Jason McKay steers Jamaica dragon boat crews toward IDBF world club meet after Nassau record

At the fifth Bahamas International Dragon Boat Festival on Goodman’s Bay in Nassau last weekend, Jamaica’s mixed 200m finalists stopped the clock at 1:01.82—a fresh national benchmark. Jason McKay, a competitor who has also shaped the programme, helped make that mark possible about eleven months after he first formed the crew that raced at the opening Jamaica Dragon Boat Festival on 31 May and 1 June 2025.

McKay enjoys films as keenly as he does competition, and he has leaned on the words Captain James T Kirk delivers at the start of Star Trek: “Your ongoing mission: Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before.”

He also paddled in Jamaica’s first heat of the 500-metre open class in The Bahamas. “I believe in walking the talk,” McKay said. “After McKay Security’s mixed team won the 200m at Jamaica’s first festival last year, we strategically combined a squad of personnel with dragon boat experience, joined by athletes from football, power-lifting and martial arts, resulting in a historic bronze medal in the mixed 200m at The Bahamas festival,” McKay said. “Success in sports is about strategy and long-term planning, which I have been doing from decades ago, using myself as a guinea pig at martial arts tournaments, such as the annual United States Open and European International Sports Kickboxing Association’s Amateur Members Association (ISKA AMA) World Championships, which Jamaicans such as Akino Lindsay and Richard Stone are now dominating.”

Few Jamaicans have worn national kit in three different sports; McKay has done so in rugby, martial arts and dragon boat racing. Away from the start line he has coached and managed with strong results, guiding figures such as Jamaica’s first taekwondo Olympian, Kenneth Edwards; ITF taekwondo Pan-American gold medallist Nicholas Dusard; and kickboxing title-holders Sheckema Cunningham, Subrina Richards, Stone, and Lindsay, ISKA AMA’s most decorated fighter.

He maintains the country already fields enough young, able prospects who can be “grown, trained and managed to beat the world,” and his interest in football has just channelled $10.6 million in sponsorship to the St Mary, Kingston and St Andrew, and St Thomas football associations to help restart youth leagues islandwide. “It is the same model that I used to form Jamaica’s combined martial arts team, which went unbeaten in 51 matches on world tours, primarily Asia, including China, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, a squad constantly replenished by inviting fighters from all martial arts schools locally as well as those transitioning from the McKay Security Jamaica Taekwondo High School League,” he said. “In dragon boat racing, we have everything we need. We have athletes, the world’s seventh-largest natural harbour in which to train, boats provided by the Chinese Benevolent Association and good year-round weather.”

With Jamaica’s second Dragon Boat Festival set for 13 and 14 June, McKay expects both mixed and open crews can lower the standards again as they aim to ‘boldly go where no one (Jamaican) has gone before’ — the International Dragon Boat Federation’s Club Crew World Championships, from August 29 to September 6.