This year we had an increase in the number of girls wanting to take up Dragon Boating, from Year 9 to Year 13 students.

This meant we were able to enter two boats in the annual Aoraki Dragon Boating competition for secondary schools.

After just a few weeks of training on the Kaiapoi River, we took 22 girls to Lake Rua on Sunday 6 March for the competition. With 10 paddlers and a caller in each boat, no-one had much time for rest as there were two events, which each included three heats and a final.

The first event was a 250m race, then we had the 420m turns event. Whilst neither team placed in either event, each team placed 6th in one event and 7th in the other - so at least our performance was consistent.

It was an incredibly hot day, requiring lots of energy and hard work from everyone. It was great to see how positive and supportive the Kaiapoi High School teams were - of each other and of the other teams in the competition. As always, the students represented the School in a really positive way and they were an awesome group to work with. We hope to keep going with Dragon Boating in the future, maybe even for a regatta in term four.

The whole team would like to thank Hayley Newton for all of the organisation, and her support on the day. We’d also like to thank Reon Tiweka for his ongoing support as our coach and sweep, as well as Mike Robinson for coming on board to coach and sweep so that we could enter the two teams.