Wye Island Regatta

For those of you who don’t know, the annual Wye Island Regatta is one of the best attended and most loved races in the DelMarVa area. Really, it is a rowing regatta put on by the Annapolis Rowing Club but they are nice enough to make room for us kayakers as well.

Circumnavigating Wye Island can be a trip of anywhere from just less than 12 to more than 30 miles depending upon how closely you hug the shoreline. The race literature put the “safe” course at 12.4. In general the idea is to point hop as much as possible and to follow a tight line without going into the shallows. A couple of times I cut it too close and watched in horror as my GPS dropped from 6 mph to less than 4 mph. Drag really does make a difference!

This race was going to be a bit of challenge for me as I was in San Francisco on business the entire week before and didn’t get to paddle at all. Fortunately I’ve paddled Wye enough times to be comfortable with the course. The weather and my general fitness were another issue.

The entire week I was gone, Susanita, Susan and Kathy were emailing daily discussing weather, waves, and wind. They were trying to decide on whether to paddle their surf skis or their sea kayaks. As the T-bolt isn’t quite as tippy as the skis (or at least isn’t as tippy as my ski) I figured I’d be OK but they still had me fairly worried with forecasts of fog, wind at 15 knots and increasing, waves of 1-2 feet. Conditions fine for a sea kayak but less than ideal when considering 18 inch wide boats (or less in some cases!).

I got home on Friday afternoon with enough time to load the boat on the car and to pack my gear. With a last look at the forecast I decided to put the Silhouette up there also -- just in case conditions looked really bad at the put in.

Arriving at Wye Landing, I began to see many familiar faces. The racing community here isn’t terribly big and its super friendly. I look forward to seeing everyone as much as the race itself. Brian, Susanita, Melissa and Holm were already there and Chris, Kathy, Susan, Cliff, the Todd family, Stephen and Charlie arrived shortly there after. Having raced for just about one year now it is amazing how many of the people and/or boats I recognized.

In the end the weather cooperated. It was cloudy and cool with off and on rain. Much better than last year’s heat wave. Everyone paddled the boats they really wanted to paddle which gave us a decent showing in women’s racing kayaks.

This race was a weird one for me as I paddled the vast majority of the race alone. Wye doesn’t do one mass start but rather rolling starts based on whoever is at the line at any give time. A group of us all got together at the start to at least simulate a mass start, however it soon spread out, with the much faster guys and Melissa, who is just a rock star, in front and most of the others behind me. For a good two thirds of the race I was without company. I would occasionally hear the swooshing of the skulls as they passed but that was it. I’m not good at pushing myself in those situations and slacked off more than I should have. Eventually, I started to see a kayak out of the corner of my eye and I thought I better turn it on in case it was one of the women. It turned out to be Stephen who started a few minutes after our wave. He said he had been chasing me for miles!

I did better this year in the T-bolt in terms of time. At 2:06, I was more than 10 minutes faster than last year. Next year, I’d really like to get to 2 hours or less so I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me! That means more time working on technique and fitness. It sure would be nice if I could find a couple more training partners … Anyone want to go paddling?