Dragon Boat Festival in Hanover

Muscle-bound men and women march to the jetty with a concentrated look on their faces and climb into the swaying boat. A few meters further on, hulking men with beards stand in a circle and tip the first beer.

Since 1995, the Hannoversche Kanu-Club von 1921 has presented the increasingly popular dragon boat races on the Whitsun weekend from Saturday to Monday.

Dragon boats are open boats with a long, slightly curved keel. They are propelled by paddles. Dragon boats are designed to represent a stylized dragon through painting or carving and a decorative Chinese dragon head and tail.

Seating arrangement in a dragon boat: the drummer in the bow, then the paddlers, and the helmsman in the stern

The crew of a dragon boat consists of paddlers who sit in pairs on benches next to each other and move the boat forward with paddles. A drummer in the boat picks up the rhythm of the front pair of paddlers ("stroke row" or "stroke people"), ensures a steady beat for all paddlers in the boat with his strokes and motivates the paddlers to give their best by shouting. The helmsman stands in the stern and steers the boat with a long rudder. In some races, the so-called "flag catcher" is part of the team.