FOR DECADES, dragon boats lovingly handcrafted by Law Kam-wan and Tang Hung have carried champion racing crews to victory in local competitions. Last month, their boats raced by the Luen Yue Lung dragon boat team from Aberdeen crossed the finish line first in races at Po Toi Island, Lamma Island and Stanley during the Tuen Ng (Dragon Boat) Festival. 'Our boats are easy to paddle and fast,' says Law, 73, proudly.
He is backed up in his assessment by Kwok Mei, 57, the veteran drummer of the Luen Yue Lung (United Fish Dragon) team. 'The quality of a boat is important to winning,' Kwok says. 'Their boats are durable and light and slide quickly on the water.' Law - whose family owned an Aberdeen shipyard - was one of the earliest dragon boat builders in modern Hong Kong, and one of three main builders with the Tung Yee Hing shipyard in Shau Kei Wan and a father-and-son team at Ap Lei Chau. Now, Law and Tang are the only dragon boat builders left in Hong Kong. But with cheaper boats available from the mainland and no young blood coming through, Law and Tang's future looks bleak.
'It's a declining industry,' says Tang, 56. 'Everyone is going to the mainland for their boats. Only Luen Yue Lung has remained with us. Sometimes, we get orders for one to two boats a year. Sometimes, we have no orders at all.'
Tung Yee Hing shipyard's owner, Lau Siu-wah, 48, is philosophical about the loss of the dragon boat building skills in Hong Kong. 'We have no choice,' he says. 'No one is joining the boat building industry. Most of our masters are in their 50s and 60s, and in a decade or so they will have all retired.' Lau's shipyard built its last dragon boats for what was then the Tourism Association in 1997.
Boats from Lau's old shipyard will feature in this weekend's International Dragon Boat races, now run by the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Association, but most are from the mainland. With the opening of China in the 1980s, local paddling teams started buying mainland-built dragon boats for between $25,000 and $45,000 - about half the cost of Hong Kong boats. Many are made from fibreglass, which was first used for dragon boats about 20 years ago, but is becoming more common.
As Law and Tung aren't suppliers to the association, which insists on standardised boats, none of theirs will feature on the Shing Mun River this weekend. Luen Yue Lung and 94 other local teams will compete for eight cups in local championships on Saturday, and Hong Kong and 12 overseas teams, including competitors from Macau, Taipei, the Philippines and the mainland, will paddle it out for three international cups on Sunday.