Facilities

Kingston Royals owns two full size fibre glass racing dragon boats, as well as a "baby" 10 man boat. All the boats are used for regular training sessions and the big boats are used for competing in events. The club also owns a number of single and double outriggers (O1s and O2s ) used for individual training and time trial purposes.

 

 

We have a gym shared between the four clubs on site. The gym is equipped with free weights, weights machines and various types of paddling machines. We run a gym based circuits session in place of the Tuesday water session during the winter and the paddling machines are used for both technique and fitness training.  We also run a womens' heavy weights session on Tuesday evenings before the main club session.  The Club also owns two "dragon boat ergos" which can be linked to a computer for stroke-by-stroke analysis of speed and can be used to monitor individual progress.  All members are able to use the gym when not in use by the various sections of the club.

 

Coaching for the club is provided principally by John Griffiths (aka Griff) who has many years of experience of canoeing, kayaking and outrigging at the highest level. He was the GB premier women's coach for over a decade responsible for winning multiple medals at World and European level as GB's most successful ever international squad.  In 2006 he was awarded a Mussabini Medal and entered into the Coaching Hall of Fame by Sports Coach UK for his work in dragon boat racing.  In 2010 Griff spent a year as the worlds only professional dragon boat coach responsible for the training of the Iranian dragon boat squad.  In 2011 he was appointed as a coach to the British paracanoe team working with athletes across the country.

 

The club also trains coaches in accordance with the BDA coaching scheme and a number of our members are qualified Level 2 and Level 3 coaches.  Club coaches also include Rich McDonough, Chris Bailey and Trisha Corless who have all been responsible for coaching international women's crews.

 

 

The club has two separate clubhouses; both contain male and female changing rooms equipped with showers and the main clubhouse has a bar and kitchen. Food is available on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings and the bar and clubroom are available for social events.