Brave women who have battled and beaten breast cancer converged on Sarasota, Florida to compete at the dragonboating breast cancer fundraising tournament.

A team made up of breast cancer survivors from Ballina right down to Laurieton and Camden Haven recently competed in the event, finishing 65th out of 101 teams, but as president Andrew Blundell said, it was purely for bragging rights.

"Really the win is just for bragging rights, because in the end everyone there is a winner they have survived cancer," he said. "It's all about being there and being apart of the community of people who have fought cancer and won."

The event was the fourth of its kind, featuring only paddlers who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and survived.

"Dragonboating started in Canada to support women with breast cancer," Blundell said. "They found that the motion of the rowing actually helped.

"It started about 30 years ago and there have been four cancer survivor events, with this being the latest of course.

"In our case, Greg Jackson coached the team which was made up of breast cancer survivors and there was a good mix of women from up and down the coast."

The team scraped into the major final of their group before surging to win it all by just 0.33 seconds.

Among the teams they beat were Canberra, who came second and featured the daughter of one of their own paddlers.

"We had around 26 women that went in the team and obviously had great success," Blundell said. "They were really pleased to win a medal and come away with a lot of experience.

"As a whole the event is so well supported and there was an absolutely massive turn out over in Florida."