VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
It turned out to be a great day on Planet Doug. I arrived at the river on Day 2 of the Melaka Dragon Boat Races just in time to watch the very first sets of 200-Meter sprint races. I hung around for most of the morning taking in the action at the start line and at the finish line.
And then I returned at the very end of the day to hopefully catch the finals. I wasn’t really sure when these happened. There was a good chance I had missed them already. BUT my luck held, and I showed up at the Melaka River just a minute or two before the final races began.
It took me a long time, but I figured out eventually that there were five categories for the 200-meter sprints:
1. OPEN – no restrictions
2. WOMEN – All paddlers must be women; Steerer can be any gender; No age restrictions.
3. MIXED – Either 5M + 5F OR 4M + 4F; Drummer & Steerer can be any gender; No age restrictions —
4. MASTERS OPEN Senior participants; No gender restrictions; 40 years old & above; Drummer & Steerer can be any age
5. CORPORATE – no restrictions
And all the categories followed a tournament structure with the winners of each race moving on to the next stage until there were four teams left to compete in the final race for the overall winners. I happened to show up back at the river just as the Corporate final was happening. I wasn’t entirely clear at the time which race was which and which teams made it to the finals, but I think I saw and recorded video of all of them.
I had vague plans to attend and record the full awards ceremony as well. I wanted to see the moment when they handed out the trophies. But my energy failed me at that point. It felt like the speeches and formalities would take a long time, and then there were at least twenty-four trophies. I recorded a bit of the opening of the ceremonies, and then I bailed. It had been a good day but a long one. It was time to go, and I ended the day with a short glimpse of the technical team packing up the boats and other equipment.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
I’ve jumped ahead in time. It is now just after 4:00. Luckily, my hotel is like 2 minutes walk from the river. So, I came back down here just to see what is going on with the dragon boat races. Just from rumor, just from chatting with people, I found out I was told that it ends at 5 and then they have the awards ceremony at 5:00, handing out prizes to the winners of each category, whatever is going on. Anyway, since my hotel is so nearby, yeah, I thought I’d just stroll down here and see whether the races are still going on. If they are still going on now all these hours afterward, wow, how many races were there? I mean, if this has been… When I was here, they were like pumping out the races, race after race after race, four boats at a time. And now 4:00, hours and hours and hours later, and it looks like everything down here is still full on.
Check it out. All the teams are still here. The tents are still up. And there seemed to be, yeah, crowds taking pictures and video down by the water still, which tells me the races are still ongoing. Or maybe not. Let’s find out. Got one of the tourism cruise boats coming through.
Yeah, they’re still happening. So, let me introduce all of them to you. So on lane one we have Scream Dragon A. Okay. On lane two we have SC Dragons A. So people are cheering. We have SC Dragons and on lane four we have Casa. Oh the on the other side is not right here. They still have phones. Best supporter ever. Best sh. So,
I couldn’t understand what the woman was saying over the speakers, but it sounds like we’re dealing with some of the final races. So, there was like three dragon like dragon A, dragon B, dragon Cruise, but I have no idea what the different teams are. This could be a final race. I again I have no idea. And there’s teams still loading onto boats, so they’re nowhere near done. That is incredible. This has been going on all day long. That is crazy. I had no idea it was such a full-on all day event.
So, let’s wander through here. And I don’t know, maybe I can somehow find out what the heck is going on. It would be nice to know who made it to the finals. Oops. And yeah, who are our potential champions? Music though. I got to shut down.
So, I moved away from the speakers. Might be far enough away from the music. People are pretty excited about this race. So, this could be a championship. Could be the finals for one of the categories.
Five, six, seven,
people are pretty excited. Number five is just going to second place. Number six, third.
So, was that a final in one of the categories? I have no idea. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but yeah, people were pretty excited about that one.
Dragon AR, Dragon AR B Titans or Naga A. Please get ready by I repeat, attention to Dragon A, Dragon AR B, Ping Titans, Argo Naga A. Please get ready by the J. Thank you. I can’t believe I’m down here again still filming Dragon Boat races. That is crazy.
I just spoke with some of the members of the team behind me, the orange team, and yeah, these are the finals. Like right now, I got here just in time for the finals. That race that we just saw though, that was the corporate team finals. I didn’t even know there was a corporate category, but I guess it’s those teams represented by big companies, by corporations, and that was the final race between the four leaders. But again, I have no idea which team won, which company they represent. And then they listed some other categories. They said, “Okay, that was the corporate final, and then we’re going to get like women’s only final, then senior or veterans finals, like for the older teams, and then the very last race will be the open final.” And I asked them, okay, so the open category, those are the best of the best, like the absolute fastest, best, most athletic teams. The open category and they said, “Yeah.” So, I guess the very last one will be like the overall winners of the Dragon Boat races for 2026. But, again, everyone I’ve talked to today has listed different types of categories. Everyone has different names for them, and I can’t I haven’t really been able to get any clear information. But the key point is we’re here for the finals, the absolute finals at the finish line. So that’s very cool.
I’m guessing those are the winners. I don’t know who they are, but they’re definitely the winners
and the announcer was just telling the crowd what this race is all about. This is another final, but I don’t know which group it is. I’ll try to find out. So, this is the This is the final or the masters group, like the seniors group. They call it masters. At least that’s what I was just told.
Man, they are really digging in hard. Look at that.
Going to be very tight. Very close. The red dragon getting into the lead. They’re going to make it orange. So, it’s part of this group right here. That’s why they’re so excited. They must be associated with this big orange team.
I’m not much good when it comes to announcers. Like they’re announcing everything over the loudspeakers, but I can never ever understand what people are saying over speakers in airports or train stations, public festivals. I can’t make out any words at all. It’s just it’s just noise to me. So, they are announcing each race, but I can’t understand what they’re saying.
So, the winners of the masters,
they’re being greeted by their teammates.
Here they come.
So I think this is the second last race. And to be honest, I don’t know the category. I asked three different people and each person told me a different category. It could be women only, but I’m not sure. No, definitely not.
But it is the second last race number five.
They got it.
So, I’ve talked to more people and I think I tracked down a real expert who knew everything and he told me that this last race, the second to last, that was the mixed category. So, the winner of that race, which we just saw, was the winner of the mixed. So, men and women on the same team. They’re still celebrating behind me.
And now we’ve got one more race and it is the final final final final. The open category, the best of the best. But I Okay, the boats are loading up, I guess. And they’re just they’re on their way now. There’s no boats lined up yet. So, it’s going to be a few minutes yet, but you can see things are winding down. This team has already packed up. So, it’s getting quieter, but this is actually basically the championship race right now.
So, it’s time. I just heard the official announcement, the confirmation that this is the last race of the day and it is the open category. So, this is the best of the best, the fastest of the fastest set to compete. And the announcer did name each crew like boat by boat, you know, this boat, that boat, but I couldn’t make out exactly who was the sponsor of each team. Oh, people are shutting down. Got to clear out the electrical cords and
see if we can zoom in a little bit. That’s as close as I can get with this camera. So, that’s pretty good. The horn just sounded and they are off. How many teams? How many boats?
Four.
So, here they come.
Looks like It’s going to be close.
These two in the middle.
Who’s it going to be? Red is pulling ahead.
There it is. The winners
right there. The winners of the day. I imagine they are pretty tired by this point. It’s been a long, long day for these guys. Starting at 8:00 this morning, earlier probably all the way until 5 in the afternoon. That was the final race.
So, there’s one of the finals for the open category.
It’s another one of the teams.
And I think these are the winners here.
And it’s a team from Penang. Yeah. From Penang.
So I get their tent is actually just down there. So, they’re taking a victory lap beside their team.
Now, they finally have a flag. Look at that.
I’ve been talking all day about how I wish each boat had a flag representing their team. Everybody’s getting cold water.
Dragon Ark appears to be the name of their team. Again, I asked a whole bunch of people the name of this team, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I guess it’s Dragon Ark from Penang.
Come on, baby.
Love that shot with the flag.
It makes everything more dramatic, more interesting to me.
And there’s the winners being greeted by their team. There’s the flag Dragon Ark. I was chatting with one of the members of the team and they seem to have won a number of categories this year, including winning some of the long distance ones as well. So, they’re kind of accustomed to it. They’re pretty laidback. It’s like, yeah, we’re used to winning. The Dragon Ark team from Penang.
I thought there would be a much bigger celebration when the winning open team returns, but yeah, everybody’s pretty casual about it. It’s like, yeah, we win all the time. The orange team over here, they’re the ones who really celebrate. Optimax, that’s the high-spirited team over there.
One funny thing is everybody was celebrating to Queen “We Are the Champions” and it felt kind of wrong to me because there’s that big line where they have no time for losers because we are the champions but it doesn’t seem to fit the mood of the Dragon Boat Festival because it’s so communal where everybody is celebrating every other team. Really amazing sportsmanship. So, we are we have no time for losers. We’re the champions. Sounded to me like this orange team, they were singing along to “We Are the Champions,” but when they got to “no time for losers,” their voices kind of faltered cuz I think they could feel it that oh no, hey, that’s not right. That’s not how we feel. We support winners and losers. So there’s some of the organizers. Got to start cleaning up really fast. Picking up the buoys.
There’s the anchor. Oh, just like a giant brick holding each one in place.
Yeah, it’s a big They need a lot of staff to run this. Whether they’re paid or volunteer, I don’t know, but a lot of people running this festival or the dragon boat races. So, everything is winding down. It’s just minutes, like mere minutes after the end of the final race, and all these teams have cleared out already. Very organized teams, organized organizers. Look at that. Whole boardwalk is just sort of cleaned out. And I’m going this way because I heard something about awards ceremony, official presentation happening over there, but I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I think people have been here since early this morning. So, I think everyone’s ready to go. I don’t think people want to hang out for awards, but never know. I’m going to walk down there, see what’s going on.
So, here are all the trophies for the winners. So, I think it might take a long time to hand out all of these trophies.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf of the organizers, I would like to welcome all of you to the historical city of Melaka and to participate in this Melaka Dragon Championship 2026 as well.
For your knowledge, for your knowledge, this race, this year, Melaka race has recorded the biggest number in our history, in our dragon boat race history. They were recorded 115 entries from more than 35 teams from the whole Malaysia and overseas.
So today I think everybody is exhausted and our staff also so I need your hand. Let’s give a big applause to our technical team.
By our technical director, Mr. Jonard. Where are you, Mr. Jonard? Oh yeah, there’s Mr. Jonard. I think your message to him quite frequent in these few days.
So, this is the awards ceremony. All the trophies are about to be handed out. And I had the perfect vantage point. I actually managed to climb up on the fence over there, so I wasn’t blocking anybody’s view. And I was nice and high so I was able to get nice video of the stage. But then they started giving I wanted to capture some of the handing out of the trophies to the winners but they started making speeches and the speeches were just going on and on and on. So to be honest I’m I’ve been out here enough today I’ve seen a lot of the different teams celebrating their wins. So if I don’t see them actually given their trophy that’s okay cuz there’s a lot of trophies to hand out. There’s going to be all the speeches and then there’s for every category there’s third runner up, second runner up, first runner up, and then the winner of each category. So, you saw the trophies in the video. I assume there’s a lot of trophies to be handed out. So, anyway, that’s me apologizing for not sticking around to take video of the whole ceremony, but yeah, it was going to take a long time. I think it’s very crowded there. And who knows, maybe I’m missing out on a big celebration. But there’s the river back to normal. No more dragon boats zooming up and down. I’m kind of more interested in the logistics than in the ceremonies anyway. So, it’s kind of more interesting for me to see this where they’re actually packing up the drums and they actually Yeah, they pulled the dragon head off the boat. Okay. I didn’t even know how they were attached, but there’s a slot at the front of each boat there. And I guess the dragon head has a piece of wood that fits into that slot. And that’s why some of the dragon heads were like bobbling, like wobbling back and forth. I thought they were like affixed permanently to the boat, but they’re actually removable. So, there you go. I learned something new just as I was leaving cuz all the dragon heads are gone, right? Every boat, they’ve taken away the dragon head and the drum. And then they’re going to store them away for the next dragon boat races. A beautiful sight. So, yeah, here they are. So they’re removing one of the dragon heads. That’s an amazing little costume there in a way. Yeah, they got a whole boat filled with them now. And the drums. Yeah, these volunteers all day long they’ve had to climb up this fence like from the boat and then they actually have to pull themselves up and climb over this fence. I’ve seen them doing it all day long over and over. So they’ve really gotten a workout today.
Yeah, exactly like this. They’ve had to do that all day long.
Everybody has to climb up from the boats every time.
I kind of love seeing places before and after a big event when everything calms down, everything goes back to normal. So, this is the river getting back to normal. Very peaceful. I like that. So, that’s it. Shutting down. Shout out to the Crunch Club. If you watch the video all the way to the end, put CC in the comments to let me know. Yeah, I really enjoyed that a lot. And the timing was unusually good. Normally my timing is spectacularly bad. I always arrive at the wrong time exactly, but today I arrived at the perfect time yesterday and today. I just happened to show up to catch the four final races. Yeah, perfect timing on my part. That’s it. Shutting down. See you next time.