Jacksonville Mammoglams team train for World Dragon Boat Championship
Sheila Hickson-Curran, Sokha Au-Ferris and Pamela Reckner are breast cancer survivors competing in the World Dragon Boat Championships in Germany.
- Dragon boat racing, originating in ancient China, involves 40-foot canoes decorated with dragon heads and tails.
- The modern sport grew from a Hong Kong festival in the 1970s and now boasts millions of participants worldwide.
- The Jacksonville Dragon Boat Club, founded in 2012, will send 12 members to the world championships in Germany.
When I wrote about Northeast Florida participants in the annual Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge — a charity race billed as the “world’s toughest row,” from one of the Canary Islands to Antigua — I didn’t have the first clue about the specially designed row boats at the heart of the charity event.
When I was recently called on to write about Northeast Florida participants in the upcoming IDBF World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Germany, I again had no clue.
What, exactly, are dragon boats?
And why do they race?
I now know that dragon boats are 40-foot-long, narrow canoes decorated with a dragon’s head and tail, with origins in ancient China. Dragon boat racing has been around just as long, stemming from the legend of a historical figure from 2000 years ago, Qu Yuan, who was falsely accused of treason and banished from the country, according to the International Dragon Boat Federation, the sport’s governing body.
“In despair and, perhaps as a final act of protest against the government, he threw himself into the Mi Lo River and drowned,” the federation said. “The Chinese people have never forgotten this desperate heroic act, and when fishermen raced their boats to recover his body before it could be devoured by fish — beating drums and throwing rice dumplings into the river to distract them — they founded a tradition that continues to this day.
“Each year, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, usually June, crews of paddlers re-enact that frantic rush to save Qu Yuan by propelling long narrow boats with the dragon heads through the water to the rhythmic beating of drums,” the story goes.
The so-called modern era of dragon boat racing began in the 1970s when the Hong Kong Tourist Association staged an International Dragon Boat Festival as a promotional event, according to the federation.
The sport now has about 50 million participants in China, 300,000 in the United Kingdom and Europe, 90,000 in Canada and the United States and thousands in Australia and New Zealand and is spreading through the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific Basin, the federation said.
The federation was formed in 1991, the U.S. Dragon Boat Federation in 2000.
What is the story behind the Jacksonville Dragon Boat Club?
The Jacksonville Dragon Boat Club was founded in 2012 by Jeri and Marty Millard.
Three years earlier, Jeri Millard, who twice beat cancer, founded In the Pink, a nonprofit boutique in Jacksonville Beach that serves women living with cancer. She was a 2011 recipient of The Florida Times-Union EVE Awards.
Reports about how dragon boat racing improved the mental and physical health of breast cancer survivors prompted her to buy a few boats and necessary gear. And the club was born.
“I remember the day Jeri and I drove that trailer and those 42-foot-long boats into Jacksonville,” Marty Millard said. “We caused quite a stir with everyone slowing down to have a look at these very unique boats.”
From 2013 to 2018, the club staged the Jacksonville Dragon Boat Festival at the old Jacksonville Landing. The event was halted “due to renovations downtown and unforeseen circumstances,” according to the club.
The club’s teams promote the sport at events throughout the Jacksonville area, support In the Pink and regularly compete in races across the country and internationally. In July a dozen of club members, including Marty Millard, will take part in various categories in the world championships.
“These [12] paddle athletes have gone above and beyond to earn their slots on these crews,” he said. “It is such a great testament to our club and points to even greater things to come.”
The club “couldn’t be prouder of these individuals,” Millard said. “This endeavor is the result of a lot of determination, hard work, sacrifice and continuous pushing of boundaries … Each and every paddle athlete that is rewarded with a seat in one of these boats deserves every second of it. “
Three of them — Sheila Hickson-Curran, Sokha Au-Ferris and Pamela Reckner — are breast cancer survivors and members of the club’s Mammoglams group. They qualified for the championships’ first breast cancer paddler competition.
The Jacksonville club is “relatively small … compared to some in the larger cities,” Hickson-Curran said. To have a dozen members at the world event “is an incredible result and shows the competitiveness of the local athletes and the high standard of coaching we received,” she said.
The club is based at Beach Marine, 2305 Beach Blvd. at the Intracoastal Waterway. A new beginner paddling program is available. For more information, go to jacksonvilledragonboatclub.com or contact Millard at (904) 536-3475 or millardm@comcast.net.
bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109