The 2023 Baby Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival on April 23rd, held at Marine Stadium, Long Beach, CA, was our second and last race of the season. The 1-day event is a miniature version of the Big Long Beach Festival, one of the largest dragon boat festivals held in California at the end of July.  

With our annual Arizona race canceled due to weather conditions, the Baby Long Beach festival was our last chance in the year to show our growth and apply all the training we have had since our first race in the Fall quarter. Our two boats, UCSD Mansplain and UCSD Manipulate, participated in the Mixed 500M and Mixed 200M races against local Californian adult, college, and high school teams. 

With no collegiate division, our boats were in for a tough fight against more experienced adult teams; thankfully, our year of training showed its results as UCSD Mansplain seeded in Division A and UCSD Manipulate seeded in Division B for both the Mixed 500M/200M Races. UCSD Mansplain would proceed to advance to the Division A finals for 500M, taking home the bronze medal, while UCSD Manipulate advanced to Division B finals for the 200M races and brought back the silver. Consistently placing in the top divisions and acquiring medals proved that our efforts had come to fruition, and was an amazing accomplishment for our team.

Ending our season with a strong finish, the Baby Long Beach festival was a great experience for our team members to see what they could achieve and grow their bonds. For our seniors, it was a wonderful sendoff for their last race in college, and there are high hopes for the club going into their next season. We are proud of our accomplishments this season and will continue to build on this momentum - see you all next year!