ADAPTIVE FUSION DRAGON BOAT CLUB
— 2023 —
Celebrating 5 Years of Adaptive Fusion!​
In 2010, BlindStart was formed as a Festival team to compete in the Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival. Their coaches at that time were TK Kamura and Jason, both who have passed since then.
After a couple of years of being a Festival team, some of the members wanted to start paddling year round and Blind Start Dragon Boat Club was formed with both Blind and support paddlers.
After a few races without much success, this new team finally finished second at the Lake Gregory race. And the journey began.
They had a few successful years qualifying for the Club Crew World Championships (CCWC) in Australia by finishing second in Vancouver Lake, WA. But the team was unable to attend CCWC as funding and the possibility of another team to compete against was not viable.
In the next cycle in 2013, BlindStart qualified for Hungary at the San Diego Festival. But again, they unable to travel as a team to Hungary due to lack of funding, or other Para teams to compete against from other countries.
In 2018, they again qualified for CCWC in Hungary, but lost lost their sponsor, BlindStart of America. The remaining members decided to start a new team consisting of Blind and Deaf paddlers who had joined them the past two years. From the union of members of Deaf Dawn and Blind Start, Adaptive Fusion was born in July, 2018.
They continued to practice the remainder of the year and raced at Santa Fe Dam and San Diego together, winning medals at both events.
The following year of 2019 was full of practicing and racing with great results as the team medaled at every race they entered. They earned first place medals at Las Vegas, Tempe Town Lake, Baby Long Beach and Big Long Beach Festivals.
They entered the Club Crew National Championships (CCNC) in Colorado Springs in the Paradragon division and won every heat against two other para teams. The result - winning the overall Gold for the National Championships in the Para division. This earned them a berth at the 2020 CCWC in France.
In March of 2020, while practicing and preparing for the next season’s races and CCWC in France, dragon boating was shut down for the next 12 months due to the Covid pandemic.
By March 2021 training resumed for CCNC in Sarasota, FL. The 2021 season’s races were also canceled, but CCNC was still held and Adaptive Fusion again qualified for CCWC. The World Championships were also held in Sarasota, FL in 2022, and they finished second overall with three silver medals.