Dragon Boats Are a Mighty Good Watch
Our columnist experiences the Dragon Boats. The question is, will he be in one next year?
By Roger Donegan
In February the Carpenter-Carse Library posted “Dragon Boat Newbies Wanted.” I’ve “crossed the pond” in Navy ships. I’ve been in rowing shells, kayaked down the Hudson and canoed local waters. Messing about in small boats has been a passion. Not daring enough to be a newbie though, I took in the Lake Champlain Dragon Boat Festival presented by Community Bank in August while remaining on the high ground in Waterfront Park. What a summer highlight it would be to be on Lake Champlain dotted with legendary styled Dragon boats paddling for your life to the finish line with teammates.
We’ve been conditioned to cherish whatever boat mysteries and myths that Lake Champlain has to offer. The history buff in me preserves a special appreciation for historically accurate Champlain Long Boats built by high school students who then rowed them competitively. That’s a real commitment to local lore with a nod to wood planks, tholepins and oars. The Dragon Boat motifs makes me think of Chinese New Year Celebrations, firecrackers, and a flourishing of colorful silk flags where east meets west for the moment.
Dragonheart hosted the first festival in 2004 to support breast cancer survivors. As a community charity event their mission today is to raise funds to support breast cancer survivors and children impacted by cancer. In 2005 Dragonheart took delivery of their first boats named “Lady and the Champ”, “Jill” then “Sittin’ Pretty” made in Germany of fiberglass material. A campaign to buy the Dragonheart dock floating in the shadow of Burlington’s USCG Station began in 2008. The interpretive sign says the “Dyer Docks” were named in honor of the Dragonheart founders, John and Linda Dyer, a breast cancer survivor, and unveiled with coverage by Channel 3 News in 2022.
The 200- and 500-yard meter races are fun to imagine or watch at Waterfront Park. This year the Dragon Boats lined up on the water three abreast like thoroughbreds in a starting gate at the College Street Community Boathouse. After an egg beater start, it’s a straight line dash to the finish line and the USCG Lagoon. Most of the Community Division winning teams in 2025 finished just under a minute. The 500 yard races on average finished in 2.5 minutes. Once over race boats head in, disembark at the Dyer Dock while the next teams take their seats in orderly fashion. Each participant wears their team’s signature colors or getup, a PFD, has a paddle firmly grasped in hand, and takes position in a boat.
Eight sets of paddlers step in to share one of eight flat board seats. A board seat is actually a thwart structurally linking the port and starboard gunwales the length of the open boat. Paddlers face the bow and the drummer who sits on a platform up front. In facing the two rows of paddlers the drummer is their center of attention and at the right moment unleashes motivational pizzazz upon the paddlers to do their utmost, preserving momentum by beating a cadence. A steer person stands upright at the stern trailing a seriously large single blade sweep as a rudder much like a Venetian gondolier to stay the course.
All the while Waterfront Park erupts with the cheers of spectators catching the neck-and-neck heats just crossing the finish line down on the water while the announcer calls out the name of the winning team and every other detail in between for the crowd. Throngs of participants, fans, plus kids mill about patronizing the tented sponsors, food vendors, craftspeople, and merchants of Dragon Boat Race souvenirs. I picked up a bright orange T-shirt with two comic dragon heads on the front for a friend sure to amuse his two young granddaughters.
Admission was free but parking was a challenge. After exiting the Festival grounds I made my way by the Old Ferry Dock and found Champ’s larger than life caricature out front of the Lake Monsters storefront looking a bit concerned. What self-respecting lake monster wouldn’t be with all the snarling toothy Dragon Boats dashing about on home waters? I wished to console him thinking it was for a great cause and that the Dragon Boats are here just for the weekend.