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Dragon Boat Team Awaits Rescue during Tacoma's Ranier Festival - Connie Mellaart photo

According to the Tacoma News Tribune, Tacoma’s Ranier Dragon Boat Festival’s

biggest unscheduled excitement took place shortly after noon, when a tugboat motored too close to the racing dragon boats.

The tugboat’s wake swamped a Portland team’s boat, spilling paddlers into the frigid water.

The paddlers all made it safely to shore and avoided hypothermia, thanks in part to the fact that many of the team members are medical professionals. Two are lifeguards.

The team, “Women on Water,” kept a sense of humor. Today we should have been called “Women in Water,” joked team member Sue Gray.

Every dragon boat incident I have become aware of during the last year or so has been the direct result of external circumstances. In every case, the accident was caused by another vessel.

Swamped Dragon Boat - Rainer Dragon Boat Festival May 2011 (Gayland Pounder photo)

Festival committees need to work more closely with harbor masters in a combined effort to educate the thoughtless morons who hit their throttles without giving a thought to the hapless paddlers in the near vicinity.

In every case I’m aware of, it’s not the dragon boat, it’s not the paddlers, and it sure as hell isn’t the weather. It’s a nearby operator of a power boat that’s caused these accidents.

Where were the safety patrol boats? Why weren’t they on the race course, warning off nearby vessels?

Where were the “rescue boats” when 22 people hit the drink? Why weren’t they ON the racecourse, following each heat, instead of  sitting on the Start line?

One comment below the The News Tribune story was disturbing, to say the least, as it accused the Coast Guard Auxiliary of falling down on the job. It further stated that dock volunteers had no way to communicate with either the CGA or race management. Worse yet, there apparently were no first aid attendants on the site to deal with potential injuries. (Kudos to the organizers of the Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival for making sure that St. John’s Ambulance is always on the job!)

One positive suggestion was that  ”…the Tacoma group will consider a boom line to keep outside boats away from the race course.” I don’t think that’s  practical, but something does need to be done at festivals to protect crews paddling out on the course.