After two years in the planning, OPD’s Student Program came afloat in 2016. 

Middle School Program – The Program targets middle school students age 15 and under – primarily from San Francisco’s Aptos Middle School and South San Francisco’s Westborough Middle School, with the goal of initiating them to a team sport and to engage them in acquiring basic leadership skills. The four to five months intensive training culminates in the team participating in the Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival in July. The ultimate test is for the team to demonstrate its ability to work cohesively as a team, which is one of the key elements in order to be successful.

OPD’s Student Program receives a lot of focus and attention because the program also prepares the team for the future. Many of the students end up loving the sport, and continue with OPD as regular paddlers or they join a high-school team. A few even move into training to become coaches and steers, which testifies to the success of the program in forming our leaders of tomorrow.

In addition to learning the values associated with team work and acquiring leadership skills, these students also gain excellent health benefits. Indeed, besides taking screen time away from them, it is always a pleasure seeing our new and shy students eventually bloom as they develop friendship with their peers and with adults. In short, the Student Program is an alternative extra-curricular activity.

The Tiger Sharks have brought home silver from the Long Beach Festival four years in a row in the Junior High category, which is comprised primarily of high school teams.

In June 2017, the Tiger Sharks participated in the Concord Pacific Vancouver Dragon Boat Festival. That trip was indeed tons of fun and excitement. It was a tough 2-day competition but hard work paid off. Despite the lack of sleep, the heat, and the skipped lunches with back to back races for all of us, Tiger Sharks pulled it off as they surged with determination and might through the finish line with a time of 2:13.673 thereby grabbing gold in the Canada Leaf Junior B Championship. The second place time was 2:13.940. It was such a proud and joyous moment for the racers to receive the gold medals, which made the rest of the trip all the more enjoyable.

In July 2018, the OPD U16 (Under 16) students competed in the 11th IDBF Club Crew World Championships in Szeged, Hungary. In addition to making OPD stand proud on the podium, this trip created excellent memories and friendship with teams from all over the world, memories that will be etched forever.

High School Program – As OPD’s U16 students roll into the over-16 category, they can join our high-school team. They then compete in the CDBA Youth Race and the Lake Merritt High School Division Race in addition to all other races. Currently, most of OPD’s high school paddlers attend Mills High School. OPD also supports high-school students by hosting and providing resources to Team USA  in its recruiting and try-out efforts and training activities.