This year's Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival saw a day of firsts, a day of celebrations and a day of coming together to remember why everyone involved was taking part.
At what marked the festival's 20th year, the 43 teams that took part smashed the £50,000 target, currently £52,500 and rising – with money raised for Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust (ACT) going towards helping to build the pioneering new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital.
Last year, the hospital charity set an ambitious target of £50,000 – after hitting £40,000 in 2025. But in a day of surprises and lots of 'firsts', ACT and all their supporters surpassed their target, with money still coming in.
Buffaload Logistics became the team to raise the highest amount for the Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival ever, following a surprise donation of £5,000 from one of their clients; with another 'first' marking the £5,000 they received as the highest single donation made to a team ever, for the event.
Headline sponsor Illumina returned to sponsor the event for the third year, entering three teams, and throwing themselves into the spirit with every rower in fancy dress.
The Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival has become known as a special community event, bringing teams together to raise money for a groundbreaking new cancer hospital in Cambridge which is set to change the story of cancer - and in the true spirit of community and giving, the event reached its target after a very special, last-minute donation.
With only two hours to go before the event finished, organisers NewWave Events made an announcement on the public address system that ACT was only £450 short of hitting the £50,000 target – only to be told minutes later that the husband of a member of the Rosie maternity hospital had donated the amount himself, taking the target over the finish line.
Em Robson, Corporate Account Lead at ACT, who led the event for the first time, said she was "over the moon" to have smashed the £50,000 target.
"We are living in tough times, the cost of living is testing many of us and yet, together we have proven that collaboration is key to success. Every team, supporter, volunteer, staff, friend, and family member who donated the gift of time, to be with us on the day, as well as dug deep to raise the most we have ever raised in the history of ACT participating in the Dragon Boat Festival has made an impact. This really does go to show that together we will change the story of cancer! When the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital is built, every one of our supporters can say, 'I was part of this historic moment'. How awe inspiring is that?"
Dr Hugo Ford, Clinical Lead for Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and Director of Cancer Services at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Our sincere thanks go to everyone who supported this fantastic event for Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital. The funds raised will help create a groundbreaking new hospital that will transform cancer care by enabling earlier diagnosis, more precise treatments, and better outcomes for patients."
Mark Robinson, VP & General Manager, UK & Ireland and North Europe, Illumina, said: "Illumina is proud to sponsor the Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival for a third year. It's a fun-filled event that brings together organisations from across the region for a great day of competition, teamwork and fundraising."
"As a company committed to advancing health through genomics, we're particularly pleased to see the community uniting to support Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and its vision to transform cancer care through innovation and research."
Lucy Morton, Executive Director at NewWave Events, said: "Wow, what a turn out for the 20th Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival! As the event organisers, we’re thrilled to see the event continuing to grow year on year, and to see teams enjoying themselves and genuinely bonding and working together is so rewarding for us. We’re so proud to have ACT as our long-standing charity partners and the final fundraising total is just the cherry on top of another fantastic day! Thank you to all teams and supporters for making this event what it is and of course to our sponsor, Illumina, and media partners Cambridge Radio and Cambridge Independent for their continued support."
Money from the event will go towards building the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital. The hospital will unite world-class clinical expertise with cutting-edge research to transform the way we prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. Collaboration across Cambridge University Hospitals, the University of Cambridge, and partner organisations is creating an extraordinary community unmatched in scale or calibre in the UK. This will speed discoveries into practice, deliver life-saving treatment sooner, and fuel scientific and economic growth across the UK.
Speaking at the event on Saturday, John Kerrigan, CEO of Buffaload Logistics, said he was delighted that his staff had raised the highest amount ever for a team competing in the Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival, at over £10,000, with donations still coming in.
"It's absolutely amazing. It's been a really good, combined effort from colleagues, customers and suppliers. We set out with a target of £2,500 and to get as much as we could but to know that we have raised the most ever for a team is a really good feeling for such a good cause."
Their largest donation came from one of their clients, Gray & Adams, who donated £5,000 – the largest single donation to a team competing in the Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival ever.
Thanking them for their generosity, John said: "We were all in shock when it came through. We actually had to ring and make sure they hadn't put an extra nought in there by mistake. That it was intentional, we were absolutely delighted."
Pledging to enter three teams next year, and set themselves a fundraising target of £20,000, John stressed that it was the efforts of everyone involved that helped the firm hit its impressive target.
"We did it with good internal engagement, social media and LinkedIn too, as that is where lots of our suppliers and customers are. And it was lots and lots of individuals internally, lots of ten pounds, five pounds, twenty pounds. It's nice we had some large donations but actually the amount of people who put what they could afford in was equally important to us and we are delighted."
A special mention also goes to Stuart Racher, aka Captain Hook (part of the Never Never Land team rowing for the Rosie hospital). Stuart, whose wife Joanna works as a maternity support worker at the Rosie, heard the announcement on the public address system that the event was £450 short of its £50,000 target and decided to donate the amount himself, saying: "I did it because it's difficult times and if you can, you should."
Saturday's event pulled in one of the biggest crowds yet, there to watch the 43 teams competing, as they raced up a 200-metre stretch of the river at Fen Ditton. The Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital project team was one of the teams that took to the water, entering a boat and joining teams from across the region in raising funds for the hospital they are helping to deliver.
As well as the races, bankside entertainment included lion dances from the Cambridge Chinese community, and family-friendly science activities provided by Illumina such as strawberry DNA extraction, nature microscopy, experimenting with coloured light mixing and making dragon paper chains. There were games and face painting at the ACT stand, along with a prize raffle, with live media coverage and interviews on the day from Cambridge Radio, with That's TV and Cambridge Independent reporting on the day also.
Ric Da Silva, co-founder and CTO of the Dragon Boat Festival champion winners, Flok Health Ltd, described the festival as "a fantastic day" adding: "We are super chuffed for all the money raised for Addenbrooke's."
Movingly, one of their own paddlers took part following treatment at Addenbrooke's for bowel cancer earlier in the year, using the festival as a marker to get back to full fitness so he could participate and raise money for cancer care at Addenbrooke's, with ACT's Em saying: "A remarkable story of triumph, courage, strength and hope that I will hold onto as I support friends during times of diagnoses and treatment."
Long-standing competitors, Ring, spoke about why they have been competing for four years. Two of the team members ACT spoke to on the day talked about having family members who’d had cancer. Zhanna's grandmother had breast cancer and Jon sadly lost his dad from cancer four years ago, saying: "Cancer is there and can happen in every single family and the Dragon Boat Festival is a really good opportunity to raise funds for the cancer hospital."
TWI Ltd have been competing since 2015 so have competed in a total of nine races, outside of COVID. Guy Hughes, who was in a boat with his colleague Pedro, said the firm competes every year, despite the weather.
"It's a great team building exercise. We all have great fun and the amazing thing is everyone who comes wants to come back. Most of the people here today from our team are people who have returned multiple times and have fallen in love with the event like I have and Pedro has."
Winning teams:
- Festival Champions
- This year's Festival Champions were Flok Health Ltd with a winning time of 58.95.
- Runner-up went to The Temporary Paddlers – TTP Plc – with a time of 59.70
- 3rd place – Cache me if you can – Ring – with 60.48
- 4th place – Insmed Innovation Uk Ltd – with 61.10
- Best Dressed
- Highly Commended – All 3 Illumina teams (Genome Explorers, IllumiNation and Sequencing The Sea) and Paddlesaurus Rex from VNC Automotive.
- Winners – Never Never Land team from the Rosie Hospital, dressed as Peter Pan and clan, with costumes made by Senior midwife Annie West.
- Charity Champions
- Commended – Arm (3 teams) for one of the highest raised bake sales.
- Charity Winners – The BuffaRowers from Buffaload Logistics Ltd who raised over £10,500
** Thank you to The Tivoli for donating the special mini golf, prosecco and pizzas experience for the top fundraisers!
- Mixed Competition
- 3rd place – We Thought this was a hackathon - Arm
- Runners up – The Savillians - Savills
- Winners – Admiral Hughes – TWI Ltd
Special thanks to:
Special thanks go to all our amazing volunteers on the day who helped on the ACT stand; to Cambridge Camera Club, there with our digital team on the day, capturing photos live; and to our media partners, Cambridge Radio and Cambridge Independent.
Thank you also goes to all the businesses that donated prizes to the raffle, which this year raised over £1,596 in ticket sales, including donations for face painting. Raffle prizes included a £150 voucher from Sticks'n'Sushi; a 50-piece fruit box from The Cambridge Fruit Company; a Ring doorbell from Amazon; afternoon tea vouchers from The Fellows House; Barracudas Activity Day Camp vouchers; a £50 Abbot Lyon voucher, a Hot Numbers Coffee voucher, a Reformer at The Barn voucher and goodie bag, plus many more!
Team sign-ups for 2027:
Em, from ACT, said plans for 2027's Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival will be as ambitious as ever.
"We are super ambitious, and year on year we have grown this event with NewWave Events to make it even more fun to attend as a spectator and participant which we did aplenty this year, with feedback from local villagers and supporters being so grateful for the free activities for the children. Of course we will always aim higher, so the total to raise will I’m sure be boosted yet again."
**** Entries for next year's Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival are on track to go live in December so keep an eye on our events page. Teams can also sign up later in the year at: https://dragonboatevents.co.uk/cambridge-dragon-boat-festival
To donate:
Any companies able to match fund will help to boost the current fundraising total.
If you would like to boost the fundraising total beyond £52,500 please go to our Cambridge Dragon Boat Just Giving page at: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/cambridgedragonboat2026
