After a break of just eight months, Chattanooga’s second Dragon Boat Festival is returning to Ross’s Landing.

Last August, the inaugural races included about 750 participants on 32 teams. This year, 42 teams will send more than 1,100 paddlers skimming 250 meters along the water in the 41-foot-long boats.

The only complaint at last year’s event, which coincided with the opening of the Market Street Bridge, was temperatures hovering in the mid-90s, said Wendy Witso, founder of Dynamic Events & Management, the festival’s organizer.

“(Participants) weren’t complaining, but the main comment last year about what we could change this year was the heat, and we took that to heart,” she said. “It was so incredibly hot, and the experience can be so much better for the participants when it’s a nice spring day since that happens to be the best paddling weather.”

Each team consists of 20 paddlers, a drummer and an organizer-appointed helmsperson. Teams are formed mostly from area businesses and organizations, and each participant is required to raise $100 in pledges, all of which is donated to T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Chattanooga is one of only 80 cities in the country to host a Dragon Boat Festival, Witso said.

“When they’re promoting the city as a great place to come and live and do business, they can point to this festival as something that not every city has,” she said. “It gets people out and moving and outside away from the TV.”

Races are the festival’s most visual component, but it will also include Chinese cultural elements, including performances by the Organization for East Tennessee Chinese and Chinese American Organization and martial arts demonstrations. A kids area will be set up with temporary tattoos, a moon walk and balloon animals.