaboards every Sat¬ urday morningwith that drum. The fish¬ ing boats are bad enough. . . .”

Then we get into some heavy fund¬ raising, buying our own boats, expand¬ ing to include kayaks and outriggers of various sizes.”

“Why outriggers? Aren’t theyjust sixperson machines?Seems to me you lose a lot ofthebang foryourbuckgoing from a crew of 22 down to 6.”

“Outriggers are, like, the usual pro¬ gression front dragon boats," Lee ex¬ plained, “at leastfor the people who want a more serious competitive venue. I mean, hardcore dragon boat racing,

where you go to all the international events, seems to be as muchabouttravel and food as it is about racing.”

“My kind of sport!” I exclaimed.

“But like, outrigger canoe racing is pretty serious. And outriggers love rough water, so theycan race or practice in the Central Bay on a summer afternoon. Heck, theyrace them across the Molokai Channel, and it doesn't get much rougher than that.”

“So, the endpoint ofthismaster plan?” "Hostile takeover oftheyacht club by the Marina Canoe Club. Except it will happen gradually, so no one iii theyacht club really notices ‘til it’s.too late. We’ll have about four dragon boats, a couple ofOC-6 outriggers, some OC-1 and OC2 canoes for one-person and two-person workouts, plus a nice selection ofocean kayaks for recreational paddling. All kept in the water or on floating racks at the empty inside ties on the docks next to the yacht club.”

“Okay . . . .”

‘That will support a membership base of a couple of hundred,” Lee surmised, “enough to provide a steady stream of volunteers to runtheyouthprogram, and a badly needed influx ofyounger mem¬ bers and younger families into theyacht club. The youth program in turn feeds the Canoe Club, and a small but signifi¬ cantpercentage go on to sailing. And like, I’m sure you’ll find that the paddling teams are extremely fertile ground for breeding newrace crew for bigsailboats.”

That reminded me that my crew-in¬ trainingwas waitingforme up inthebar.

“I just hopeyou don’t forget too much ofyour sailing skills, hanging out with this crowd,” I remarked as we watched the dragon boat bump ipto the dock, then driftjust out of reach as the coach and steersperson gave conflicting com¬ mands. Finally theywere alongside, and one of the paddlers jumped,out with a dock line, but struggled to remember how to tie a cleat hitch.

“I can see they have a lot ofspirit, and it looks like a great crowd, but I can’t give them very high marks for seaman¬ ship.”

“Quite the contrary, Max. This is a maritime tradition thatgoes back to 400 BC, and I’m learning a totally different kind ofseamanship. Forexample, doyou know how to tie a dragon bowline?”

She walked overto the dock cleat and handed me the frayed end of the dock line, badly in need of new whipping.

I studied the piece ofrope, dimly re¬ calling some specialized forms ofa bow¬ line I had once seen in a book — but promptly forgot because they are so sel¬ dom used.

“Like this,” said Lee as she took back the end ofthe dock line, quicklytiedwhat looked like an ordinary bowline, then lowered the loop and knot ontothe dock. She then proceeded to walk slowly back¬ wards, dragging the loop along the con¬ crete dock surface.

“The draggin’ bowline,” she an¬ nounced.

— max ebb

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