[Nfbf-l] Blind dragon boat team prepares to race in the National Harbor regatta

[Alan Dicey]

Blind dragon boat team prepares to race in the National Harbor regatta
Congratulations to all who participate with the Out of Sight Dragon Boat 
team!
Below is the text of a story that appeared in the Saturday, August 24 Metro 
Section of the Washington Post.
 There was also a picture of Sam Joehle accompanying the story.
For those interested in more information about the Out of Sight Dragons,
 contact Sam at:
 blink183 at verizon.net
-Paul
 Paul D'Addario
 President, NOVA council of the Blind and Visually Impaired

###
 Blind dragon boat team prepares to race in the National Harbor regatta
By St. John Barned-Smith,
 Published: August 23
 Washington Post

Winifred "Winkie" Day leans against the long steering paddle of a
 40-foot dragon boat, preparing to prod her team, the Out of Sight
 Dragons, into action.
"Attention!" Day calls out one recent day on the Potomac River in Southwest.
Maybelle Kagy, sitting near the dragon boat's prow, waits for the final
 signal as Day's command ripples down a line of paddlers. They lean
 forward, their
 paddles horizontal to the water.

 And then, "Go!"

 In front, Kagy starts pounding a steady tattoo onto the drum she
 carries, and the blades bite into the water. In a quick series of
 strokes, the boat surges
 forward. "Bury your blade! Get your hand wet!" Kagy yells.

 It is the last practice for the Out of Sight Dragons before they race at
 Saturday's National Harbor Dragon Boat Regatta. The local team is one of
 35 from
 around the country to compete in the regatta. In dragon boat racing,
 teams are composed of 20 paddlers, a drummer and a sweep, or steersman.

 What distinguishes the Out of Sight Dragons is that its members are all
 blind or visually impaired.

 The origins of the sport trace back millennia, historians say. Now
 dragon boat racing has spread across the globe and become one of the
 fastest-growing
 sports in the United States, drawing dozens of teams to a rapidly
 expanding calendar of regattas across the country, enthusiasts say.

 "There's tremendous interest and excitement about the sport from small
 town America to large urban cities," said Siv Somchanhmavong, president
 of the Eastern
 Region Dragon Boat Association, which oversees many dragon boat teams,
 clubs and races on the East Coast. In the past year, he estimates that
 the association
 has grown by 10 to 15 percent and from overseeing 12 festivals to 15.

 Ginny Perrin, president of the United States Dragon Boat Federation,
 said there are about 6,000 serious paddlers around the country, and many
 more paddlers
 who compete but aren't ongoing paddlers. They start by joining corporate
 or charity teams, such as those for survivors of breast cancer.

 "Then they start to want to put more time in the boat," she said.

 The sport also appeals to people of all ages, she said - with divisions
 for kids as young as 12 up to seniors.

 "You don't see people aging out," she said. "You see them taking their
 skills and continuing at an older division."

 In D.C., from 12 to about 20 novices show up at the Gangplank Marina on
 Water Street in Southwest to give the D.C. Dragon Boat Club's free
 Saturday morning
 practices a try, said Jeffrey Kuhn, the club's president.
The National Harbor Regatta is two years old but has signed up the
 maximum 35 teams for this year's competition, according to Kuhn, one of
 the regatta's
 organizers.

 Out of Sight Dragons will be one of them.
The inspiration for the team came four years ago, according to founder
 Kagy. She had been working at Lions Camp Merrick, a camp for deaf, blind
 and diabetic
 people located in Southern Maryland.

 Kagy's son, who was the director of the D.C. Dragon Boat Festival at the
 time, first suggested she start a team for blind and visually impaired
 paddlers,
 she said.

 Kagy said she soon realized that unlike many team sports, dragon boat
 racing might be one that visually impaired athletes could compete in,
 needing little
 more than a spot to sit and the ability to paddle to the beat of a drum.

 The team is made up of a spectrum of paddlers, according to team member
 Sarah Presley. "There are people who can see pretty well, and people who
 are totally
 blind," said Presley, who has "a little bit of vision" but lost most of
 her eyesight to congenital cataracts and glaucoma.

 There is also a wide range of ages. At 37, Regina Crisafulli is one of
 the youngest Out of Sight Dragons. Oral Miller, 80, on the other hand,
 is among
 the team's oldest paddlers.

 For Out of Sight's paddlers, the sport has provided the thrill of
 athletic competition but also something more.

 It gives paddlers a "can-do attitude," increased physical stamina and an
 increased will to advocate for themselves, Crisafulli said.

 Kagy assembled a group of potential paddlers with the help of Miller,
 then head of the D.C. Council for the Blind, and members of the D.C.
 Dragon Boat
 Festival, who brought personal flotation devices, paddles and a drum to
 do a tutorial in a conference room. Soon after, they had a practice on
 the water.

 "How will they become a team?" she remembers wondering.

 But after just three practices on the water, the team competed in its
 first regatta.

 "We showed ourselves and the public that blind people are really capable
 of doing something and being on a team," said Kagy, remembering the
 other paddlers
 cheering for them after they finished their race.

 "We really felt like rock stars. .?.?. On that day, we broke some
 stereotypes and showed the blind and visually impaired can participate
 in a team sport,"
 she said.

 "It was a little chaotic to get everyone in sync," said Sarah Presley,
 46, of her initial practices with the team, which receives significant
 support from
 the D.C. Dragon Boat Club.

 "It's definitely a good sport for the visually impaired," said Presley,
 one of the team's paddlers. "When the drum beats, you know the paddle
 goes into
 the water."

 That concept is one that sighted paddlers use as well, according to
 Somchanhmavong of the Eastern Region Dragon Boat Association.

 "One component of training is to paddle with your eyes closed, so
 paddlers will wear bandannas to focus on hearing and timing,"
 Somchanhmavong said.

 On Saturday, Kagy said, the team will be using 13 blind paddlers and
 seven sighted ones, hoping to finish its 500-meter races in less than
 four minutes.

 "We're competing with ourselves this time. We still have much older
 people on the team," she said. "We cannot expect to be like a young
 competitive team."

 Other members on the team are wondering how they will stack up against
 Blind Ambition, another team of blind paddlers traveling from Portland, 
Ore.

 "I'm looking forward to competing against them, because I think we can
 more accurately evaluate our performance in competing against paddlers
 experiencing
 the same vision issues we have," Miller said.

 Back on the Potomac, the boat cruises by a weeping willow, and Day calls
 for a series of practice sprints just before the hour-long session winds
 down.

 The team is tired but digs in for a couple of final 500s. Day, the
 coach, calls a start, and the boat lurches forward, momentarily
 unbalancing her. She
 wobbles, eyes widening, then rights herself, before steering the boat
 through the sprint.

 "They all about knocked me off the boat," she said.

 __._,_.___