On par with Team Manager Jessie's relentless determination to make Season 3 "a season like no other", VAX Dragon Boat hosted and went on its first ever retreat. Check out a short clip of their adventures here!

After "testing the waters" and dealing with the trials and tribulations of Seasons 0, 1, and 2; co-founders Justin and Jessie were ready to try to take the team to the next level. Could VAX Dragon Boat race like a serious racing team? And we unveiled new equipment and programs to accommodate the challenge, with a roster of eager individuals enrolled in either our Standard or Premier training.

We participated in not 3, not 4,  but 5 competitions in Season 3; and everyone around us thought we had gone crazy except for ourselves. A couple were familiar to our group, but most were brand new to our team. The goal, as Head Coach Justin would say, was "to see what level our team is at, and how we stack up against the more competitive clubs out there".

July 14: Participated for the first time and made it into the Consolation Final of the Cancer Support Community of New Jersey at Gilda's Club Dragon Boat Festival.

July 27: Participated for the first time and made 3rd in the A Minor Club Division of the Cooper River Dragon Boat Regatta, #8 out of 20 clubs overall.

August 4: Our 3rd year returning to the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in New York, and busier than previous years as always. We participated in the USDBOC Mixed Division, as well as the Educational (HKUST), Sponsored (Resorts World), Media (PIX11) Divisions. VAX Dragon Boat was also a special participant in the invite-only 65th Anniversary World's Fair Marina race, which we took 1st place in!

August 17:  Our second time returning to the Riverfront Hartford Dragon Boat Festival and we made the Grand Final for the Sport Division, taking home 3rd place with heavy bronze medals.

September 14: Participated for the first time in the Mercer County Dragon Boat Festival, the toughest race all season, missing the 2K qualifier by a hair and ranking #13 out of 24 clubs overall.

A tiring, competition-packed Season 3 had flown by... but VAX Dragon Boat, after knocking out more 200m and 500m runs than they could remember, at last began to feel like a true racing team.

Off-season for the VAXthletes this time around felt especially long... it seemed like everyone couldn't wait for summer and for the boats to come out yet again. But the team made good use of the fall, winter, and springtime... the first ever friendly "Chicken Dinner" scrimmage collaboration was hosted between coaches of VAX Dragon Boat and DCH Racing, one of New York's most prominent and largest dragon boat racing teams. We coupled our annual VAX White Elephant Party with a bowling night at the soon-to-be-closed Whitestone Lanes. Backyard BBQs and flag football became regular occurrences, and the monthly workshops were widely attended. Oh, and just before the insane playoff season for the New York Knicks began, our coaches met Jalen Brunson at a Thanksgiving Peruvian lunch sponsored by Pio Pio and DoorDash!

Just a weekend after HKDBF, VAX Dragon Boat gears up for the toughest race we've tackled to date. We sent a boatful of athletes (some well-along in their paddling careers and others just beginning) up to Hartford, Connecticut for their Riverfront Dragon Boat Festival, a GWN hosted event.

Our athletes were amazed by the competition there -- some of the best and fastest from Boston, Massachusetts had arrived, and Boston was known to be a dragon boating hub. 

It was our first time partaking in a fully 500m competition and we wondered if our stamina was up to par. We're happy to say after 2 smooth qualifying heats of placing second, VAX Dragon Boat ranked 5th out of 18 Club Mixed Teams and was placed into the A Division Consolation Final. While we did not take home any medals, our Co-Captains and Head Coach were proud to see we were able to rank amongst star teams such as Relentless, Boston One, Wolfpack, One Racing, and NJ Team Dragons. It's only upwards from here!

VAX Dragon Boat, after a roaring debut at the home race of '22, once more returned to the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing, NY. Our group was welcomed with warmth and familiarity this time around by both Chairman Henry Wan himself and his organizing committee, having established ourselves as a prominent New York team within the last year. 

We jam-packed the schedule, participating in a total of 5 divisions across both Saturday and Sunday as 5 sub-teams: the Vision in the highly rigorous Regular Open, the Alphas in the champion-grade USDBOC Mixed, the Womxn of VAX Dragon Boat in the Women's Invitational (as a replacement for the unfortunately cancelled USDBOC Women's), and additionally in the Sponsored and Media Invitationals as Resorts World and Queens Courier respectively.

The weekend was filled with challenges towards more than just our own team. Unfriendly attitudes and worse, unfriendly collisions, threw a wrench at the communal sense of sportsmanship. The heat wave also took its toll on our athletes mentally and physically. We took care of each other and pushed forth hand-in-hand. 10 races later, our Alphas successfully landed in the USDBOC Mixed A Grand Final amidst the best and most well known teams in NYC: DCH, UEAA, and Catch22. Our Queens Courier team also won 1st in their Media Invitational qualifier, going on to take 2nd in the Final alongside Singtao (represented by Arowana) and Forbes.

As with any start-up in its first full operational year, VAX Dragon Boat's Season 1 brought on many obstacles that were unexpected and difficult to tackle. Off-season 1 was the time to reflect, reconnect, and rebuild. Both Season 0 and Season 1 athletes expressed interest in returning, but before that could happen the co-founders knew change was necessary if Season 2 was going to blossom. 

Veteran paddlers Kim and Krista were appointed as co-captains to not only lead by example but also focus their efforts on the debut of VAX Dragon Boat's new women's team, "THE WOMXN of VAX DRAGON BOAT". 

Richard, who had been with the team since Season 0, accepted Head Coach Justin's offer to become a Coach-in-training during the off-season. With Justin's tutelage and Richard's optimism, they prepared extensively to take on the challenge of training both new and returning paddlers.

Team Manager Jess decided to streamline recruitment in order to prioritize delivering "the best program this dragon boat team has seen by far". And we hope everyone's collective efforts have shown in the glowing end results: 2 boats strong all summer, passionate and dedicated athletes, and yearnings for more, more, more.

After the end of a successful full season, the VAXthletes relax into off-season but still meet monthly for workshops and social outings. With post-workout dimsum, Thanksgiving dinners, flag footballing, snowboarding, White Elephant and more, there's hardly enough time to miss each other.

Our steersman-in-training, Henry, had his photography entered into the 17th Annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival Photo Contest hosted by Sing Tao Daily. He won the Excellence Award for his photo of teammate Billy. The winning submission was displayed on the September 25th 2022 edition of Sing Tao Daily.

A redemption arc in the making, VAX Dragon Boat returns to Port Jefferson a year later to go up against NYCB once more, hoping for more than silver this time around. The Alphas place 1st in the Club Division Championship Round with an uncontested lead. It's a bittersweet day as the season comes to a close, and complete with lovely surprises for the Coach and Manager from all the teammates! A yearbook gift was compiled with collections of photos from the 2022 summer. You can view the digital version on Shutterfly here.

For the first time in Justin's dragon boating career, the coordinators of the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival reached out to him and Jessie personally with 2 last minute invitations to the 30th Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival Gala Dinner, hosted at the Loeb Boathouse. This was not only to commend VAX Dragon Boat's achievements across 13 races, but also as a token of gratitude for Team Manager Jessie's flexibility with supporting both the coordinators and event sponsors.

This is an exciting moment for Coach Justin, who is heavily recognized by other community members as the former coach of Metro Athletic Dragons, and also praised for training new athletes to be able to race competently and competitively at their first race.

Around this time other local teams began taking interest in VAX's grassroot effort. Our group makes a big debut at the 30th Anniversary Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing, NY; also known as "the home race".  

VAX Dragon Boat competes as 4 sub-teams: the Alphas, the Extraordinaires, the Veterans, and the Vision. We compete in an exhausting total of 13 races collectively that day, with the following accolades:  

Placing 3rd in the 500 meter race in the USDBOC division, 2nd in the Sponsors' Challenge racing for Hong Kong Tourism Board, and most significantly placing 1st in our final race of the day in the Media Invitational racing for Multicultural Radio.

With the completion of Off-season 0 and anticipation for a comeback, VAX Dragon Boat decided to recruit towards a second boat which was met with explosive interest. Season 1 was planned to be a full program with more than double the number of practices compared to the pilot and also adding on another race.

It was a roaring success, with 100+ attendees at the interest meeting, 60+ applicants for season tryouts, kicking off Season 1 with a total of 42 members and a very busy coach and manager!

Coming out of a fun summer and end of Season 0, the VAX dragon boaters enjoy the start of off-season programming: which is also open to friends of the team and any prospective future applicants of the next season.

The team heads up to the Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce Dragon Boat Festival to compete for the first time ever. Racing as "VAX NYC" in the Community Division, we place 1st in both 200m qualifying heats. Feeling good about a gold in Community A Division, we are unexpectedly swapped with another team to enter the Club Division Championships against NYCB and Xtreme. We place 2nd, bringing home silver medals for our first ever race.

As many of the older members retired from the team and sport, 19 year-old Justin decided to take on the challenge and responsibility of becoming the new coach of MAD. While it was difficult and came with an immense learning curve, thanks to continued mentorship and support, he was able to lead the team to race competitively for another 6 years. Notably, they became consecutive gold medalists at the Duchess County Dragon Boat Festival. 

Along his journey, Justin ventured to different dragon boating hubs on the West Coast, Canada, and even Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean to learn from other dragon boat leaders and observe different paddling techniques and tactics. 

Simultaneously, he was working towards completing his degree in Family Nutrition and Exercise Science and also earning various personal training certifications. 

Coach Justin was troubled by the internal politics in the community, and also started to see the decline in interest in the sport (especially in the Northeast). He wanted to eventually revolutionize how dragon boating was viewed and understood by the masses.  His goal was to make dragon boating more enjoyable and accessible.

Where it all began... as a young teenager in high school, Justin was part of the Flushing Chinese-American Planning Council afterschool program. At the time, one of the CPC directors was a paddler on Metro Athletic Dragons (one of the older dragon boat teams in New York founded in1997) and invited many of the adolescents to join the team. It began as a fun summer activity to do with friends that became a lifelong passion: Justin would spend his free time paddling with MAD and traveling to partake in competitions all over the East Coast.