It's certainly been a lot of fun so far, crew members say.

Training twice a day for the last few weeks, the crew members have had to pick up the rowing motion, which involves the entire arm in movement. Leahey says, since the crew sits on benches which do not move.

In addition, the stroke rate is much faster than a regular crew shell, which averages somewhere in the 30 strokes per minute range. In Hong Kong, the crews will average 90 strokes a minute during actual racing, though the highest they've done thus far is 76 per minute.

"It's not easy," says senior Rick Baney, who is skipping the trip in favor of today's ceremonies in Cambridge but has worked out with the 26 who will go.

"We have no idea what kind of competition we're going to get," says Greg Williams, who like everyone else in the Harvard boat has never before competed in a dragon boat.

To ensure that Harvard will become a regular partcipant in the event, the First National Bank of Boston is donating a dragon boat, which will be permanently stored in Cambridge.

The squad, however, has been practicing in a boat donated by Jordan Marsh, which had two boats made and shipped in from Hong Kong for an "Orient Express" promotion in 1980.

Leahey's just glad his squads have the chance to partcipate. "It's a morale builder for the team to partcipate in an event like this," he says, adding, "It's a change of pace and a lot of real fun. We'll be working hard and having a good time."