"Typhoon Dragon Boat Club is one of the largest clubs in London"

Past

From humble beginnings, we were formed in 2003 by a group of friends primarily for a one off charity event. The London Lions China Town event was our first taste of success and spurred on by our collective team spirit and the adrenalin rush of racing, the team continued to enter into charity events. Following the cancellation of the final charity race of 2005, and so as not to lose weeks of training, the Club entered into the British Dragonboat Association National League. This was an awakening to the team who at that point, were top of the charity rankings… but not so on the national league.

We continued to recruit like-minded people and in 2006 we had built a core squad that paddled and trained together for the next two years. The Club, inspired to compete successfully on the national front, dedicated themselves to a training regime that focused not only on the technical and endurance aspects of the sport but also on the collective team work. In 2007 the Club was rewarded for their efforts (months of winter training) and crowned the Standard National League Champions, with guaranteed promotion to the Premier League for 2008 along with being the first crew to receive the impressive new BDA perpetual trophy (Most Improved Team Award) sponsored by Three River Serpents.

However, the Club's paddling interests is not purely focussed on competing successfully nationally. The Club maintains a presence in London's charity dragonboat community through a second team dedicated to competing in up to six charity events each year.

Sponsorship from SeeWoo over the past four years has significantly contributed to our club’s continued growth and phenomenal success.

Present

Today we are one of the largest dragon boat clubs and a successful team with 50+ members and an overall top 4th place finish in 500m competiton and 3rd in the 200m competition of the 2008 BDA National League. In 2009 we merged our second team Hurricane Tigers under the same Typhoon banner and now train as one team, under one club. We've also started to train more corporate teams, including a new charity team called "Windy Pandas". We finished mid tables in 2009 against tough competitions but with a lot of new blood rising through the ranks, I'm sure we can only improve from here.

Future

We have ambitious goals for 2010, which upon accomplishing will surpass all our successes to date.  This year will see us compete in at least 7 national league events and possibly also an international race. We will continue to promote our club and dragon boating throughout the UK and wider community. Lets make this a year to remember, it's our year, it's the YEAR OF THE TIGER!!!

Raising Money for Charity

In 2007, the Club also entered into its first long distance charity race, the Great River Race. The 22 mile event attracted 500 teams who paddled from Richmond to Greenwich drawing crowds along the banks of the Thames as well on the bridges and entered again in 2008 and beat the time which we set. 2008 also saw Typhoon's first International event, the Vogalonga in Venice whilst in 2009 the team entered Hong Kong's Stanley Cup Competition.

Our paddlers who are more succumbed to 250m and 500m racing distances were also challenged to raise money for charities such as Demelza (The Children’s Hospice), NSPCC and Breast Cancer Campaign. We are proud to have raised over £10,000 to date.

To tackle the Charity league in our absence are the Windy Pandas whom we are proud to train under our banner.

Other Events

As we are quite an active club we like to get involved in other events which help develop the team and also help the members bond with one another.

A list of events includes:

• Snowboarding/Skiing Trips
• Gym Sessions
• Gymnastics
• Wall Climbing
• Roller Blading
• Badminton
• Dinner Meets
• Cinema Nights
• Poker Nights
• Running
• Cycling