Raising over £1million per year for charity.

Welcome to the Dragon Boat Events Limited, the home of UK dragon boating. We are the UK’s leading provider of Charity, Corporate, Community and Youth dragon boat events & festivals. Dragon Boat Events has helped raise over £1 million a year for charity over the last three years through our events.

What is dragon Boating?

Dragon boating is a fun filled, adrenaline pumping, water sports activity where teams race their dragons in a series of timed races over distances of around 250 meters. Dragon boating is said to have originated in China some 2,000 years ago but was brought to the UK in 1992 by Roger Irwin, the Managing Director of Dragon Boat Events Ltd. who recognised it as an ideal community sport. Now very popular with charities as a fund raising exercise, these events offer a unique, high profile alternative to other fund raising methods and is ideal for experienced crews and complete beginners alike as no previous experience is necessary.

About your day:

A typical Dragon Boat Events day starts with a full H & S briefing and shoreside training for each team by their instructor before being allowed access to the boats. The emphasis on the day is very much about team building and competition, with each team getting a guaranteed (weather permitting or unless otherwise specified) three timed races in the qualifying rounds. Each dragon boat will be helmed by one of our professional staff and there will also be music and running commentary throughout the day provided by our Event Director. After each race has finished, the results and times are entered on our leader board so each team can compare their times throughout the day. Not surprisingly, every time the leader board is updated, team members gather round and as the day progresses, the excitement and atmosphere steadily grows.

When all the qualifying rounds have been completed, we take each team’s single fastest time and use those times to rank all the teams in fastest time order. The number of teams qualifying for the Grand Final will depend on the number of dragon boat we have at the event and also the available water if the event is being held on a canal, a small river, or in a location where the safety of other water users might be compromised. The Grand Final is a race to the finish using all the available dragon boats in one last and very dramatic race to the line! At our larger events, this has involved as many as twelve dragon boats all sweeping towards the finish line together as each team strives to be first across the line and so be recognised as Dragon Boat Champions of that event.

The day finishes with an award ceremony where winner’s trophies are presented to the Captain's of the top three teams and specially cast First, Second and Third place 'Olympic style' Dragon Boat Medals are awarded to each member of the top three teams.

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Forthcoming events:

April:

Sunday 29^th April: The Emsworth Dragon Boat Race.

May:

Sunday 6^th May:    The Salford Dragon Boat Festival.
Sunday 13th May:    The Abingdon Dragon Boat Event
Sunday 13th May:    The Warwick Dragon Boat Festival
Saturday 19th May:   The Portsmouth Dragon Boat Festival - day 1
Sunday 20th May:    The Portsmouth Dragon Boat Festival - day 2
Sunday 20th May:    The Rotary Club of Wolverhampton Dragon Boat Challenge
Saturday 26th May:   The Barrow upon Soar Dragon Boat Festival
Sunday 27th May:    The Dumfries Dragon Boat Festival

A full list of all our events can be found under the ‘Events Calendar’ tab in the menu.