Record hopes for paddleboard snake on River Soar

A Leicestershire dragon boat club is hoping it has clawed its way into the record books.

Hathern-based Soaring Dragons took to the River Soar on Bank Holiday Monday to connect as many stand-up paddleboards together in a snake along the waterway.

Guinness adjudicators will now see if the attempt could out-do the previous record of 17 linked paddleboards.

The club now has to wait to find out their final total when drone footage is examined.

But with the help of Leicester’s Wild Women Outdoor Club they hope to have totalled about 65 so hopes are high a new record can be verified.

Bec Mills, a representative of the Soaring Dragons, told BBC Radio Leicester: “We were thinking we’d get maybe 20 and we’ve absolutely gone and smashed it.

“It was really good fun. We had all abilities, people who had not been on boards before, people that come and do it on a regular basis, children and adults. It was a whole range of people which made it an even more exciting event.

“We got disconnected a couple of times but managed to reattach. We also had a barge that wanted to come by, which was entertaining.”

The record attempt took place at Wild Women’s base at the Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre, which was damaged earlier this year by Storm Henk.

The attempt was also a fundraising opportunity for the centre and for the club, which too was badly hit by Storm Henk.

One of their 20-person boats, The Major, went missing in the wild weather and is presumed sunk.

The storm left them with a bill of about £12,000 for repairs and to purchase a replacement dragon boat from Germany, which they have named Henk.

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