After a year’s absence, Lightwave traveled to Southern CA to meet its sister team, DPW, for the Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival.  Despite disorganized race starts and tough heats against the likes of Suen Feng Loong, Space Dragons, and Dragon Warriors, Lightwave made it to the Division II-A finals.

Lightwave placed fourth against some really strong teams, and were awarded medals!  In addition to bringing home hardware, the team took comfort in knowing that their time in Div. II-A final beat everyone in the Div. I-B final.  Furthermore, Lightwave competed in the 200 m sprint races, and did not win a medal, but did beat (by time) competitors like Lincoln High School, Mountain View High School, and Dragon Warriors 2!

In the annual watermelon eating contest, DPW thought they could scare teams by requiring the last member of the team relay to eat hard-boiled, thousand-year-old, and balut eggs. That may have worked effectively against fellow visiting team Arizona Dragon Riders, but Lightwave eats just about everything on this Earth, and decidedly won the three-way contest. We expect DPW to come ready for more punishment when we host them at the Treasure Island races in September.

Video footage from this past weekend’s races revealed that Lightwave has developed an affinity for rushed paddling that yields an S-curve of paddles from front row to back row. It’s a beautiful spectacle, but it’s a major indicator of timing issues that the team needs to fix.  With less than two months to go, let’s work hard to end the season with a bang!