breathing fire: Dragon boat racing clubs are popping up all over NSW and it’s proving to be quite a popular sport. Photo supplied by Dragon Boats NSW
DRAGON boat racing could be the newest craze to hit New England.
Armidale’s very own dragon racing club, the Armidale Dam Dragons, will receive its first two boats today and is calling for members to join the new group.
The Armidale club will be the 58th to form in NSW.
Its boats are coming from Sydney and the club needs members to fill the 22 seats, as well as a “sweeper” (someone to do the steering), on each.
Club secretary Donna Sly said they were holding an open day today at the Malpas Dam, on the way to Guyra, at 2pm (weather permitting).
Ms Sly said they wanted to gauge how many people would be interested in joining.
She said the idea snowballed after the committee of eight organisers were sitting around one day and came up with the idea to form the Armidale club.
“None of the committee members had ever done it and just thought, ‘that would be interesting’,” Ms Sly said.
She said the club would just be socialising and training to begin with, but eventually, they would start racing and entering competitions.
“We’re expecting a few funny times while we all get used to it,” Ms Sly said.
The club will also meet at the Malpas Dam tomorrow in the morning.