Hong Kong—It’s that time of the year again when the thousands of individuals that have been training for many months come together to contest their skills, speed, fitness and endurance at the Dragon Boat Races. With 18 paddlers, a drummer and a helm in long slender boats compete over a 500 metre straight line course.
Celebrating this ancient form of sport the Dragon Boat Festival (Tueng Ng Festival) took place last Saturday June 20 with race days at several locations in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories and the surrounding islands. The main event locations were Stanley, Aberdeen, Sai Kung, Cheung Chau, Tai O, Discovery Bay and Sha Tin, and a Dragon Boat festival Parade is held in Tai O Stilt Village.
At the Sun Life Stanley International Dragon Boat Championships 2015 the competition was fierce with regular teams and newcomers taking part. Teams from the specialist dragon boat clubs, yacht and boating clubs, big businesses in the finance and insurance industries, hotel groups, real estate monoliths, construction companies, fitness centres and many more amounting to 280 teams and 6,000 paddlers. …. and up to 200,000 spectators watch proceedings.
