Hi everyone, I'm currently working on a dragon boat directory website named Dragon Boat Helper under the domain dragonboat.help. The website has many objectives (but I'll keep this post short), and one of them is to provide a list of available/useful resources (Dragon Boat Resources & Guides) to the dragon boat community that paddlers can reference on their athlete journey. I've only added a handful of https://dragonboat.help/resources/websites that I have come across in the past, but I figured that there's more out there on the interwebs that people here have come across. If there is a resource that you would like me to add, please let me know on here and why. Thank you in advance!

What do you use for your team chat? My team uses What’s App. We use it mostly for informal chat and pictures. What do you love and dislike about your chat program? What do you wish you had to communicate with your team?

A paddler in her 70s once told me, half-jokingly, that Senior D stood for "Senior Dead." At the time, there was no Senior D category, but there were PLENTY of 70+ folks still paddling hard and vying for spots on Senior C crews. Now that's changed, with the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) officially creating a Senior D class. But you may not know how this came to be—and it wasn't easy. In 2017 Canadian Ruth Bedell decided that if she wanted to stay competitive in the sport, rather than be relegated to paddling recreationally, she'd have to create a Senior D class herself. The first hurdle was assembling a team. So she put an ad in her paper, which somehow made the front page, and ended up with 60 interested women aged 68 and older. Now that Ruth had the paddlers, she needed a racing division. So she kept going... and in 2022 her efforts were rewarded with a Senior D division at the Canadian National Championships. But that still wasn't enough... Ruth wanted to see this racing class at the top level. So she kept pushing. 2024 saw the class introduced at the Canadian-American (CanAm) Championships, 2025 at the Pan American (PanAm) Championships, and now finally, the racing class has been adopted by the IDBF. Think you can't change the world. Be like Ruth. And if you think there's no place for you in this sport because you're getting too old... think again. You can now keep racing well into your 70s and 80s WITHOUT having to compete for a seat or the podium against a younger crowd. Curious - does this new worldwide adoption of a Senior D class change your own plans or how your club operates?

Hi! This is my fourth year paddling with the Pittsburgh Paddlefish. I love the sport and the community. This is really my first team sport as I’ve been into mostly individual sports (run, bike) before. There are people on my team who have been paddling for 20+ years. I hope I can do the same. This is such a fun and supportive community.