Welcome to the Club
We're excited to welcome you to our diverse community of people with varied abilities and ambition. We have multiple teams, so there's a place for everyone.
Highlighting a few of our teams...
Chicago Blades
Chicago Blades
Chicago Blades
The Blades are an all-ages, all-genders, all-inclusive group of people who support and bring out the best in one another, redefining the meaning of team.
Chicago Sirens
Chicago Blades
Chicago Blades
The Sirens consists of all women paddlers and races in the Women’s Open classification. Friends off the water, warriors on it, the team is a symbol of strength.
Adaptive Adventures
Chicago Chinatown Fury
Chicago Chinatown Fury
GCDBC partners with Adaptive Adventures to support a team that consists of veterans, disabled veterans, others with physical disabilities and volunteer supporters.
Chicago Chinatown Fury
Chicago Chinatown Fury
Chicago Chinatown Fury
Fury is our community team. In a show of respect for the sport’s origins, many of our members take pride in racing to represent Chinatown in its annual Race for Literacy, which is the city’s largest dragon boat competition.
If we can find one silver lining during the pandemic, it would be discovering Lake Opeka in Des Plaines, Illinois, near O’Hare Airport. In 2020, we were able to hold practices at Lake Opeka while following COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing. As a result, we made the decision to add to our practice days by returning to Lake Opeka to accommodate our suburban paddlers. The Saturday practice at Lake Opeka and Sunday practice at our Lincoln Park location gives paddlers a backup day to get on the water. We have multiple practice days at Lake Opeka and our Lincoln Park location.
New to our fleet of water vessels is the addition of outrigger canoes and a 10-person dragon boat. Our two, six-person outriggers will be docked at the Jackson Park Yacht Club. These human powered boats are made for racing on the ocean. Locating our OC6s at this beautiful South Side site continues our ongoing partnership with the Jackson Park Yacht Club and is an introduction to the sport of dragon boating and outrigger canoeing.