Dragon Boat Paddler Guide
For paddlers, drummers, and steerspeople · updated 2 September 2026
Everything you need to join a crew, claim your seat, and show up ready. Nothing here costs you anything — paddlers never pay for DragonSignUp.
14 pages, A4, 137 KB. No sign-up needed.
Running the crew rather than paddling in it? Read the coach guide.
Changes since this was written are on the release notes page.
Contents
- What DragonSignUp is
- Joining your crew
- Signing in
- Setting up your profile
- Understanding the schedule
- Claiming a seat
- Signing up for several practices at once
- Notes on your sign-up
- Bringing a guest
- Waitlists
- Cancelling and dropping out
- The day-before check-in
- Boat seating and lineups
- Team events and sign-up slots
- Reminders and notifications
- The team directory
- Race day
- Belonging to more than one crew
- Your account, privacy, and cost
- Troubleshooting
- FAQ
- Glossary
1. What DragonSignUp is
DragonSignUp is where your crew keeps its roster, practices, races, and lineups. Instead of a group chat where twenty people say “I’m in” and someone loses count, every event has a seat count, a sign-up list, and a waitlist that runs itself.
As a paddler, you’ll use it to:
- See what practices and races are coming up
- Claim a seat, or join the waitlist when an event is full
- Drop out cleanly when you can’t make it, so someone else gets the seat
- Answer the day-before check-in so your coach knows the boat is full
- Bring a guest to a practice
- Sign up for non-paddling things: meetings, volunteer shifts, pot-luck dishes
- Look up a teammate’s contact details
What it doesn’t do: it isn’t a training log, a GPS tracker, or a messaging app. It handles who’s in the boat and when.
Cost to you: nothing. Paddlers never pay. Your crew manager or club covers the plan.
2. Joining your crew
Via an invite link
Almost everyone joins this way. Your manager shares one link, by email or group chat or club newsletter, and it does two jobs at once: creates your account and drops you into the right crew.
- Open the invite link.
- Enter your name, email, and a password. Or use Continue with Google.
- Confirm your email address if prompted.
- You land on your crew’s schedule.
The link belongs to one crew. If your club runs an A boat, a B boat, and a recreational squad, check you’re using the link for the crew you were invited to, or you’ll land on the wrong roster and your manager will have to move you.
Added directly by a manager
Your manager can also add you to the roster themselves, one at a time or as part of a pasted list. You’ll get an email asking you to set a password and finish your profile. Until you do, you exist on the roster but can’t sign up for anything.
If you’ve lost the link
Go to dragonsignup.com/join and
paste it there. The whole address works, so does the version without the
https://, and so does the code on the end on its own, so
someone can read it out to you at practice.
If the link doesn’t work
Invite links can be regenerated by a manager, which kills the old one. Ask for a fresh link rather than trying to fix the URL.
3. Signing in
Three ways in, and any of them gets you to the same account:
Password — the email and password you set when you joined.
Continue with Google — if your DragonSignUp email is a Google address, this works even if you never set a password.
Email me a sign-in link — enter your email and a one-time link arrives. It expires after 15 minutes and logs you in on the device you open it on. Useful when you’re at the dock and can’t remember anything.
Whichever you pick, use the same email address your crew has for you. Signing in with your work address when your manager has your personal one puts you in a different, empty account with no team in it.
Forgotten your password? Use the reset link on the sign-in page. If none of it is working, the site has a Can’t log in? page that walks through the usual causes.
4. Setting up your profile
Spend two minutes here. Your coach builds lineups from what’s in your profile, and a half-filled one means you get seated badly or not at all.
Contact details
Name — use the name your crew actually calls you. The roster and the lineup both display it, and “Michael Thompson” is less useful on a race-day seating chart than “Mike T.”
Email — where practice reminders, the day-before check-in, and waitlist promotions go. If you don’t read that inbox, you’ll miss a promotion off the waitlist.
Phone, and whether to share it — optional, and hidden by default. Tick the sharing box and your number appears in the team directory for teammates; leave it off and only your name and email show. Your manager may have typed a number in for you when they added you, so it’s worth checking the number is right before you share it.
Your paddling profile
Preferred side — left, right, either, or not applicable. The single most important field for seating. The boat needs comparable strength on both sides, and your coach sees a warning when someone is placed off their preferred side.
Be honest about “either.” If you can paddle both sides but you’re stronger on the left, say left. Coaches would rather know your real preference and override it deliberately than find out mid-race that half the boat is on their weak side. New and not sure yet? Pick “either” and update it after a few practices.
Weight — used to balance the boat left to right, and to check the crew total against what the hull is rated for. Enter it in whatever unit your team uses; the app converts.
You also choose who sees the number:
| Setting | What it means |
|---|---|
| Coach only (default) | Your crew’s admins can see it. No other paddler can. |
| System only | Nobody sees it. The app still uses it to balance the boat. |
Either way it stays inside your crew. If you’d rather not enter one at all, tell your coach and they’ll seat you by hand. An out-of-date number is worse than none, so update it if it has changed since the season started.
Which seats you can fill — paddler, drummer, steers, or any combination. Tick everything you can genuinely do. This is what tells the lineup editor you’re an option for the steering oar.
Stroke-eligible — tick it if you’re comfortable holding the rate from the front bench.
Discipline — sweep, scull, both, or paddle. Dragon boat paddlers want paddle.
5. Understanding the schedule
Your crew’s schedule shows what’s coming up. Events come in three flavours:
| Type | What it is | How sign-up works |
|---|---|---|
| Practice | On-water or land training, one-off or recurring | Claim one seat; capacity enforced |
| Race day | Competition, usually with a lineup attached | Claim one seat |
| Team event | Meeting, pot-luck, volunteer shift, social | Claim a slot, not a seat |
Recurring practices — a Tuesday-and-Thursday-every-week practice appears as separate dates you sign up for one by one. Signing up for this Tuesday doesn’t sign you up for next Tuesday. This trips up new paddlers constantly. Check the schedule weekly, or use bulk sign-up (below).
Capacity — every practice and race has a seat count set by your manager. A standard boat is 20 paddlers plus a drummer and steersperson; a small boat is 10 paddlers. Your manager may set a higher count to allow rotation, or lower it if only one boat is going out.
Status — each event shows whether you’re signed up, waitlisted, or haven’t responded, and how many seats are left.
Events that have started stay on the schedule for three days, greyed out. A 7pm practice is still there at 7pm, and still there the next morning. Nothing has been deleted.
6. Claiming a seat
Tap the event, tap to claim your seat. That’s the whole thing.
A few things worth knowing:
Seats are first come, first served unless your coach runs it differently. If your crew is consistently oversubscribed, sign up as soon as the event posts.
Claiming a seat is a commitment. Your coach builds a lineup from the sign-up list. When you claim and don’t show, the boat goes out a paddler short and the balance your coach spent time on is broken. Sign up honestly and drop out early if plans change, and you’ve done the biggest single thing a paddler can do to make a season run well.
Capacity is enforced. You can’t claim seat 21 of a 20-seat event. When it’s full you’ll be offered the waitlist instead.
One seat per person per event. Nobody signs up on behalf of a friend. (You can bring a named guest, which is different — see section 9.)
7. Signing up for several practices at once
On your events list, upcoming practices you haven’t claimed yet have a checkbox. Tick a few, or tick a month of Tuesdays, and claim them in one go.
You’ll get a breakdown afterwards showing what happened to each date, along the lines of “6 confirmed, 2 waitlisted.” A mixed result is normal rather than a failure: some of those dates were already full. A digest email lands with the same summary.
It’s the fastest way to handle a recurring practice pattern without opening fifteen pages.
8. Notes on your sign-up
Every sign-up can carry a short note, up to 200 characters. Use it for what your coach needs to know: arriving late, leaving early, shoulder is dodgy, bringing the spare drum.
You can edit the note without losing your seat. Change it any time from the same place you claimed the seat. Cancelling and re-registering to fix a typo would drop you to the back of the queue, and on a full boat you’d lose the seat outright, so don’t do that.
Team event slot claims take notes too — one per claim, so a pot-luck can carry “bringing the chilli” against your mains slot.
9. Bringing a guest
Once you’re confirmed for a practice, you can add a named guest: a friend trying the sport, a visiting paddler, anyone your crew is happy to have on the water.
Your guest takes a seat from the same cap you do. If the event is full the option disappears, since there’s no seat to give them. Remove a guest the same way you added them, and the seat goes back to the waitlist.
Guests don’t have accounts or paddling profiles and won’t appear in a lineup, so anyone who’s coming regularly should join the roster properly.
Team events use slots instead, so this doesn’t apply there.
10. Waitlists
When an event is full, join the waitlist. It’s not a formality; on most crews waitlisted paddlers get in regularly.
How it works:
- The event is full, so you join the waitlist behind anyone already on it.
- Someone with a seat cancels.
- The person at the top moves into the seat automatically and gets an email straight away.
- Everyone else moves up one place.
You are now signed up. Promotion isn’t an offer to accept. You hold the seat. If you can’t take it, cancel like anyone else so it passes to the next person.
Your coach can reorder the waitlist when someone has a genuine claim on the next seat. Reordering changes the queue only; it never puts anyone straight into the boat past a confirmed paddler.
This is why your email matters. A promotion at 4pm for a 6pm practice does you no good if you find out at 7. If you’re waitlisted for something you want, watch your inbox that day.
Late cancellations mean late promotions. Someone drops an hour before the event, the promotion goes out an hour before the event, and realistically the person at the top may not see it. That’s a reason to cancel early rather than a system failure.
11. Cancelling and dropping out
Open the event, cancel your seat. Do it as soon as you know.
Why early cancellation matters more than it sounds. Your seat goes to the top of the waitlist the instant you free it. Cancel three days out and that person can plan their week. Cancel forty minutes out and they’re at dinner. Your coach also rebuilds the lineup around the gap, and the earlier they know, the better the boat that goes out.
No penalty for cancelling. The app doesn’t punish you, and dropping out early always beats a no-show. Crews vary in what they expect for races specifically; that’s between you and your coach, not something the software enforces.
If you’re already in the lineup, cancelling takes you off the sign-up list, but your coach still has to rework the seating. Tell them directly if it’s close to race day.
12. The day-before check-in
About 24 hours before an event you’re signed up for, you’ll get a short email asking whether you’re still coming. One tap answers it, with no login needed.
Two answers, not three. You’re either coming, or you’re giving up your spot.
There’s no “maybe” here, and that’s deliberate. Marking yourself as maybe used to leave you holding the seat: you thought you were out, your coach’s roster still had your name on it, and the waitlist couldn’t touch it. Give up my spot cancels your sign-up properly, so the next person moves up and gets their email.
The same two buttons sit on the event page in the app, under “Can you make it?”
Only people holding a seat get the ping. If you’re on the waitlist, there’s nothing to confirm.
13. Boat seating and lineups
Your coach builds the lineup: which bench you’re on and which side you paddle.
Lineups live on the coach’s side of the app, so you won’t find one on your event page. Your coach will print the manifest, post it in the group chat, or read it out on the dock. Ask if you haven’t seen one by race morning.
Reading a lineup. A standard boat has ten benches, two paddlers per bench, plus a drummer at the bow and a steersperson at the stern. Benches are numbered from the front.
| Section | Benches | Typical role |
|---|---|---|
| Stroke / pacing | 1–2 | Set the rate for the whole boat |
| Front | 3–4 | Follow the stroke, transmit timing back |
| Engine room | 5–7 | Power; usually the heaviest paddlers |
| Rocket / back | 8–10 | Power and timing; technical seats |
A small boat runs five benches on the same principle.
“You’re on the wrong side.” Sometimes it happens. Your coach saw a warning and decided to do it anyway, usually because the boat wouldn’t balance otherwise, or because someone dropped out. It isn’t an oversight. If you genuinely can’t paddle that side, say so before race day rather than on the dock.
Lineups change. Late cancellations, weather, a boat swap at a regatta. Expect the lineup you saw on Wednesday to differ from the one on Saturday.
The app suggests; your coach decides. DragonSignUp can propose a balanced lineup from everyone’s side and weight, but your coach applies it, edits it, and saves it. If your seat looks odd, a human chose it.
Your preferred side is visible to your crew next to your name on the roster, so a wrong setting is easy to spot. Yours is the profile to fix it in.
14. Team events and sign-up slots
Not everything happens on the water. Team events cover meetings, pot-lucks, volunteer shifts at a regatta, fundraisers, and season-planning sessions.
The difference from a practice: instead of claiming one of twenty identical seats, you claim a specific slot.
Examples:
- A pot-luck with slots for mains, sides, dessert, drinks, and you claim what you’re bringing
- A regatta volunteer schedule with slots for marshalling 8–10am, water station 10–12, tear-down 4pm
- A season meeting with a plain attendance slot
You can claim more than one slot at a team event, and each claim takes its own note. Each slot has its own limit, so a popular one fills.
Claim the slot you can actually cover. Volunteer shifts in particular are what keeps a club’s race entry in good standing; when a slot sits empty, someone on your committee ends up doing it on top of their own day.
15. Reminders and notifications
DragonSignUp emails you. You’ll get:
- A reminder about a day before each practice and race you’re signed up for
- The day-before check-in asking whether you’re still coming
- A waitlist promotion notice the moment a seat opens for you
- Confirmations when you sign up, join a waitlist, or cancel
- A digest when you claim several practices at once
- A cancellation notice if your coach calls off the session
- Account emails — invites, password resets, sign-in links
Add the sending address to your contacts so none of it lands in spam. If you’ve stopped receiving reminders, check your spam folder before assuming something’s broken.
Reminders are a safety net, not the schedule. Check the app when planning your week rather than waiting to be told.
16. The team directory
Your crew has a directory listing every member’s name and email. Phone numbers show only for the people who chose to share theirs.
Yours works the same way: your number stays hidden until you tick the sharing box on your profile. Your manager may have entered a number for you when they added you to the roster, and it stays private until you say otherwise.
17. Race day
A short checklist for regatta mornings:
The week before
- Confirm you’re signed up for the race rather than assuming
- Ask your coach for the lineup once it’s built, and note your bench and side
- Claim any volunteer slots your club has posted for the event
- If you can’t make it, cancel now, not the night before
The morning of
- Check for changes. Someone drops out overnight more often than not.
- Note your bench number and side before you leave home
- Check the team event slots you claimed. Marshalling shifts often start before racing does.
At the venue
- Lineups change on the dock for reasons that never reach the app: a paddler no-shows, a boat is a different size than expected, the steersperson reads the water differently. Your coach’s call on the dock beats anything on your phone.
18. Belonging to more than one crew
Clubs often run several crews under one account: an A boat, a B boat, a masters squad, a mixed recreational squad. You can be on more than one roster.
What to know:
- Each crew has its own schedule, sign-ups, and lineups
- Switch between crews inside the app; your profile is shared
- Events can collide. The app enforces capacity within one event but won’t stop you claiming seats at two crews’ practices at the same time. Watch your own calendar.
- Your preferred side and weight follow you across crews. Update once, correct everywhere.
- At a regatta your club can seat you in another crew’s boat as a fill-in, without moving you off your own roster
19. Your account, privacy, and cost
You never pay. Paddlers join, claim seats, and use every feature free. Plans are billed to the crew manager or club admin.
No ads. No banners on any plan, including free, and rosters aren’t sold or shared with advertisers.
Who sees what:
| Detail | Who sees it |
|---|---|
| Name, email | Everyone on your crew, in the directory |
| Phone | Only if you turn on sharing |
| Preferred side | Your crew, next to your name on the roster |
| Weight | Your crew’s admins, or nobody, depending on your setting |
| Your sign-ups and notes | Your crew’s admins; other paddlers see who’s coming, not the notes |
None of it is visible outside your crew.
Changing your details. Edit your profile any time. If your email changes, update it before you miss a waitlist promotion.
Leaving a crew. Ask your manager to remove you from the roster.
Deleting your account. You do this yourself, from your profile. It takes effect at once: you can’t sign in afterwards, and every seat you hold goes back to its boat so the next paddler on the waitlist takes it. There’s no undo and no cooling-off period. That’s deliberate: a seat frozen for a month on a full boat costs your crew more than a mis-click costs you. If you’re the only admin of a team that still has other members, it stops you and names the team; hand the role over first.
20. Troubleshooting
“I can’t sign up — there’s no button.” The event is full, so look for the waitlist option. If it has already started or passed, sign-up is closed.
“My invite link says it’s invalid.” A manager regenerated it, which kills the old one. Ask for a new one rather than editing the URL.
“I can’t log in.” Try the sign-in link instead of your password. If you joined through Google you may never have set one. Once you’re in, add a password from your profile and a phone with no Google session stops being a locked door. The Can’t log in? page covers the rest.
“My sign-in link says it’s expired.” They last 15 minutes and work once. Request another.
“I’m not getting reminder emails.” Check spam first, then confirm the email on your profile is the one you actually use. If both are fine, tell your manager, who can confirm your roster entry is complete.
“I was on the waitlist and never got promoted.” Either nobody cancelled, or someone ahead of you was promoted first. Waitlists run in order.
“I said I wasn’t coming but I’m still on the roster.” Answering the check-in with anything short of giving up your spot leaves the seat held. Cancel the sign-up, or use Give up my spot on the event page.
“I need to fix my note.” Edit it in place. Don’t cancel and re-register, or you’ll lose your place.
“I’m seated on the wrong side.” Your coach saw the warning and chose it. Talk to them if it’s a real problem, and check your profile has the right side in the first place.
“I signed up but I’m not in the lineup.” Signing up claims a seat; the lineup is a separate step your coach builds. If the event is oversubscribed, not everyone who signed up necessarily paddles. Ask your coach how they handle rotation.
“An event disappeared.” Events drop off the schedule three days after they start.
“I’m on the wrong crew.” You probably used another crew’s invite link. Your manager can move you.
“I forgot my password.” Use the reset link on the sign-in page.
21. FAQ
Do I need to pay for anything? No. Paddlers use DragonSignUp free, always.
Does signing up for a recurring practice cover every week? No. Each date is separate. Use bulk sign-up to claim a run of them at once.
Can I sign up a friend? Not as a member, but you can add a named guest to your own sign-up for a practice. Send them the invite link if they’re joining properly.
How late can I cancel? Any time before the event, though earlier is genuinely better for everyone behind you.
Can I see who else is coming? Yes. Each event lists everyone confirmed, plus any guests, plus the waitlist in order.
Can I see the lineup? Not in the app. Lineups are a coach surface, so ask for the printed manifest.
Do I have to enter my weight? It’s used for boat balance, and you choose whether coaches see the number or only the app does. If you’d rather not enter one, tell your coach and they’ll seat you by hand.
Can I change my preferred side mid-season? Yes, and you should if it has changed. Tell your coach too, since they may have lineups already built.
Will my phone number be visible to the team? Only if you tick the sharing box on your profile.
Is there a mobile app? Not in the App Store or Play Store yet, but you can install it from your browser. Open DragonSignUp on your phone and choose Add to Home Screen: it’s in the Share menu on an iPhone, and the browser menu on Android. You get an icon like any other app and it opens without the browser bar. Lose signal and it tells you, instead of showing a blank error.
Who do I contact for help? Your crew manager for anything about your roster, schedule, or lineup. For account and login problems, the support portal has searchable articles and a form that opens a ticket.
Where do I see what changed in the app? Release notes lists every change and the day it went live. Worth a look if this guide describes something differently from what you’re seeing. The PDF in your downloads folder ages; that page doesn’t.
22. Glossary
Availability check-in — the day-before email asking whether you’re still coming.
Bench — a row of two seats in the boat, numbered from the bow.
Boat seating / lineup — the assignment of paddlers to benches and sides for an event.
Capacity — the number of seats in an event, set by your manager. Guests count against it.
Crew — a single team roster. A club may run several.
Drummer — sits at the bow, calls the rate and keeps the crew together.
Engine room — the middle benches, typically the heaviest and most powerful paddlers.
Guest — a named non-member you bring to a practice, taking a seat from the same cap.
Manifest — the printed crew list a coach hands in on race day.
Preferred side — the side you paddle best on: left, right, or either.
Promotion — being moved off the waitlist into a real seat.
Regatta — a competition day with one or more races, which your coach sets up so lineups can be tagged per race.
Seating bot — the feature that suggests a balanced lineup for your coach to apply, edit, or ignore.
Slot — a specific sign-up position at a team event, as opposed to an interchangeable seat at a practice.
Steersperson (sweep) — stands at the stern with the steering oar and controls the boat’s line.
Stroke — the front-bench pair who set the rate for the whole boat.
Trim — how the boat sits in the water, front-to-back and side-to-side. Balanced trim is faster.
Waitlist — the ordered queue for a full event.