Emperor’s Boat

A special boat used by ancient Chinese emperors. The dragon boats of emperors were gigantic and spacious, which were built with attic and exquisite color-painting, giving a luxurious look.

Reference
http://big5.china.com.cn/photo/zhuanti/2013-07/04/content_29324513.htm#p=1&r=0.2349921810969779

Vietnam Guan Lan Island Dragon Boat

The Guan Lan Island of Bai Tu Long Bay in Guangning Province, Vietnam holds dragon boat competition on June 18th of Lunar Calendar each year in commemoration of Chen, Qing-Yu protecting the opens in Chen Dynasty and his merits of protecting the State.

Reference
http://www.ctcvietnam.org/tw,culture-life,view-vietnam,115,384.html

Ryukyu Dragon Boat

Ryukyu Dragon Boat has been held for over 600 years. It was said that Nanshan King, Wang, Ying-Zu has studied abroad in Nanjing during the Ming Dynasty of China. He returned to Ashibina City upon returning to Japan and held the first dragon boat competition in the history of Ryukyu (however the story about Wang, Ying-Zu studying in Nanjing was not mentioned in history records but some Fujian people introduced dragon boats to Ryukyu instead).

Reference
http//www.naha-navi.or.jp/nahahari.html

Nagasaki Dragon Boat

Dated back to the early Edo Period, the custom of dragon boat paddling was passed from China to Japan. In 1655, due to the impact of storms, several ships from Fujian, China and berthed at Nagasaki Port the year before have been blown over by strong wind, causing many people to fall into the ocean and drowned. The surviving Chinese sailors were detained in Nagasaki and they believed that it was the rage from the God of Ocean, so they raced each other via dragon boats in worship of the God of Ocean. Since then, Nagasaki started the custom of holding dragon boat competition on Dragon Boat Festival. Such custom gradually became popular in the surrounding areas and became one of the rituals for praying for agricultural harvest, industry prosperity and god of dragon that brings rain and water. Consequently, Nagasaki holds dragon boat competition each summer.

Reference
http://www.hanfu.hk/forum/viewthread.php?tid=9550

Dragon Boat on Land

Dragon Boat on Land (also known as continental dragon boat) is made of bamboo or wood, using 5-color silk fabric as scales. The boat is larger because the back of the dragon is designed with towers and attics while the sides are painted and colored with Qu Yuan, Water God and Helmsman. Dragon boat on land does not compete on speed but emphasize on performance. Participants all put on stage makeup, pad and perform singing or dancing.

Reference
http://www.cnhubei.com/xwzt/2012/hbwh/dsz/ezhou/whhd14/201210/t2276276.shtml

Night Dragon Boat

There are several small lanterns hanging from the two sides of dragon boats to sail at night. The lighting of night dragon boats is reflected from the water, creating an image of silver-white dragon sliding in the dark.

Reference
http://news.xinhuanet.com/photo/2005-10/09/content_3596508.htm

Competing Dragon Boat

It is important to keep dragon boats are light as possible. The boats are mostly made of willow wood or fiber glass while the heads and the tails are mostly made of camphor wood. In generally, the boats are simply decorated with 1 or 2 flags. Competition dragon boats are divided into standard dragon boats and small dragon boats. However, the specification may vary according to local areas and therefore are subject to the competition rules. The drummer stays in the front while the helmsman stays in the back. The paddler positions shall follow the rules of dragon boat competition. As for the paddle, tail rudder and drums used for the dragon boats all follow specific length and weight. Since dragon boats have already become an international sport, there are many changes taken place with the dragon boats in some western countries that greatly differ from traditional dragon boats. For example, some will change the dragon head from the Chinese dragon to western dragon or have the drummers removed.

Taiwan Dragon Boat

Dragon Boat Festival is a folk holiday of Taiwan. Many townships and cities of Taiwan hold their own dragon boat competitions due to the increasing cultural development in recent years. Taiwan’s dragon boats are wooden and fiber-glass material based and is therefore regarded as art work. The most famous dragon boats consist fo the wooden dragon boats made by Liu, Qing-Zheng from Sanjiaodu of Taipei City and the fiber-glass and wooden dragon boats made by Hong, Quan-Rui from Pingtung. Some townships and cities use large and small dragon boats to cope with the different team sizes. In general, wooden dragon boats are heavier while fiber-glass dragon boats are lighter. Due to the lack of unified specification, the different townships of Taiwan also make dragon boats with different specifications. There are different characteristics between wooden and fiber-glass dragon boats, where wooden dragon boats can be directly made into different sizes but fiberglass requires molding prior to production. However, fiberglass dragon boats with existing mold will have shorter production time.

The dragon head, body and tails are Taiwan’s fiberglass dragon boats are all made of fiberglass. Large dragon boats, excluding the head and tails, are approximately 11.3 meter in length and 1.5 meter in width, with a capacity of 23 people. Small dragon boats, excluding tails and head, are 9 meter in length and 1.4 meters in width, with a capacity of 15 people.

Wooden dragon boats are produced by customization while the size and price may vary according to the different specification.