DragonBoat Beaufort holds ninth annual race day
By Delayna Earley
The Island News
BEAUFORT – The ninth annual Beaufort DragonBoat Race Day brought hundreds of paddlers to Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park in Downtown Beaufort early on Saturday morning.
This is the second year that the nonprofit has held the race day since the COVID-19 pandemic caused them to cancel their events.
“Coming back from COVID, we were concerned with how everything was going to go,” said Chris Jones, this year’s race day director. “But I mean, the community stepped up, and this year we have had an even better response.”
The event hosted 28 teams, with 10 from out of town, that competed in three separate heats.
The 18 community teams from Beaufort County represented local businesses, organizations, fitness centers and neighborhoods.
The teams raced three times each before seeding into one of several divisions – Divisions A, B, C, D, Senior Final (4 teams), and Cancer Survivor (5 teams).
They also had a Men’s Championship Cup with two teams participating.
“We wanted to have a Men’s Division, but we only had two teams, so we had a Men’s Championship Cup instead,” said Jones. “This was the first year we have had an all-men team participate.”
Ultimately the goal is to raise money to support a cancer outreach program for the year, but the event also gives members of the community the opportunity to come together and compete in a series of races that ends in a ceremony with gold medals and the winning teams securing bragging rights for the rest of the year.
Division Gold Medal Winners
Division A: Organized Chaos, Charlotte, N.C. – 01:05.08
Division B: Bluffton Paddle Club, Bluffton, S.C. – 01:08.12
Division C: Knights of Columbus, Beaufort, S.C. – 01:16.45
Division D: Leadership Beaufort Alumni Association, Beaufort, S.C. – 01:15.00
Senior Division: Holy City Silver Dragons, Charleston, S.C. – 01:28.50
Cancer Survivor: JFD Limitless, Jacksonville, Fla. – 01:21.03
Men’s Championship Cup: F3 Shockwaves, Beaufort, S.C. – 01:22:96
As of Tuesday, June 27, the nonprofit has raised just over $70,000 of their $80,000 goal.
While the organizers of the event are very excited to begin looking forward to next year’s event, there is still the matter of finding a home for their boats.
The organization has been without a permanent home for their 40-foot boats since Fall 2022, and going forward that is one of the main issues that they hope to tackle.
“If we can’t get the boats into the water on the regular and get people out on the water, our membership dwindles and then pretty soon we aren’t here anymore,” Jones said.
Jones said that it’s a domino effect and that eventually they won’t be able to raise money like they do now because they will not be able to generate the same kind of excitement.
“In addition to being a charitable nonprofit organization that gives back, we also get out there on the waterways and do something in a boat,” Jones said about the organization. “If we don’t have the paddling program, we are just another charity raising money, certainly for a good cause, but we aren’t really bringing anything special to it.”
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She spent six years as a videographer and photographer for The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette before leaving the Lowcountry in 2018. After freelancing in Myrtle Beach and Virginia, she joined The Island News when she moved back to Beaufort in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
MORE COVERAGE
DragonBoat Race Day set for Saturday, June 22, 2023
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