DBS Marina Regatta 2015 – 30th and 31st May - TGH Photography and Travel Portal/Blog

In its fourth edition, Singapore’s biggest water sports festival, the DBS Marina Regatta returned to Marina Bay Singapore, brining great action and fun on and off the waters of Marina Bay. Covering over three weekends from 30^th to 31^st May, 6^th to 7^th June and 13^th to 14^th June 2015. In conjunction with the 28th SEA Games 2015 held in Singapore from 5^th to 16^th June, Traditional Boat (Dragon Boat) Races were held together with DBS Marina Regatta on 6^th and 7^th June and Sailing Races was held on 13^th and 14^th June 2015.

For DBS Marina Regatta 2015, there were close to 180 teams and 2,000 athletes participating in this year’s Dragon Boating event! There were also a growing number of female Dragon Boaters – close to 20% more than the previous year. This was indeed the biggest water sports festival in Singapore and it’s growing!

Let me bring you through my eyes, heart, stories and photographs of the first weekend of DBS Marina Regatta 2015, on the 30^th and 31^st May. This was my third year covering DBS Marina Regatta, I am quite familiar with the Dragon Boat Races and schedules. On Saturday 30^th May, it was the 200m race distance and on Sunday 31^st May, it was the 500m race distance.

The race categories were as follows:

DBS Singapore Premier Open (22 crew)
DBS Singapore Premier Women (12 crew)
DBS Tertiary Open (22 crew)
DBS Tertiary Women (12 crew)
DBS Corporate Open (12 crew)
DBS Corporate Women (12 crew)

There were lots of Dragon Boating action on the waters of Marina Bay whereby spectators can enjoy watching them in action at The Promontory @ Marina Bay, Marina Bay City Gallery area and Fullerton area. For this year, besides my fast action capture of fast and furious Dragon Boating paddling, I decided to go more into the “behind the scenes” part of Dragon Boating, the preparation, the emotions and camederie of the paddlers. The experiences were pretty amazing and these are the type of the other story of sports photography that we sports photographers love to capture and share. Through my photographs, I hope that I am to share more on the scenes behind the scenes.

Off the waters, on the ground level, DBS Marina Regatta 2015 transformed The Promontory @ Marina Bay into a big sports, recreational and leisure sports carnival village, there is something for everybody who is at DBS Marina Regatta 2015. There were many different events and activities happening during DBS Marina Regatta 2015, some of the events and activities that I manage to cover and photographed were

DBS Art Park ~ There were eight up and coming artists aged between 18-35 from NOISE working on four giant 2m by 2m art cubes.
Living Art ~ The re-enactment of a painting, “Life by the River” by renowned Singaporean artist Liu Kang.
Extreme Sports Arena ~ Rock climbing and Zipline (a.k.a Flying Fox)
DBS Food Village by Savour ~ Delicious food galore.

I rotated myself around the various locations of DBS Marina Regatta 2015, photographing and documenting sports action on the waters, behind the scenes of the Dragon Boat, waiting, preparation, supporting, the euphoria and emotions. Towards the later part of the afternoons on both 30^th and 31st, these were the time for the finale, the various finals for the 200m (30^th May) and 500m (31^st May). That’s also where I had the enjoyment and adrenaline rush of photographing the fast sychronised Dragon Boat paddling action on the waters of Marina Bay from the The Promontory @ Marina Bay.