In his first blog Alex James has that sinking feeling at the annual Dragon Boat race in Shrewsbury.
We Brits are pretty good at rowing.
Of course we only remember that once every four years when the Olympic Games come around, but nevertheless as a country we are quite handy with an oar.
Unfortunately as a company, Shropshire Newspapers is not. If you don’t believe me check out the video of us in the recent Dragon Boat race on the River Severn in Shrewsbury. (Below)
If you can’t quite figure out which boat we’re in, it’s the one at the back.
Although defeated in all three of our heats we did record a time quick enough for 29th place out of 33 entrants, and we avoided capsizing, just!
It was clear from heat one, stroke one that our boat was not harbouring the next Steve Redgrave. In fact Vanessa Regrave could probably have held her own in our squad.
After narrowly avoiding a taste of the murky brown water at the start of the first race we recovered to set a record – for the slowest time of the day.
Things briefly looked up after race two when the announcer revealed we’d shaved almost 30 seconds off our time.
But the third and final effort was slower again and with that went our chances of making the next round.
For those of you not familiar with dragon boat racing it’s an ancient Chinese sport where 16 people sit in a very long narrow canoe and attempt to row in time, to the beat of the 17th team member, who sets the rhythm armed with a drum.
Unfortunately the Shropshire Superstars (a name with more than hint of irony) had less rhythm than an MC Hammer tribute act as we messed about on the river.
There were paddles knocking and boats rocking during our afternoon on the river.
But it was a great team building exercise which raised a fantastic amount of money for the Severn Hospice, even though we didn’t win.
And anyway, there’s always next year.
Alex James will be writing a weekly blog published every Monday on www.newportadvertiser.com.
