By Jason Au

Under sunny skies and a tailwind, the 2002 University of Toronto Piranhas began the season on the right foot with a Grand Championship victory at the Guelph Dragon Boat Festival. The diminutive Piranhas finished the day posting the two top times of the day, topping it all off with a blistering final time of 2:09.03, twelve seconds faster than the second place finisher in their heat. The fastest time of the day shattered the team's previous record of 2:16.90 set in 2000 at Waterloo's Laurel Creek Conservation Area.

The goal at Guelph was to get additional race experience, and tweak their race plan and in-boat behaviour. After the Piranhas' first race, there was already plenty to discuss.

The Piranhas barely won their first race, coming in at 2:19.88, barely ahead of CIBC B, Riptide B, and CN Aquatrain. Video replays suggested that the start was not clean enough, and that the stroke rate was much too high. This race bore an eerie similarity to the first race of the Piranhas' 2001 season at Pickering, except that CIBC B and Riptide replaced the Komodo Dragons and Killer B's respectively. The Piranhas identified problems from their first race, and identified their solutions. The last remaining thing to do was to execute their plan.

And execute they did. Despite not hearing the horn for the start, the Piranhas improved their time by 7 seconds and crossed the finish line in a time of 2:12.18, with Riptide A crossing second at 2:19.08. This time improvement was impressive due to the fact that water conditions had not appreciably changed. As the Grand Championship title was to be awarded to the team with the lowest aggregate time after three races, the Piranhas definitely helped their own cause with such a convincing two-boat length victory. With one race to go to determine the competitive division championship, it appeared that the tides had turned in favour of the U of T Piranhas. They were well on their way to their second straight Grand Championship. Or so they thought.

As the Piranhas warmed up on their way to the start of their final race of the day, the onus was on the Piranhas to race a faster race than either CIBC or Riptide to clinch the competitive division title. As the Piranha boat headed out to the start line, a paddle snapped in the engine room. The boat was held, and the boat desperately called out to the race marshall to get another paddle. The Marshall, finally aware of what had happened in our boat, said there was nothing to be done. As she had already lined up the boats for the race, there was no time to return to the dock and get a replacement paddle. Enraged, the Piranhas contained their contempt, anger and resentment, collectively vowing to take the race anyway.

As the raced began, the Piranhas, with 20 paddlers but armed with only 19 paddles violently plowed through the water. Shoulders rotated and torsos torqued more synchronously than ever as the Piranhas exploded off with their trademark start. Transitioning into race pace no other boats could be found in the peripheral vision of the Piranha crew. The open water between the Piranhas and the second place team grew…

..and grew.. and grew to the size of a three-boat length lead. The Piranhas broke their record 500 meter time for the second time in a day with an exceptional time of 2:09.03. This time was 12 seconds ahead of second place, and 34 seconds ahead of the last boat in the race. The crew overcame a significant handicap, and jumped over its first hurdle of the young 2002 dragon boat season.

While the Grand Championship victory was sweet, the field was admittedly shallow relative to the province's major regattas. However, the biggest thing that the Piranhas can take away from this regatta was race experience and that they did.