Powerhouse Dragon Boat Racing Club & Middlesbrough Outrigger Canoe Club
Tees Valley Dragons have taken stewardship of the first OC6 outrigger canoe in the country. The name of the boat is Wa’alele and she arrived in the UK in 1977. With a long a varied past behind her we are taking the lead on bringing this piece of paddling history back to a racing life.
Along with the iconic boat herself, we have incorporated Middlesbrough Outrigger Canoe Club alongside Powerhouse Dragon Boat Racing Club under the banner of Tees Valley Dragons.
On September 9th Stockton hosted the City Games. As part of this brilliant event the River came to life with a flotilla of craft. Powerhouse participated in our small boat adorned with bunting and a dinosaur ….. Was great fun to see the river come to life with so many craft.
After a wonderful season of racing Powerhouse are preparing for our 21st appearance at the National Cup. This is a 2 day event held at the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham. Clubs from around the country will start to arrive on Friday in Preparation for a weekend of racing and mingling. Its a fantastic event when you get to catch up with friends old and new. We have been preparing hard on the River Tees and look forward to competing at the last event of the season. Watch this space for photos and an update on results.
The weekend of the Stockton league event is nearly upon us. A bank holiday relaxing for some and a busy weekend of preparations, racing, partying and clean-up for the Tees Valley Dragons.
Saturday will see the crew welcoming travelling crews from all over the UK to the RTWC as we set out the buoyed racing course, kitchen and boat jetties ready for Sunday’s racing.
Stockton-on-Tees National League Event 2018
All are welcome to come and watch the racing from 09:30 to 17:00 on Sunday 27th of May.
Races will be over 200m, 500m and the exciting 2000m turn race. Crews will be arriving from 07:30 to get the boats onto the water dressed in the traditional dragon’s head and tail, with their team colours showing and setup their camp before the racing starts.
At 16:00, the RTWC bar will be opened to friends, family and visitors. Drinks can be taken onto the balcony through the Riverside room to have spectacular views of the final races of the day.
For new visitors to the River Tees Watersports Centre use the directions page to find us. Please note that the carpark will be full and the Fusion Hive carpark opposite will be open to us for the race day, marshals will show you the way.
If you missed some of the Tees Valley Dragons – Powerhouse DBRC team looking ahead to the event on the Tees this weekend, and their visit to Germany in August as part of the Great Britain team, here’s another chance to listen to Finn, Julie, Corey and Lisa – https://www.mixcloud.com/
Register here for a Free Session.
Tees Valley Dragons is a vibrant and developing water sports club located in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside. The club has members of all ages, abilities and backgrounds who train together on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
You won't be expected to turn up to every session as we welcome all levels of commitment, from the serious athletes to the casual social and fun paddlers. Free taster sessions are offered to individual prospective new members (and their friends) to join us in the boat at any of our training sessions.
We offer you a free, safe, fun and exciting introduction to the sport of Dragon Boat Racing. The sport is suitable for all ages, both men and women, and you can start at any fitness or ability level. It won’t take long to develop your technique and strengthen your body. You don't have to be fit to start doing something, but you have to start doing something to get fit.
A typical free session will include the following:
Dragon boating is an all-body sport, which does not just focus on the arms and upper body. When done properly, Dragon Boat paddling works the muscles in your legs, back, shoulders and core abdominals. It’s a great sport to help get rid of those love-handles and bulgy tummies!
We can be found at River Tees Water Sports Centre: The Slipway, North Shore Road, Stockton-on-Tees, TS18 2NL. Bring comfortable clothes (eg, tracksuit and trainers, no jeans) and a small bottled drink, a change of clothes might be a good idea too! We will provide all the relevant equipment. More details are in the FAQ's page.
For groups wishing to have a full boat to themselves will need to contact us for prices (to cover the equipment and coach/helm costs). Our usual day fees may apply, but discounts are available.
Register here for a Free Session.
Tees Valley Dragons have had a very busy weekend of dragon boat activities, despite the Powerhouse Crew not racing at Milton Keynes.
Jo and Colin made the trip to Milton Keynes to officiate the event. Jo being on the finish line all day and Colin moving from boat marshalling to the searing heat of the start line. As well as Cooper keeping the ducks and geese off the grass.
Paul, Andrea, Mikey and Pippa all travelled to Milton Keynes to guest paddle for the very welcoming Pershore Pheonix team as well as the ladies being part of the Powersaints women’s crew with St Neots.
Powersaints and Powerspartans crews continued to rack-up the points on Saturday in the women’s and junior leagues, and even without turning in a team Powerhouse have held onto the third place in the Standard League! All looking positive for the rest of the season and the coming national finals.
The Northfield School Summer Fair was used a promotional event on Saturday. The Tees Valley Dragons put on an ergo display and banged the drum for us with plenty of interest from both the pupils, teachers and their family members.
Sunday saw the annual Hong Kong Lions dragon boat event in central London with Jo and Colin among the 15000 crowd cheering on Brian and Lisa in the Purple Warriors team and our friends the St Neots Spartans paddling with a celebrity (you can ask them next who time you see them). The Purple Warriors raced four times and won four times taking home the charity trophy – Excellent work from both seat buddies Brian and Lisa you did us proud.
Allyson led the first training session for the GB senior squad (over 40s) on Sunday, on the Thames at Longridge Activity Centre in Marlow. This was the first training session for the seniors (over 40’s) looking to enter the squad for the European Championships in Germany in 2018.
All-in-all just another reminder of the opportunities for travel, making new friends and generally having a bunch of fun that comes from dragon boat racing. It makes the winter training worthwhile.
The crew managers meeting ran to time and the crew managers were led out and back to their teams by the lion who had arrived to dance and bless the festival.
The first league event of the 2017 season and the day started at 7am with the Powerhouse team finishing off the preparations for the arrival of 17 club
The course had been buoyed on Saturday and weeks and weeks of preparation and planning was about to be tested.
The first races of the day saw the super 12 racing in Junior, ladies and open category. Our juniors joined up with another crew to make a boat of 20. It was fantastic to get that many juniors at an event racing together and the result was just as fabulous.
Times :- Powerspartans 1st place with a time of 52:81 (2nd 56:94, 3rd 58:45, 4th 1:05.32)
We had 6 juniors paddling and or drumming and they slotted into the boat with some current GB under 18’s and performed brilliantly. Comments from the bank said that they couldn’t pick them out as they blended so well. They must have been really nervous for their first race, regardless of the fact that they got in a strange boat with other juniors they had never met before. I cannot describe how proud we all are of them
Powerhouse open 12 ran the course in 50:47 with Powersaints coming in third with a time of 57:02 we were pipped by Firestorm who had a rolling start there time was 56:26 beating us by 0.76 grrr.
Onto the standard races. What a performance, standard boat racing saw us paddling against Premier crews and my goodness did they know we were there. The final finished with us in 2nd place of the major plate final behind Henley on 2:16.91, Powerhouse 2:17.33, Rage 2:20.00 and 3 Rivers 2:20.50. We were only 0.42 of a second behind Henley (loud applauds and pats on the back all round) We came 9th overall out of 17 crews.
What a fantastic day.
Fun in the sun!
A lovely day on Saturday promoting dragon boat racing at the Armed Forces Day in Middlesbrough town centre.
Thanks to everyone that came along and chatted with us and those that tried out the ergos.
To take advantage of your free "try-it" sessions click on the link at the top of our home page.
Picture source: Love Middlesbrough facebook page credited to Doug Moody Photography (thanks Doug)
Dragonboat Clubs from around the country arrive in Stockton over the weekend for the 1st Dragonboat League Event of 2017. We are expecting 17 clubs who aer bringing 22 teams teams to race on the Tees. The points gained will be the first ones in the league tables for this season.
To open the season there will be a lion dance to bless the festival.
We have a cafe selling hot drinks, baon and sausage sandwiches, soup , cakes, snacks etc.
Powerhouse are delighted to host the first event on our fully bouyed 4 land course.
