Salford Business Submarine made its second appearance on Sunday 8th May 2016, entering the team’s second ever Salford Dragon Boat Festival.
The team competed for the first time in 2015, where their main aim was to keep out of the water and to make it to the end of the course. Having easily achieved their 2015 target the team set their sights higher for 2016. This year, we wanted to raise even more money for Kidscan – a Children’s Cancer Research charity – and of course we were aiming not just to keep out of the water, but also to win a race! Have we been able to achieve our ambition this year?
Most importantly the team were rowing to raise funds for Kidscan. Cancer is the leading cause of death in children in the UK; 25% of children diagnosed with cancer won’t make it to their 30th birthday. Through groundbreaking research, Kidscan is striving to change that, giving every child with cancer the treatment they need to survive.
Kidscan Children’s Cancer Research
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDd6xSS7e9A
Kidscan’s aims are:
- To cure children with cancer
- To improve the treatment of children with cancer
- To develop new treatments and support programmes specifically for children suffering from cancer
- To be a source of information about childhood cancer.
In 2015 Salford Business Submarine raised close to £1000 for Kidscan, and we hope to make it over the £1k mark this year – you can help us by donating on our Justgiving Page.
Salford dragon boat race 2016
The day dawned bright and sunny, with perfect conditions for the race in Ontario Basin. With some changes to the previous year’s team, 16 rowers turned out to race. The team chatted and began to discuss tactics.
Some rowers were complete novices, while the most experienced among us had competed in a massive two races before! We posed for our team photo, donned our lifejackets, grabbed a paddle each and listened carefully to the safety briefing.
Then it was straight to the boat, as we were in the first of the heats. The first instruction from our skipper at the back was for 3 strokes backwards. 16 oars scrabbled in the water and clashed against each other. Our skipper took the opportunity to use his oldest joke and remind us that backwards was the opposite of forwards, and we made our way across the basin to the start of the race.
Sadly we didn’t win but gained some valuable experience to build on. As we waited for our second race we discussed tactics again; we knew the importance of team work, and that we needed to row in unison to succeed, but struggled to agree on the best way to achieve this.
While we debated the approach our support team of mini submariners got busy selling homemade biscuits and cakes to help with the fundraising efforts.
We headed back to the boats for our second race. We were still lining up at the start when we heard the shout of “Go” and we were off – not quite in unison and were just beaten at the finish.
We had one final chance to achieve our goal of winning a race and were determined to achieve our goal. Our hotshot researchers turned to the Internet to refine our tactics. We changed the order of our places on the boats, and came to collective agreement to start with a few fast strokes to get up some speed. And we practiced hard on the dockside:
As we approached the start we all leant forward, oars at the ready for the start. You can see how our hard work eventually paid off in the clip below, taken by one of our support team:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm5CdDrnMSM
We had won our first ever race by a length! Not quite enough to reach the final but a massive 9 seconds faster than our first attempt. Whilst a final place would have been great we were pleased to achieve our goals, mostly of all our main aim, which is to raise money for Kidscan.
We had a lot of fun and enjoyed a sunny day out as a team and are really looking forward to next year’s challenge. But, before we get there we want you to help us to raise some more money for Kidscan to support their cause – you can do this at our Justgiving Page.
Help us to raise money for Kidscan
The ultimate aim of our campaign is to raise awareness of Kidscan’s cancer research activities and raise money. Please help us by either sharing this blog post
https://twitter.com/AlexFarrellSBS/status/729419039395741697
Brilliant day with @salfordbizsch 57.31 in our last race – won by a length! @Kidscan_UK https://t.co/rnURlbOLdS pic.twitter.com/cvho2cTY3s
— Maria Kutar (@mariakutar) May 8, 2016
Or, donate at this fund raising web page.