Dragon Boat Festival in aid of St Catherine's Hospice, Sep 2011

Following a last minute change of location, this year's Dragon Boat festival took place at Brooklands Park in Worthing. The St Catherine's team did a fantastic job of organising the event at the new venue on very short notice and the Thomas Eggar team were keen to support the charity as well as to improve on previous years' less than impressive placings.

In our first race we watched with dismay as, despite paddling hard, the other team pulled ahead to beat us into second place. We were, however, delighted (and not a little surprised), to discover that our time of 1 minute 7 seconds was the second fastest in the first round and the time that would, ultimately, qualify us for a place in one of the finals.

The rain started as we took to the water for our second race and continued into our third. From the water pouring down from the skies and the water splashing up from the lake through our inexpert paddling, we were quickly soaked through. But with plastic ponchos, gallons of tea and quite a lot of time spent hiding in the marquee (not to mention some blatant attempts to bribe officials on the water with promises of waterproof clothing), we kept our spirits up and managed to put in respectable times of 1 minute 10 seconds in both races.

The four places in the two finals were to be decided on the fastest qualifying times from the three heats. We hung on to third fastest time right until the last race when a desperate R&SA team managed to put in the second fastest qualifying time of the day. As the fourth fastest team we still managed to make it to a final for the first time ever. Last minute efforts were made by some team members to avoid getting any wetter by deciding the result of the race using a coin toss, but the remaining paddlers were ready and eager to take to the water for a final time to compete for the third place medal. It was a close race and we put in our fastest time of the day of 1 minute 6 seconds. Unfortunately, we were just beaten to a medal position (by a few tenths of a second), by the winners of the fancy dress prize: a boatload of Dalmatians urged on by Cruella DeVille.

We just missed out on a medal but it was still the Thomas Eggar team's best result since taking part in the dragon boat festival. And we might have been soaked through and more than ready to go home to warm baths and hot meals

A big thank you to everyone who donated money and/or came along to cheer us on the day (despite the ghastly weather). If anyone would still like to celebrate our great result with a donation to this very deserving charity, our justgiving page is still up and running. And well done to this year's team: Sarah Ovenden, Richard Venables Kyrke, Nathan Potter, Charlotte Reed, Jeremy Wootton, Stelios Brooks, Steve Edwards, Emma Greenwood, Stef Dust, Amy Venables Kyrke, Alice Venables Kyrke, Lily Venables Kyrke, Gabby Venables Kyrke, Ricky Venables Kyrke and Peter Reason.

Emma Greenwood

for and on behalf of Thomas Eggar LLP