The Greenland Bug Cont. (Pt. 7)

Once again two weeks has gone by and I can't say there has been a lot to report in progress. Although the progress that has been made is exciting! Here is what is happening...

Two weeks ago, I was still dealing with days hot enough to make the epoxy harden faster than expected. We were still in our record stretch of 34 days without rain in Washington D.C. Then just like the weather around here, we go from dry to 5 days straight of rain. Everything was wet, and I chose not to even try to work in the humidity. After the rain stopped, we started to get days in the 50's and 60's. Now my epoxy takes longer to harden than expected.

Before the deluge, I had just managed to practice laying out the twelve pieces that would make up the cockpit rim and then finally epoxied them in place when I was finally satisfied that they were trimmed enough and fit together well.

A gell sandwich with 3 layers of wood for the coaming riser.

Lots of clamps are needed to get all 12 pieces to stay in place.

Coaming rim temporarily clamped in place.

It was certainly exciting to see the coaming come together. I was so excited, that I started asking people where to buy neoprene and started working on a spray skirt and a tuilik design. I read every article that I could find about making a spray skirt or tuilik. I read about the Cunningham design to make them out of nylon/gortex. I found the Qajaq USA article by Shawn Baker, as well as the Qajak USA tuilik pattern. And I found a design created by Sweet Composites (Davey H. perhaps?).

I read these and regurgitated an idea for starting on a spray skirt. After talking to Nelson L. about my design, he very coily said that he had already gone through all these same ideas and made the skirt too. Wow! He has loaned me the skirt and his pattern. So I took what he had accomplished and progressed from there.

Nelson's spray skirt taking a test fitting.

Meanwhile the weather cleared up enough a couple of days ago to finally epoxy the cockpit coaming in place. Now I will need to start sanding again to prepare for the last of the fiberglass which will go onto the bottom and sides of the hull.

Final sheer height...to-be.

It was also a good time to look again at the dimensions of the boat. Notice that the dimensions are pretty close to what I started out saying I would do. And then compare them to my next smallest Greenland-like boat, the Outer Island. The new boat is at least two inches less all around. I do not know if this is absolutely as small as I would ideally like, but it should be fun!

Final deck height...to-be.

Outer Island sheer height.

Outer Island deck height.

Finishing up work on the coaming rim.

Patterns for a tuilik and a spray skirt.

One half of my modified greeland spray skirt.

From the one sheet of neoprene that Nelson was so kind to have sold me, it is plain to see that I will not be able to cut both a skirt and a tuilik. So I will make the tuilik from the black N2S 3mm neoprene, and add some N1S for the coaming rim edge as well as some Neoprene tape for the seams. Then I will buy a colored sheet of Neoprene to do the tuilik. Somehow I am resisting the black color for the tuilik. So many people are doing black as their style; Dubside, Freya, ... I think I will go for something more absurd. Maybe I can get some red N2S. I can tip my paddle in red epoxy and be matching.

The work comtinues.

The Greenland Bug Cont. (Pt. 6)

Just over a week has passed. I am on the home stretch on the boat, so to speak. At least I would like to think I am. Last week I glassed the bottom of the hull with one long piece of 4 oz. fiberglass and epoxy. And then as soon as I was satisfied with it, we had a freak rain shower on Fairfax for less than 30 minutes. I scrambled frantically to get a tarp hung over the boat so that no random drip of water would get onto the fresh gel coat. None did. Whew! The next day I trimmed and sanded the fiberglass just to the edge of the chine.

Fiberglass on the bottom hull.

Fiberglass edge trimmed and sanded.

Nothing was done again for a week, since I went to New York with Cyndi to watch her race. Read her blog just before this one to learn about that trip. I did not race. Although I won fastest kayaker at Delmarva the weekend before. I rolled more times in 30 seconds than anyone else. Whoo Hoo! My style of going fast

Yesterday I got back on track and laid 2 oz. fiberglass in two pieces onto the deck. The stern half went on easily, but the bow half was tricky. The bow of the deck made the glass buckle in a couple of places, leaving an uneven ripple which I will need to sand down smooth before I do the final epoxy coating. I decide to skip a couple of steps, specifically adding more epoxy between already dry coats of fiberglass and epoxy. I will not need the strength, and perhaps it will save on weight a little. I even tried to cut out enough 2 oz. fiberglass from that provided to do both the deck and the last layer on the hull bottom and sides, but there was just not enough. I will end up putting one more layer of 4 oz. glass on the hull bottom and sides sometime next week I hope.

Fiberglass on the deck being sanded.

A couple of days ago, I pulled down the old slalom boat and gutted it of all its fittings. I gave it a good cleaning and then decided to take it out for a test. I put only the seat back in. I tried all kinds of rolls; lay backs, forward finishing, had rolls, norsaq rolls, paddle rolls, etc. I found that the round shape of the hull made for excellent initiating of the rolls. I would bet that the light weight and short length helped too. The paddle rolls such as the shotgun, reverse sweep, spine roll and even the behind the back roll worked like a charm. The small back deck allowed me to complete a behind the back where my Outer Island back deck always gets in the way and prevents me from completing the roll.

Having said those good things for the boat, I need to add that it was simply too wide. It was twenty three inched wide and about eight inches deep behind the cockpit. The width was not so bad alone, but the seat width was at least three to four inches away from the true side sheer on each side. This made the effect that when trying to do a balance brace, it was impossible to keep the boat upright, and hand and norsaq rolls finishing on the front deck were hard to get past the counter buoyancy of that submerged for inches below my hip. Conclusion; good hull shape, but lousy width and body position. Maybe I should try it again without the seat in it.

So back to the new boat. The next step is to build the cockpit rim. Here is a photo of the final top layer in place ready to make measurements. The final cockpit will measure on the interior fifteen inches wide by eighteen and seven eights long. The final exterior will be nineteen inches wide by twenty two and seven eights long. This is not the exact dimensions in the original designs. The plans call for cutting out about three quarter of an inch on all sides after all the wood is installed. I am aiming for the smallest I can get. This will leave about a one inch overhang on the exterior of the rim for a skirt. Will a one inch overhang be too much and too fragile? I have yet to decide.

Cockpit rim laid out for measurement.

2007 Mayor's Cup New York City Kayak Championship

The Mayor's Cup New York City Kayak Championship and the culmination of my racing season. The Mayor’s Cup is an elite kayaking race around Manhattan Island. At between 28 and 30 miles (depending on your line), the marathon race is striving to become one of North America’s premier races and New York City's largest water event. The race is organized by Ray Fusco. I met Ray randomly back when I went to pick up my Tbolt in New York last year. When I heard his race presentation at Jersey Paddler in the spring I knew it was a race I wanted to do.

The course, a circumnavigation of Manhattan Island, appealed to me on several levels. First, it was long and I’d been looking for longer distance race to do. Up to now my longest race has been the 12 mile Wye Island and I always felt like I could do more after that. Second, the course has potential for some serious rough water – one of my strengths given years of sea kayaking and whitewater paddling.

The race sounded perfect, I just had to find the boat. I knew I couldn’t sit in my surfski for four hours nor did the non-bulkheaded Tbolt seem like a good idea. That issue was solved when I bought the Nemo back in May. As any of you who paddle with me know, I love this boat. It is fast, really fast, stable in the big water, comfortable and just pretty to look at. It would be the prefect boat to give me the confidence to take on the race.

Next I needed to drum up moral support in the form of fellow paddlers to train with. Ray was coming down to DC to give a presentation on the race at REI so I organized a special presentation for members of CPA and the WCC in hopes of luring a few people in. Ray did a such great job of describing how challenging the race would be that in the end it looked like I might end up having to do the race alone!

Training for Mayor’s Cup didn’t really begin until late summer. I had lots of shorter races in May, June, and July and used those to work on speed and technique. Distance I started to layer in toward the end of the summer first with a double WIPP in August and then with 20 + mile paddles with Bill and Brian each week. Those training runs were vital for figuring out hydration, nutrition and boat comfort. They taught me, for instance, that 2 Advil prior to paddling make my butt much happier in the boat over the long term. In addition the training paddles were useful for getting Brian B. on board. After quite a bit of encouragement and being coerced into 4 hour paddles, Brian decided that he might as well enter the race. (I think his very impressive finishes at Wye and the Seaford race this year also helped.)

With the prep-work done there was nothing left to do but race. Dave, Brian and I drove up to New Jersey on Saturday and stayed near Newark airport. We asked our friendly hotel clerk where to find some decent vegetarian food for dinner that night and he suggested a place called Iberia. So we set off for Portugal. Well that is what it felt like anyway. It was the most meat intensive restaurant I had ever seen in the US. There was nothing on the menu we could eat. Having already paid for parking, however, we thought we’d ask if they could make special plates. In the end, the kitchen produced a great pasta with veggie in a butter Garlic (and I mean GARLIC) sauce for me and a huge plate of rice, potatoes, and veggies for Dave. I think our dinner was actually better than Brian’s! Sufficiently carbo saturated we headed back to the hotel.

The alarm went off at 5:15 am but both Brian and I were already awake with the adrenaline flowing. We found some coffee and took off to navigate the streets of New York – a daunting task when you have $8,000 worth of kayaks on the roof. After Jill, Brian’s GPS navigator, suggested a few wrong turns and turns onto one-way streets Dave took over and got us down to North Cove Marina. There Ray’s team of volunteers were waiting to help carry the boats to the park where we would launch.

Ray has done an amazing job of promoting Mayor's Cup and this year’s field attracted some of the world’s best paddlers. 90 paddlers showed up – just about double from last year. Team Epic was out in force with Greg Barton and Herman Chalupsky as well as Brian Houston and their new guy John. I might not paddle an Epic boat but the Epic people are top notch and it was treat to be in their midst. Coming to give Greg and Herman a run for the money (the elite prize was $5,000 for first place) was Zsolt Szadovszki and Ian Grey both phenomenal surfski paddlers.

I scouted out my competition. Since I was in the Nemo I would be in fast touring and not unlimited. Turned out to be a good thing too, Kathy Manizza came down for this race with her S1-R. She is a surfski specialist and routinely puts up times that shame most men. There were a total of six women in singles this year. We had two in unlimited, three in fast touring and one in standard touring. Next year we’re aiming to get even more.

Ray’s organization continued to be evident as we prepared for launch. We would leave in five waves with touring going first and the elites going last. Timing with this race is everything to take advantage of the currents. We started in 10 minute increments right on schedule. To help protect the paddlers on the course, Ray had something like 14 coastguard boats on the water with several NYPD boats.

Things got off to a rocky start. I lined up with the other paddlers in the cove at the start line. When the start sounded we all paddled out only to have our boats picked up by the current and spun north. The Nemo took several very hard hits a people tried to regain control of their boats. I completely backed off and waited for them to pass before digging in and starting to paddle. It was after all a 28+ mile race. What was the rush all about? Once out of the mess I settled into a comfortable pace.

Ray had said we would have current with us for the majority of the race. This was great but also made pacing difficult. In my training runs I’d be able to do 5.5-5.7 MPH over a sustained 20+ mile paddle. However the current meant I couldn’t use speed as my indicator so I switched to heart rate with the aim of keeping it somewhere in the 150 range which is pretty sustainable long-term for me.

I hit that 150 BPM range and glanced at the GPS. I was cruising at a healthy 8 MPH. This was great! As usual, I was all alone. The water was slightly bouncy and there was a mild head/beam wind but nothing horrible. I started to enjoy the ride. I sped past the Norwegian Cruise line ships at dock, watched a couple of ferries pass and saw a giant tanker being towed into the harbor. I also saw cliffs and trees and beautiful blue sky. It was an interesting mix of urban and wild.

Just as I was ready to enter turn into Spuyten Duyvil I saw THEM coming. I’d been waiting for the fast touring men and/or the elites to pass me for some time. I guessed they’d catch me about 40 minutes in but it took until the 1 hour mark. In perfect diamond formation they sped past. Greg Barton leading the pack with Herman, Zsolt and Ian right there, riding his wash. I was doing 7 MPH at that point and they zoomed by me like I wasn’t moving. It was beautiful. Check out the pictures at www.surfski.info and you will see what I mean.

I chatted with a few other men as the passed me and together we turned south down into the Harlem River. And there my current assist up became an opposition current. I would have to fight the current until we hit either slack or the East River. My speed dropped from 7 MPH to 5 MPH. I paddled past the Peter J. Sharp boathouse which was mandatory halfway check in. For the first time all day I was hot.

Brian B. snuck up behind me at this point and drafted me for a chance to eat some apple. Once refueled, he left me behind. Christian, the other Nemo paddler in the race, and another pack followed shortly there after. We admired each others boats but again, they were too fast for me to latch onto. Right behind them was a guy in an EFT. He shouted over to me to hop on his wash so, never one to pass up a free ride, I did.

This guy’s name was Andy and Andy would keep me company for the next 12 + miles. I drafted him when I could and we discussed the course. I asked him if Hell’s Gate was as bad as everyone said. Hell’s Gate has the reputation of being the trickiest part of the course with water from Long Island Sound, the Harlem River and the East River combining to create standing waves, whirlpools and very confused water. He said it was worse and to hang on. Just before we got there we took a short fuel break and I ate some Cliff Bar and my pack of Sport Beans to get ready for the mess.

Only there was no mess to get ready for. The Gate was flat calm. The current was still whipping but there were no standing waves, no big scary whirlpools. I almost felt cheated. Andy and I paddled on. Staying mid-channel we were flying. At one point my GPS registered 11 MPH.

Next up was the south eastern side of Manhattan where we could expect significant boat traffic. All the ferries come through here with the Staten Island Ferry being the largest. I had lost Andy somewhere but just kept going. Around the South Street Seaport the water got significantly rougher and the waves bigger. I was having more and more fun. Have I mentioned I love my boat? Nemo would ride up and over the 3-4 foot confused waves only crash down and get ready for the next one. Combine that with a still rather speedy current and I was again riding at 7 MPH.

But then it was over. I was at mile 28 on my GPS and expected to be done. I turned west to round the bottom of the island and got smacked down by the wind my speed dropped to 4 mph. The waves continued but now were less fun. Andy caught back up to me just as we were approaching the Staten Island Ferry. It was pulling out and we would have to wait. I relished the break. Soon we were able to sneak behind the ferry. Wind still blasting, we turned north up the Hudson and I came to a near standstill. The wind funneled down the river and I crawled for every inch – 2 MPH barely moving. I cursed the wind. The entire time I kept thinking how horrible it would be to paddle nearly 30 miles and get stopped just short of the finish line because of a wind that was stronger than me. I dug in and pulled with everything I had. Technique was non-existent. It was a 100% pulling effort. Bit by bit I made progress. Andy continued to encourage me from ahead but a light person in a light boat is more at the whim of the wind than other paddlers and the wind was having its way with me. I just kept digging.

I slowly passed the Circle Line boats that were docked. If one of them pulled out and I had to stop it would be all over. I would lose any remaining forward momentum I had and not be able to regain it. Mercifully they all stayed put. South Cove came into view and I knew it wasn’t much farther. That last slug up the wall seemed to go on forever. Finally I saw North Cove and the finish line. Strangely I saw Dave sitting up on the wall with the timer. Turns out Ray put him to work … maybe I could have him subtract a few minutes for the headwind!

Two more strokes and I pulled into the protection of the marina. Andy was there cheering me on and a crew of volunteers lined the docks to help with carrying the boats. Other volunteers were handing out completion medals to every paddler as we exited the docks. I quickly vacated my spot so someone else could take out and made my way to the piping hot lunch spread, hot coffee, dessert mountain and live music that awaited. After 4 hours and 31 minutes I was ready.

I placed 1st in the Women’s fast touring class, was the second woman over all and 49th out of the 80 boats that finished the race. Without a doubt the Mayor’s Cup was the most difficult race I have ever done. It was also the best run, most professional and most fun. Ray deserves a huge amount of thanks for pulling together such a class act event. If you are looking for a challenge and have the rough water skills to go with it, this is race not to be missed.

Cyndi and Brian getting ready for the race.

The Greenland Bug Cont. (Pt. 5)

Well it has been a loooong time since I posted anything about my boat's progress. I have been working on it in bursts. I will go a week or two working each day, and then get to a tough spot where I will simply stare at it for a week or two. That mixed with working or travelling on weekends has made for some irregular progress.

Let me tell you where the project stands. But first, I should mention that I have just come back from Qajaq USA's Delmarva 2007 event.

(Check out Qajaq USA...)

It was a blast! Three days hanging out with other people who want to practice Greenland Ropes exercises, rolling kayaks and building boats. I tried lots of other skin-on-frame boats and a couple wooden kayaks. Of the two favorite boats (one skin and one wood) that I tried rolls out in, I enjoyed the McNeil's boats the best. Joy owns a small skin boat and Dennis a self-designed wood with a stripper deck. I believe that they both built the boats for rolling, but seemed to add enough room into the boats to make them comfortable for paddling as well. The skin boat was a little too small for me, and the wood was a little more volume than I wanted in my boat. So to test their rolling capacity I did layback rolls, forward finishing hand rolls and balance braces in all the boats, including my Outer Island. Obviously the small skin boat did the best balance braces and laybacks. The wood was a little better at the two as well. But surprisingly, my ole Outer Island was still the best for forward finishing hand and Norsaq rolls. Perhaps it is simply the round hull that is providing that quality. Anyway, I still think I am on the right track with my boat, I am just excited to see if my new hard chine super-low-volume boat reacts the same for forward finishing rolls versus laybacks as I have just discovered with other boats.

I believe when I left of the last blog, I had just completed the interior of the hull. So shortly after that I spent a good day working on taking measurements of the bulkheads and deciding what to do for their size. During all the time that I was working on the open hull, I noticed that it was not always the same width at all times. During the day as the air heated up, the width of the hull would expand up to a quarter of an inch, and sometimes more. I am convinced that it was a combination of the heat and the humidity, although I am sure the the heat had more effect. As the hull sat, it would be a minimum of 19 inches wide in the morning, and somewhere about 19 and a quarter in the afternoon. Well, I like the idea of the narrower beam, so I was planning on trying to capture that. I also noticed how the hull had a natural 'pinched' shape as you ran your eye from bow to mid ships and then back to the stern. It was the natural shape of the side hull panels pulling inwards as much as they could against the outwards flare of the boat shape. Mark Roger's instructional book directed me to place spacers into the hull at this time to ensure that the hull flared out into an even arc along the beam of the hull. Silly me-I decided to ignore this. It seems to me that the hull was trying naturally to recreate the Greenland rolling boat form where more volume is removed from the boat by 'pinching' in the beam fore and aft of the cockpit. As I said before, I believe that this characteristic makes a Greenland rolling boat do two things better: first your body at the cockpit will lay lower in the water during a balance brace or completion of a roll, secondly, the greater flat surface created by the sides of the bow and stern flare will create more stability during the times just mentioned. Hopefully this is a correct assumption on my part for the characteristics of a Greenland rolling boat. But who knows!?

So I left the pinching effect stay, measured the hull in the morning and cut my fore and aft bulkheads out of cardboard, trimming as I went until they fit just right. Then glued final wood cutouts in place with epoxy, along with a strengthening strip along their upper edge. Perhaps I may not have mentioned a step before this, where I painstakingly glued on two layers of plywood as sheer strips along the gunwales from bow to stern, then planed then down so that their angles would match the deck yet to come as it will be flat behind the cockpit and curved in front of the cockpit. That step alone took me a week. After the two bulkheads were in, I sanded the interior of the hull one more time and then did a final smooth coat of epoxy inside. I slightly roughed it up with fine sandpaper and a scotchbrite pad afterwards for a satin sheen.

Next the deck!

Once again after staring at the boat for a week or more deciding what to do for putting the deck on, I finally got up enough nerve to continue. Since I had taken in the hull beam dimension significantly from the original plan, I knew there would be a huge amont of overhang once the deck had been installed. I figured out how to mark and remove this excess before continuing. I made a marking tool to mark the deck a quarter inch outside the exterior hull sheer edge and then ripped off all the excess with a jig saw. I now have lots of high grade firewood for the winter.

The next step was to make sure again that I could get into the boat alright. So I gingerly placed the hull on foam blocks and practiced getting in and measuring the height of the foredeck at what I believed to be the minimum clearance. Nelson even came over one weekend to share the fun of squeezing into the boat and seeing what minimal deck height he could tolerate. After much experimentation, I decided upon taking the deck height to eight inches instead of my previous design of seven and five eights inches. Next I took the provided deck riser piece which would hold the deck up at the desired height and curvature and started slowly cutting it down (actually I made a copy and cut this just in case I screwed up), until I got the eight inch height I wanted.

Now comes the hard part. I placed the deck riser in place, painted the underside of the large fore deck panel, evenly spread epoxy on the sheer strips already on the hull, and carefully placed the deck on top of the hull. Then I used every cam-strap and prepared string to tighten the deck piece down to the hull so that an even contact was made all around. Just for good measure that day, I placed the small bow end on as well and tied it down too. Whew! I felt like I had finished doing a project about which I had no clue of what I was doing. I only hoped it would hold.

Gluing down the first of the four deck panels.

Lots of straps, string and weights are needed to get the deck panels to lay down clean.

The fore deck support which is holding the shape of the deck while glued and fiber glassed.

A good shot of the fore bulkhead/foot brace.

Well it held, and the next day I epoxied down the two stern panels. They were actually harder to keep flat against the hull edges than were the two front panels. The following day I started planing down the overhang still sticking off the deck. For all the planing I have spoke about I found it immensely easier to use a spoke shave rather than a block plane. There was just too much curvature in the pieces to be planed to use a block. Once the planing was complete, it was amazing how good it looked, except for all the epoxy fingerprints and old duct tape marks on the hull. It was now officially a boat! Well almost...

Planing and sanding down the deck overhang.

The next job was to sand and sand and sand some more. First I sanded off all the fingerprints, globs of epoxy and old duct tape scars and tape sticky backing. At this point, may I make a suggestion. If you or anyone else you know believes it is a great idea to use duct tape on a plywood boat to hold it in shape while the epoxy is drying, tell them they are nuts!! I will always have scars in the wood where the duct tape pulled fibers out of the wood when it was removed. It was NOT worth the effort. Stick to copper wire stitches or use rope and straps.

After I completely sanded the hull, then I added more epoxy along the chines and the keel to fill any gaps. The pretty sanded hull looked nasty again after this. Well, more sanding then. Next I added epoxy onto the keel edges of the bow and stern sheer as well as about three feet back along the keel line from both bow and stern. This is supposed to make for a hard keel strip on the delicate edges. And it looks cool. Of course then there was lots more sanding. I sanded and sanded and sanded for at least a week. Finally I was down to 220 grit paper, the wood was getting smooth and shiny and I had even over sanded in a couple of places right through the first layer of the wood. Nothing vital. It will be a memory of all the sanding to see on the completed boat.

Epoxy stern (and bow) sheer strips.

Epoxy keel strip built into the stern (and bow.).

You can see the 'pinching' from this angle.

The profile of the boat while upside down on the horses.

Now it sits, ready to have the fiberglass and epoxy laid on the exterior of the boat. First the hull, then the deck, then the hull and sides once again. And I am back to staring at the boat waiting to get up enough nerve to continue.

Finished deck awaiting glass and a coaming.

What I plan to do yet before I finish the glassing of the deck is to play with my fit. I noticed that after I attached the fore deck to the hull and took out the fore deck riser, the deck sagged back down from a height of eight inches to about seven and five eights again just fore of where the cockpit rim should be. So now that the deck is on, I need to revisit that option of lowering the deck just that little bit more. Should I do it? Probably.

Lastly, I have already been giving thought to what the next boat should be like. How could I make an even better rolling boat, has been going through my mind all week. The next boat would lower the stern deck still more, keeping it flat in the traditional East Greenland style. The fore deck will be rounded as the C.L.C. design evolved using a single tortured panel of wood. The hull shape will be as rounded as possible in a shallow smooth arc from beam edge to edge, and with a smooth transition from hull to deck. Over all length would be from 16 to 17 feet and beam about 18 inches. Beam enough to prevent too much lateral slop while capsizing and returning upright, and cockpit opening as small as possible to obtain as much contact as possible since so much other contact has been lost in the overall deck height. And the overall weight would have to be less. Of course this is all just wishful thinking yet. I still have not even had the one in progress on the water.

Then I wondered if I would make that next boat, still only going on what I know, how would I do it? Wood, stripper, skin on frame? It would be all up to how to make that hull a smooth curve. Plywood would be crazy. It would have to be a dozen or more thin strips that all join effectively into a curved hull. A stripper would be possible, but hard to imagine, and heavy. A skin on frame would be the easiest method and even the lightest. It would have to be a super-low-volume Greenland style back deck, curved fore deck, and Badarka-like hull with many chine strips.

So I started thinking about this fictional boat, and then it occurred to me that I already have one just like it on the boat rack. Almost like it. It has the low flat back deck. It has the low curved fore deck. It has the low curved hull. Although it is probably still twenty or more inches wide and only four meters long. Know what it is? My old-school slalom boat. Hmm......

Sprint Racing 101

Yesterday was the Washington Canoe Club's 2007 Masters Invitational Regatta and my first official sprint race. Typically when I go racing, I get in the boat and paddle for an hour, two, or three and then am done. There is some adrenaline at the start and maybe again some at the finish but overall the races are pretty tame (mostly because I'm always alone ...).

That is not at all the way sprint racing goes. There it is all adrenaline all the time. On Sunday there were a total of 34 races each 10 minutes apart spanning from about 9:30 am until 3:30 pm. Each race was 500 meters and every paddler could enter a maximum of eight races. Individual awards and points given were for each club. Six (+-) clubs joined us from as far north as Ontario, Canada and as far south as Georgia. At the end of the race the club with the most points wins.

Our goal was to race as much as we could and stack each event with as many WCC boats as possible. Since eight races was the max, eight is what I and the rest of the WCC folks signed up for.

Since this was my first sprint race, I wasn't sure how the process of checking in, finding your lane and lining up went, so I was relieved my first race was a K4 mixed boat. I could just follow the rest of the team and figure it out as I went along. Next, it was my K1 race. I took the Orion but opted for the low seat version to make sure I didn't inadvertantly swim on the start or do something equally embarrassing. As I approached the start line I saw Melissa there and in my class! Give me a break. I didn't have a prayer. Oh well, I finished third so a medal for me and points for the team.

Next it was on to K2 with Filippe, that was fun but we didn't do so hot. We were in the tippier VanDuehsen (sp?) and I had to drive since Filippe weighed the front down too much. Derek really has to give me driving lessons as I can't seem to steer, paddle, breathe, and balance/brace all at the same time yet.

Another K4 mixed and K2 with Rich followed in short order. Then it was time for the K1 novice class. This was, as Melissa shouted from the docks, "my race". Too bad by then I was running out of steam! Nonetheless off I went. There were only four of us in the class and three of us were WCC members. It would be a good team points race at the very least. The gun went off and I dug in hard before settling into nice long strokes. I didn't see the others but didn't turn to look either. I just kept paddling. I crossed the line in first place with a time of 2 minutes 37 seconds or something close to that. I was pleased.

I closed the day out with a K4 women's boat where again I got stuck steering and then the last race of the day the K2 mixed final with Rich. For that race Rich and I choose the slightly more stable boat and had a much better race than the first one.

As we powered over the line, I was exhausted and so glad to be done. What made the sprint so much more tiring than a distance race for me was the need to always be moving and fast -- from race to race and boat to boat. It always seemed that no sooner had I gotten back from one race and put my boat up than I was being called for another race. Staying on top of things was stressful.

Since one of the clubs which always comes down for the race is from Canada and today (Monday) is Canadian Thanksgiving there is a tradition to serve Thanksgiving dinner. While the final touches were put on dinner, awards were passed out. I got three bronzes and a gold. Not to bad for my first sprint race and WCC came out the club winner with a margin of only 8 points! I think I contributed my part!

Dinner was excellent complete with veggie stuffing, huge salads, wine galore, turkey (if you're into that ...), corn on the cob, chili, breads of all types and pumpkin pie and brownies. I dare say that WCC might put CPA to shame when it comes to paddling to eat!