The Challenge Races

Although we can't always guarantee it is possible, we will do our best to include Challenge Races into the race program as an extra competition for any company or organisation that enters two or more teams. These races are always held back until round three and special care is made to ensure the challenge teams do not meet their rivals during the earlier rounds - thus giving all challenge competitors maximum dragon boating experience before their race.

In 2007 we had two challenge Races:

The first challenge race was a show down between The River Rats and The River Rat@touilles (both teams supporting the Countess of Chester Hospital’s Human Milk Bank Appeal), whilst the second challenge race was a thrilling three boat contest between the teams from HMS Albion: HMS Albion Sailors, HMS Albion Marines and the HMS Albion Old Men.

Such is the draw of dragon boating that for the previous two years, the HMS Albion teams (who support local charity Claire House Children’s Hospice), have had to drive all the way up from Plymouth in Devon in order to compete in Chester because that was the closest port their ship could dock in! This year, the boys were delighted to discover they would be able to dock in Liverpool and so pulled out all the stops by entering three teams in Chester.

“We expected close racing between the teams in the challenge races, but the reality was even more exciting than anticipated."

It was neck and neck racing all the way in the River Rats Race, with the River Rat@touilles just squeaking into the lead at the very end by a rat's whisker.

Although hard to make out as this picture was taken just after both teams crossed the finish line, you can see from the back of the boats and the positions the helms are standing, that the blue River Rat@touilles boat was just fractionally ahead of the nearside yellow River Rats boat.

But if you thought that was close though, take a look at this!

The Navy boys had been gearing up for the Chester Festival for months, so when it was announced on the day there was going to be included as part of the race program, an HMS Albion Challenge Race, nothing - but NOTHING ... was going to stop any of the teams from winning. It should have been a close race - we expected something dramatic ... and in true military fashion the Navy treated us to one of the finest dragon boat races seen anywhere in the world!

With just inches separating all three teams the entire length of the course; we needed a photo finish to distinguish the eventual winners as they crossed the line.