YORK ROTARY DRAGON BOAT CHALLENGE 2025

With a day of fantastic weather the 2025 Dragon Boat Challenge was held on the 13^th July 2025.  We had a full complement of teams and there was a great atmosphere to the day.

All of the teams arrived on time and registered for the event.  The days racing went to plan. 

The gala on the north bank went very well and the Rotary tea tent was another great success with a fantastic display of brightly decorated home baking. Thank you to all members of Inner Wheel, partners and friends who helped with that.

Once again there were some very imaginatively dressed teams. The prize for best dressed team was won by Dragonflies with very imaginative costumes, they are to be congratulated.

The day ended with a thrilling six boat grand final won by the Three Bears Foundation and Ged Bell Butchers a very close second.  The results of the final are below and other prize winners are below:

To watch a video of the Grand Final click on the link below:

Photographer Chris Shepherd took photographs of the event and a video montage of her excellent photographs can be watched by clicking on the photograph below:

Financially the day has been a great success, the amount raised already exceeds £100,000 and we are sure that this will only increase. The level of funding means that in excess of 50 charities will ultimately benefit greatly from the event.

The event is a complex one to organise, on behalf of York Rotary there were in excess of 80 people involved in staffing the event, great thanks to all of them, without that support the event could not go ahead. Also we thank our three commercial sponsors who are vital to the success of the event:

For more photographs and results go to the Dragon Boat portion of our website by clicking below.

Dragon Boats

We look forward to seeing great crowds again for the Dragon Boat Challenge on 12th July 2026.

David Fotheringham, 14^th July