The following text was posted online at the times stated on Saturday 4 October and is our news from the first day of the BDA National Cup 2008. We have left it online as it appeared, with no post-event editing. A full summary of the weekend appears in a separate article  - click Previous at the end of this page to read it.

10:32am: yes we're online! Much more follows, but for now, the headline news is that both the Royals and the Pretenders are in the Open Cup. Got to go and weigh the boats...

10:44am: OK, a proper hello and good morning! Welcome to Kingston Royals' live coverage of the 2008 British Dragon Boat Association National Cup event. We're doing this for three reasons: (i) to save us having to do the race report at 3am on Monday morning; (ii) there's so much going on this weekend that we'd never remember it all; and (iii) because we can. The plan is for the whole page to be saved as a record of the event, and we won't edit any of it after the day (except for typos) - so if you're reading this after the nationals then this is it exactly as it happened.
Steve Lewis has just described the Pretenders' first race as "Herculean". And it was - they're in the Open Cup as the fastest loser, which is a fantastic result. They've posted faster times than Henley and Exe-Calibre in the process, so it bodes well for lots of Open competition points.
The Royals won their first heat and are also in the Cup, and now race BA, Typhoon, Batchworth, Thames and Exeter in what will be a tough 2nd round race.
Oh, and Arriana weighs 259kg.

10:51am: We're all getting blue and pink friendship bands. Pete made some of them: I'm surprised they're not laminated. Maybe we'll do that later...

12:05pm: The Ps are out racing in the Cup repechage, for a place in the Cup final. The Rs are in the major final after winning the second round. Amathus won the other heat - in a faster time - and Thames have already confirmed their place in the final as the fastest runner up. The wind is gusting up - there are already white horses near the 200m start. The 1000m tonight should be interesting. The H-H-H-hideaway is fairly snug though, and the drying racks are doing their job. Adam is now off selling things, oh and the Ps have just finished. Jane is by the scoreboard so we'll see how they did.

1:56pm: Triumph and disaster. The women are national champions. The Pretenders were first in the minor final and came 8th. The Royals were deemed to have withdrawn from the Cup final and came 7th. A protest has been lodged; much more follows later. The afternoon needs to get underway!

2:09pm: A false start on the juniors race gives us some time to blog. First, the good news: the women led from stroke one and are womens 200m national champions. An excellent performance. A stellar performance from the Pretenders has left them as the 8th fastest dragon boat crew in the country. They won the Cup minor final. Huzzah.

2:12pm: On the other side of the coin, the Royals Cup final. I don't think I've mentioned it before but there's a good head wind here today and there were white horses around the 200m start. As we came round from behind the pontoon to get onto the start, a gust blew us broadside onto the pontoons. Even with the whole right side drawing, we struggled to get unwedged and ended up pivoting round nose in to the bay. As we came out backwards into the wind we were blown again, into BA Hurricanes who were waiting patiently in lane 5. It's worth noting that during all of this one crew was yet to have got to the start. Drawing was not working & we had to put safety first. Unable to get the boat to turn into the headwind, being pushed sideways into the front of the boats on station, the only safe option was to go windward, so we pulled away to the lee of the pontoons where we could have the room to turn and face into the wind without risk of boat damage or capsize.  Ooo, time to go. More later.

3:06pm: It's one of the rare occasions where both crews are off the water and the room is buzzing. The Pretenders came 12th in the heats for the mixed event, and the Royals recorded the fastest time.
Anyway, I should have added earlier that we pushed BA backwards onto their pontoon and broke part of their tail - so really apologies for that (Les - let us know if you need some money). So we're now in the safer calmer water behind the pontoons rather than sideways on to the waves; we turn round, come back round, and get told we're out of the race. We were disgruntled.

3:11pm: Kent and Bell are arguing. Apparently: Bell snores, Kent fidgets. Which reminds me: a big thumbs up to Fliss for booking all of our accommodation for £50 per room per night - less than another club is paying to stay at the same hotel (mwah ha ha!).

3:15pm: Anyway, we thought we'd put our money where our mouths are for once and paid the princely sum of £5 to protest.  (Yes, we know it's meant to be £10, but they charged us a fiver so we took it...) We've now had the results of the Luxembourg Jury Competition Committee. Club members can log in and read the protest and the response on the forum. Thank you to the officials in race control for helping us submit it and dealing with it promptly. And we'll know for next time.

3:19pm: 1000m crew is discussing tactics regarding what to do if the competition format is changed.

3:29pm: With the Ps on the water, racing is suspended. From here it looks better than earlier, but the officials do have a wind guage on the tower so maybe it's gusted up. Will dig out the photos of the Nat Schools Rowing regatta from June in a while and post a link to them...

4:11pm: Have been walking around the site in a daze. The wind is picking up. In the last half hour the pontoons have been moved and races will be free starts from now on. Looking forward to that... Griff, Steve and Rach are deep in conversation about how to handle it.
Clair has just picked up the Ladies' trophy from earlier. The junior results were 1st BA Barbarians, 2nd Severn Spiritz, 3rd Amathus Police Chiefs, 4th Southport Pirates.

4:16pm: Games of Snap and Eye-spy are breaking out. It's only a card game Harriet, don't get so stressed...

6:30pm: I'm in the hotel watching the weather forecast. A big blob of rain is coming our way. Meanwhile, we've had wind - lots and lots of wind. A 4:25pm crew managers' meeting was called, with racing suspended until at least 5pm. Mike Haslam announced the cancellation of the 1000m at the top of meeting; one of the crews reported one foot high waves at that point of the course. The reason for the switch to free starts on the 200m course was because the pontoons were failing. If racing recommenced, all-junior crews were out, and any juniors would have to wear lifejackets and have a chit from the crew manager accepting the risks. Various votes were taken: the view in the room was that if racing could continue tonight then the repechages should still run, followed by the finals - luckily this only meant four races as several crews had been withdrawn because of the delay and the conditions.
At about 4:45pm the meeting broke up and it was decided to get on with racing as conditions had improved. This proved to be a false hope, however, and at 4:55pm the safety team said there would be no further racing. 200m races have been scheduled for 9am tomorrow morning, so the Ps will race in rep 2 at 9:10, and then in a final at 9:30 or 9:40; meanwhile the Royals will race in the major final at 9:40am. These will be from a free start; the first 500m race will then be at 10am and I guess we'll slowly make it up over the day.
The forecast for tomorrow is slightly better. The wind will swing round to a cross tail and lighten off a bit. However it will rain lots in the morning, and a lot will depend on how quickly this system moves across the UK. Chances are prize giving will be in sunshine and today will seem like a bad dream.

6:49pm: Here's a link to some photos of the course with a tail wind, in May this year.

6:51pm: In about an hour's time it will be exactly 20 years since the club was formally founded. We're going to dinner to celebrate, and after today we need it! Happy birthday Kingston Royals! See you all tomorrow.