About

Vancouver Island Paddling (VIP) is a paddling club headquartered in Victoria, BC., which offers a variety of dragon boat paddling opportunities.

The club started with five people as a dream to grow the sport of dragon boat throughout Vancouver Island.

In response to this, three of Vancouver Island's best known dragon boat teams – Gorging Dragons, Selkirk Serpents, and Team Phoenix – came together in the fall of 2011 to create VI Paddling (VIP), a new non-profit paddling organization whose mission is to provide coaching, guidance, and support to nurture and develop paddlers at all levels of recreational and competitive paddle sports on Vancouver Island.

VIP officially launched February 26, 2012 with the purchase of four International class racing boats. Already the organization serves more than 100 members ranging in age from 20 to 85, and future programs serving youth paddlers are in the works. In addition, recreational dragon boat teams stretching from Victoria to Port McNeill have begun booking VIP's team of coaches to help them improve their paddling skills and performance.

For this contest fundraiser; funds are being raised to help the four qualifying teams from the Gorging Dragons in their journey to the podium at the IDBF (International Dragon Boat Federation) Club Crews in Szeged, Hungary in 2018.