The sport of dragon boating primarily involves 20 people all trying to paddle in sync with each other. To help them out, one person sits at the head of the boat beating a drum in time with paddle strokes. And for racing purposes, there's a flag at the end of the course which the flag-catcher, who sits on the dragon's head, has to grab. If the flag-catcher misses the flag, it's a time penalty for the team.
These are pictures from my first (and hopefully not last!) attempt at dragon-boat racing. Fermilab put together one team (mostly from CDF) to compete in the St. Charles Riverfest dragon boat races on Saturday, June 11th, 2005. The 2004 team managed to win it all; we didn't do quite as well, being eliminated in the second round. But, we all had fun!

created with igal