Homewood residents to race dragon boats, plunge into Cal-Sag at festival

The second Annual Chicago Southland Dragon Boat Festival will offer the chance to compete or explore a unique sport to kick off the summer.
 

The event is scheduled for June 3 at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago’s waterfall park along the Cal-Sag Channel near the intersection of Fulton Street and Chatham Street in Blue Island. 

Homewood residents Matt White and Candace Irby will be racing for the second time. White said last year’s festival was the first time he’d been on a dragon boat.
 

“I had never heard of the sport before that. I had to hop on YouTube to figure out what it was,” he said. “The sport is exhausting but a lot of fun. During the race itself you almost can’t even look up to see if your team is winning or losing. You are so focused on keeping the rhythm of the paddling going that you block everything else out.”
 

Some of the teams are very competitive, White said. But festival organizers will also group together teams of novices and even teach them how to follow the commands and proper technique.

“The paddling in rhythm part isn’t nearly as easy as I thought. By the end of the night my arms were noodles,” White said. 

“Last year, we fell in love with the atmosphere surrounding the first dragon boat festival hosted here in Blue Island,” festival organizer Kevin Brown said in a prepared statement. “It’s so much more than a great day on the water. It’s a celebration of sport, community and fun, interesting people.”

The event is open to the public with an ample viewing area along the Cal-Sag, Brown said. Races start at 9 a.m. and will continue until about 5 p.m. Brown said there will be a 45 minute break at noon — that’s when the Cal-Sag plunge will take place. 
 

This year’s festival also includes a welcome reception at Rock Island Public House June 2 after team practices and an after-party June 3 at The Blue Island Beer Company. Instructors from Great White North Dragon Boat Racing will manage practices May 31 and June 1.
 

The race route will go by the new Chatham Street pedestrian bridge which will be part of the planned Cal Sag trail connection through Blue Island. 
 

Brown said the location is ideal, with amenities like public transit access, abundant, free parking and multiple food and drink options.
 

“We’ve structured this event to highlight what we feel is the most exciting thing dragon boat racing brings to our communities,” Brown said. “Dragon boat racing is about pride. It’s about inclusivity. It’s about teambuilding and communication skills, being outside and being physical and almost anyone can do it.”

The festival is sponsored by MWRD, the city of Blue Island administration, police and fire, the U.S. Coast Guard, Metra and local businesses and organizations. 
 

The Cal-Sag Plunge is being held in conjunction with the dragon boat races this year. About a dozen plungers dive into the Cal-Sag channel to raise money for Friends of the Cal-Sag Trail, which is helping to complete a 26-mile bicycle path along the canal. The event is also an effort to show the improvements made to the waterway.
 

“We don’t give up on land, communities, or people in the Southland anymore. These investments, in water quality, in trails, in abused landscapes like the park at Big Marsh, they’re raising us up,” Steve Buchtel, a Homewood resident and executive director of Trails for Illinois, said. “We’re lifting all boats.”
 

The Plunge began when MWRD Executive Director David St. Pierre, who lives in Flossmoor, spoke at a Southland business convention in January 2016. 
 

“He was talking about the hundreds of millions of dollars they’ve invested in cleaning up the region’s waterways, like the Cal-Sag, and how it’s clean enough to swim in. The room laughed,” Buchtel said. “He said, ‘Seriously, and I’d jump in to prove it.’”

Buchtel took the idea to Friends of the Cal-Sag Trail.

“We’ve talked from the beginning that the trail was part of a transformation of the Cal-Sag into recreation and quality of life resource. We could do a fundraiser plunge, and the MWRD could demonstrate in a really dramatic way the improvements they engineered in water quality,” Buchtel said. “I emailed David and he was all in, so to speak.” 
 

Between races, festival-goers hang out sharing a cold beverage and grill. Spectators take in the races from the shore and docked boats, too. 

 “It’s outside, it’s physically demanding and it’s on the water. (It) sounded exactly like something I would be into,” White said. “Plus, we got to hang out with fun people and do something that not many people have done.” 

Individual and team registrations are underway at www.chicagodragonboats.com.