The team of 17 dragon boat paddlers from Orange are busy training and preparing for a two-week stint overseas in May, competing in three different regattas in Italy and Israel. 

The team departs Sydney on May 15 and flies to Rome to train with Rome’s dragon boat club Pink Butterflies, before competing in the Vogalonga, or Long Row, a 30-kilometre race through Venice on May 24.

After the Vogalonga, the team will split into two, with eight members travelling to Florence for the Florence Dragon Boat Pink Meeting on May 30 and 31, while nine will fly to Israel for the Dragon Boat Israel International Festival on the Sea of Galilee on May 28 and 29.  

Paddler Jo Beeby said she never thought dragon boating would take her to the other side of the world.

“Dragon boating has given us so many different experiences. My kids went to Hong Kong for dragon boating a few years ago. If you’d asked me 10 years ago if I would be going to do dragon boating in Rome down the track, I would have said ‘no way’,” she said.

The driving force behind the trip is coach Pearl Butcher, who began the push to send a team to the Volgalonga more than a year ago.

She said helping the team of breast cancer survivors and supporters take part in international events inspired her.

”Who wouldn’t be inspired by a team prepared to turn out for training in conditions such as [Sunday],” she said.

”2015 is a significant year for breast cancer survivors the world over. It is the 20th anniversary of Abreast in a Boat [dragon boat team in Vancouver, Canada]. That’s another story, briefly it was the beginning of the end of breast cancer patients being sentenced to being wrapped in cotton wool.”