Month: July 2016

So after the Canadian Surfski Champs, I headed down to Hood River, Oregon for the Gorge Downwind Championshops. I don’t actually like the name, because it makes it seem like it’s a single race, but it’s not – it’s nearly a full week of downwind shuttles with a race somewhere towards the end (they’re going to announce when the race is when they get a better handle on the wind forecast). The Gorge is famous among wind/water sports enthusiasts like wind surfers, kite boarders, and now SUP, outrigger canoe and surfski paddlers for the consistent winds and waves that roar upriver along the Columbia River Gorge for most of the summer, and now we have a bunch of days where we can enjoy the waves without worrying about the logistics of arranging car shuttles and stuff. There are 300 of us at this event, and shuttles run from noon to 4pm, meaning that a sufficiently well organized and motivated paddler could get an early run before the wind has peaked, and then another one when the waves are just about at their highest.

Driving up yesterday, I was impressed by just how strong the winds were. You didn’t get a lot of views of the river from the highway, and mostly I was concentrating on trying not to get killed by horrible Oregon drivers – including the tow truck blocking the left lane on a semi-blind corner in a 60 mph zone with no cones or flares and the 18 wheeler who decided that one blink was all the warning he needed to give before moving left and checking your mirrors is for sissies. So I didn’t see if the river waves were as ripping as I’d been lead to believe. My motel is a construction site – they’re building a second set of units and they’re way behind schedule, so the parking lot is partially blocked by construction equipment and there is caution tape up all over the place.

I woke up this morning with butterflies in my stomach. I know I’m not as fast as most of the paddlers who live in places with good waves – the Canadian Championships proved that pretty definitively. And the rules are that you must paddle with a buddy. So what if I couldn’t find anybody to paddle with? Ryan Taj Paroz is a top junior (under 23) pro paddler from Australia, and he said he was going to take me out on a double, possibly tomorrow. But that’s just one run. I want to make at least one a day, hopefully more. I tried to hit up some people at the Canadians who said they’d be coming down, but none of them seemed all that interested. If I couldn’t find anybody to buddy with me, I would have wasted my trip.

When registration opened, I headed down to the park and registered. They were already loading up boats for the first couple of shuttles. I saw two guys who looked fit but not super fit who were setting up V8s. I asked them if they’d buddy with me, and they agreed. Bob and Hong. They were friends from San Francisco and obviously paddled a lot more on the ocean than I do. I thought this could be a problem, but maybe the fact that I’ve got a faster boat would help level that gap.

By the time we got to the put-in, the wind was pretty strong. A couple of the more experienced people were complaining that it wasn’t as big as yesterday, but it seemed like plenty to me. We launched and got ready, and off we went. A couple of the guys who launched with us immediately went rocketing off towards the Washington side where the waves were said to be the biggest. But some of the others didn’t pass us and I’m not sure where they went.

I immediately started catching some nice waves – stuff that would be pretty big on Lake Ontario, more like what I got when I was in Tarifa. Bob was ripping it up and was ahead of me, and Hong was pretty much even with me – sometimes I’d link together some good runs and get ahead of him, but he always came storming back and pulled up even or ahead. Bob would sometimes resort to zig-zagging or even throwing his feet in the water to wait for us, but because Hong was his buddy and I was keeping up with Hong, I never had to worry that I was making him wait or ruining his day.

As we got further on, the waves got bigger and bigger. Bob was angling out to the left, towards the Washington side of the river in the part of the river I think they call “Swell City”. Hong and I didn’t get quite as far over as him, but we were in some good stuff. We could see some SUP paddlers ahead, but otherwise it was just the three of us. I can definitely say that I was on some of the biggest waves I’ve ever been on. The V8 Pro was awesome – so stable and nimble. I was carving S-turns down waves. I frequently got swamped with waves coming in the side and filling up the cockpit when I stalled on the back of a big wave, but the water was warmer than it had been at Squamish and because it was all coming from behind or at least from the rear quarters, I never felt nervous or overwhelmed. After the cockpit filled, you’d get a small run on a small wave, and maybe put in a dig to jump onto a bigger wave, and in no time flat the drain will have sucked the cockpit dry. A double surfski that had launched with us came up level with us and then fell behind – I heard them complaining afterwards that the wavelength had been too short and they ended up “high centered” with water filling both cockpits a lot, so they couldn’t get up to a good speed.

After an hour or hour and a quarter, though, I was starting to feel like I wasn’t enjoying it as much anymore. I don’t know if I was tired, or the waves were overwhelming, but I just started trying to figure out where the end was and if we were getting close. Hong came up to me and said we should be moving over to the right towards the Oregon shore because we were getting near the end, and I was a little relieved to get into the smaller waves on that side. Bob was still way out in “Swell City”. As we got closer to the end, the double that I mentioned before came up beside us, as well as a guy in a V12 who had been on our bus. We paddled a bit together and then Bob came over and said we should wait because Hong was a ways back. That was a bit odd, because Hong and I had been neck and neck the whole way, but afterwards I found out that he’d caught a weed. But as I was stopped in the water with my feet out, I wasn’t as stable as I’d been when I was moving and just as Hong caught up and Bob took off, I fell in. Hong and the double got to watch my not very good remount, but I don’t even know if Bob noticed.

Hong and I weren’t 100% sure where the end was – the people in the double and the V12 evidently did, but they were behind us. I thought I saw boats on the shore in this little bay, so I paddled over, but it was just wind surfers not boats. That’s when the guy in the V12 pointed out the sand bar. It was crazy – from where I was in near shore, it looked like the sand bar was blocking almost the entire river. Google Maps shows it isn’t really the whole river, just the Oregon half, but from my angle there was a person standing on the sand bar and he looked like he was directly under the middle span of the bridge that was behind him. But the place we had to land was a channel on the other side of that sand bar. So we went around it, and then paddled through side waves for nearly 500 meters. Bob and Hong actually got out early because it was so shallow they thought they were going to run aground with their surf rudders, but I found the deep part of the channel and paddled in closer to my car. Which is a good thing, because it was way too windy to be carrying a light boat alone, especially one that doesn’t belong to you.

To my great disappointment, however, I discovered that while I’d turned on my GoPro, I hadn’t hit “Record”. I really need to get better at the “switchology” of these various cameras.

Before I came here, I’d hoped that I’d be able to paddle two downwinds a day. I did a lot of long paddle workouts to make sure I had the aerobic stamina to handle two 7 mile runs in a day. But what I didn’t count on was the muscle fatigue. We finished this one around 2pm and Hong was talking about meeting back at 3:30 to do another, but after getting back to my hotel room to change and get some lunch, I decided that my shoulder muscles were sore and tired, and I didn’t want to be out there in the big stuff if I wasn’t strong enough to power through it. I didn’t want a whole run that felt like that bad kilometer or two of this run. So when Hong called I told him to go ahead without me. There is a pilot’s aphorism that goes “It’s better to be on the ground wishing you were up there than to be up there wishing you were on the ground”. Change “ground” to “shore” and “up there” to “on the river”, and you’ve got how I feel right now. So yeah, the plan still is to try to do two runs a day, but this run was so awesome that I won’t kill myself to do two runs – if I only get one a day, and it includes a few more runs like that one, I’ve got my money’s worth.

I’m back in Squamish, British Columbia for the Canadian Surfski Championships. I came last year and had a really good time, so I thought I’d try it again. Only this time, instead of spending a week before the Championships doing family stuff, I decided to be selfish and come in a few days before the race, spend two days in Squamish preparing for the race, then head down to Hood River Oregon for the Gorge Downwind Championships. Also, because I’m also going to be spending some time in “Da Gorge”, this year I elected to get a slightly slower but more stable boat, an Epic V8 Pro. Last year I paddled the V10 Sport identical to the one I spend most of my time in at home, and I was a little bit on-edge at times (and I fell in during the race).

Thursday evening after I checked into my hotel, I went for a short paddle to get used to the boat. I met a couple of paddlers who were coming in as I was going out, including Jasper Mocke who I don’t think recognized me from last year. The area in front of the delta was the usual squirrely mess and I ended up with a cockpit full of water several times – and the water was quite cold. Because it was cold, I was alone, and it was overcast and threatening to rain, I decided I didn’t need to spend a lot of time in that squirrelly water and I basically just went out to about where I’d dumped last year and turned around and came back in. The boat handled well, if a little slow, but it seemed solid and stable.

Friday was beautiful and sunny and I debated with myself whether to do another paddle, but it came down to “will I be faster tomorrow if I paddle today”, and I decided the answer was no, so I did touristy stuff instead. If I’d gotten another offer of a downwinder with some pros like last year, I might have, but no offer showed up.

Saturday morning was another overcast, cool day and it looked like it was going to be a complete shut-out in the wind department. The terrestrial forecast said it was going to remain cool in Squamish with 4-8 km/hr winds, and the all important inland forecasts for Whistler and Pemberton didn’t look any better. If there was one thing I remembered from last year, it’s that hot days in Pemberton are what generates the wind in Howe Sound. But in the parking lot at the hotel I ran into Ryan Taj Paroz, a top “junior” (under 23) pro paddler from Australia. Last year he’d been in the truck when we went for that downwinder, and the next day he found and friended me on Facebook, which was unexpected, and then he’s been really nice to me ever since, which is AMAZING. He’s even offered to paddle with me at the Gorge, which I can’t really believe because like I said he’s an experienced pro who paddles at the top levels of the sport, and I’m some schlub who can barely manage a not-quite-last-place finish at these events. So anyway, Ryan was telling me that somebody (sorry, I forgot his name even though it was one I recognized) had a better forecast that said that things were going to build by race time and we should have two to three footers at least. He also told me that the tide would be going into the channel instead of out like it was last year, so we won’t have to avoid the tongue of water coming out of the channel like we did last year. Cool.

Driving up at 9am to drop off the boat at Porteau Cove, Howe Sound wasn’t just flat, it was glassy. You could see the reflection of the mountains in the water, and there wasn’t even a boat wake on it. Oh oh, am I going to regret my boat choice? Well, not if Ryan’s prediction was right, but based on what I was seeing? Hell, I could have paddled my V12 in that.

After dropping off the boat, I went down to the O’Siem pavilion to pick up my goodie bag and formally register. I’d already gotten my boat number (applied by Deep Cove staff) and race shirt when I’d picked up my boat on Thursday. They gave me a choice of number (actually, they said “pretty much anything bigger than 41 is still available”) so I picked 042, the answer to life, the universe and everything. The goodie bag had some food stuff (a couple of pieces of chocolate, a protein bar, a bottle of Muscle Milk, etc) in it, and a few other things, including a combination bottle opener and knife that I’ll have to make sure stays in my checked bags when I fly home. I went back to my hotel room to change and wait for closer to race time. Most of the food stuff didn’t survive this delay. At 11:30 I went back to the pavilion and had to park literally a kilometer away because there were multiple activities happening in downtown Squamish including a farmer’s market and every street was parked up. At 12:00 we jumped on the bus back to Porteau. On the drive back to Porteau, we could see that the wind had picked up a bit and there were some whitecaps out in the Sound. Good news!

At Porteau Cove, we milled around for a while making sure our boats were set up for the race, talking to other paddlers, admiring other people’s race setups, and getting nervous. At 1-ish, Bob Putnam and Ian Lowe did a paddler’s roll call, a safety briefing, and then we launched and paddled up to the actual cove where the race started.

Paddling out to the start, it was obvious that while the conditions were not as big as last year, they were still big enough to provide a challenge. The side waves on the way to the hotspot buoy weren’t going to be the problem they were last year, but I was still not going to be going full speed on them. But it did look like I was going to be catching some waves on the way down the Sound. The hotspot buoy looked literally on the other side of the Sound (it wasn’t) and many people expressed disbelief that that was actually the buoy we were seeing. We knew it was supposed to be 1 to 1.5 kilometers to it, but it looked two or three times that distance away.

The start horn went off, and once again my typical slow start ensured that I’d be practically in last place by the time I got up to speed. Have you ever paddled in nearly 100 surfski wakes? I have now, and it’s pretty amazing what a mess of reinforcing waves they make. Early on, a guy I’d met at the hotel, Billy, was just in front of me and I tried to get on his stern wake, but he slowly pulled away. Then I was behind two women paddlers, one in a purple Huki ski and I tried to stay with them, but they had a few boat lengths on me by the turn. I went a bit high on the turn and came in sharp, and my stern got clonked by somebody who obviously stayed low and turned wider, so I knew I wasn’t completely alone.

After you make the turn, it’s a sight to behold as some paddlers veer sharply to the right back towards the shore, others go far left out further into the middle of the sound, and some go straight downwind. So from my position near the back, you see this amazing sight of more surf ski paddlers than I’ve ever seen in my life all spread out in front of me filling the Sound from left to right.

As I’d expected, once I turned I was getting some rides. Not like last year where you’d get on the wave and just put on a slight brace and enjoy the ride, like the classic view you have of a surf skier on a wave, but more the type where you continue paddling but with very little effort behind it so as you feel the wave starting to fade you can put on some effort and either get over it onto the one that’s building in front of you, or you can put on a little less speed but be ready to handle the next one coming up from behind. I was getting some good linked runs. There was a guy I keep seeing off to my right who was keeping pace with me. Every time I put a good set of runs together and I thought “surely I’m pulling away now”, I’d look over and he’d also be putting in a good set of linked runs. Fortunately when I stalled out on the back of a wave and didn’t link runs, he’d still be there. But other than him, I was pretty much alone. The woman with the purple Huki was nowhere to be found, nor the other woman who’d been with her at the hotspot.

As we approached Watts Point, which is where Howe Sound makes about a 45 degree bend and the wind and wave conditions change abruptly, I noticed three things:

• The guy who’d been on my right was now way over to the right, almost to the shore.
• There were a lot of people who looked like they were almost under the cliffs at Watts Point.
• The waves were trying to push me directly to those cliffs.

I didn’t want any part of that – I didn’t want to get near cliffs, and the rebound waves from those cliffs were already bad enough as far out as I was. So I was using the techniques I’d learned in Tarifa to use the waves, but redirect to the direction I wanted to go. I ended up passing a little closer to Watt’s Point than I probably should have, and I ended up in the calm water past the tip of the point. Probably not where I wanted to be in this boat – if I’d stayed further out I might have gotten more rides, but it seemed like everybody still out on the course was in tight.

As I got closer to the confused water in front of the river delta, I was thinking that it was much rougher than last year, but also I seemed to be handling it much better – to the point where I was catching waves and getting the occasional ride. There was one guy ahead of me who was the picture of me last year – he was going brace, brace, brace, brace, tentative little paddle stroke, brace, brace, brace. I passed him. Then there was a guy doing a remount who had a safety boat alongside. He managed to get upright again and was paddling with his feet still in the water for stability when I suddenly caught a really big wave and whizzed by. Three people with cameras in the safety boat turned my way and started taking pictures, so I gave them a big smile and a bit of a whoop. Unfortunately just after the wave petered out, I got caught by a couple of cross waves and had to put in one of the only safety braces I’d done the whole race. But I got paddling again and headed up the channel.

The confused water lasted further into the channel than I remembered it from last year, and at one point I was worried that the waves were going to carry me into the log booms on the right of the channel until I managed to get to the hard left where it was more sheltered. I put on what little speed I had left to make sure neither of the two guys I had passed passed me back. I didn’t know if anybody else was behind me, but as far as I was concerned those two were my insurance that I didn’t come last. I was disappointed to see the purple Huki was already in the grass on shore, but I looked back and could see a few people finishing behind me.

They use WebScorer for this event, so the results were online almost as soon as I finished. And while I was a not very respectable 93rd out of 108, I felt pretty good about it. I was 10 minutes faster than last year, and it was a big field of people most of whom spend a lot more time on the ocean than I do. A couple of things I noticed looking at the results though – the guy who was dead last last year was 25 minutes faster this year. I find it amusing that they call the class for V8s and similar surf skis “18 foot male”. Those guys aren’t that tall. Speaking of V8s, last year there was a guy who I passed not long after the hotspot in a V8 who every time he caught a wave, he’d whoop with joy. In spite of my remount last year, he finished a minute behind me. This year he finished 3.5 minutes ahead of me. So I’m not the only one who improved.

An aside about WebScorer. Over the winter of 2014-2015, I was thinking that I should write an app/web site to do registration, timing and results for kayak and other races (I was thinking mainly of orienteering, because I’d meet directed and run registration, timing and results at many orienteering meets in the past). I wrote about 3 pages of requirements for what I wanted this app to do and diagrams of how it would do scoring, etc. And then when it came time to register for the Canadian Surfski Championships, I saw they were using this thing called WebScorer. So I had a look at WebScorer’s web site, and looked at their capabilities. And checked off about 80% of the things I’d had on my list. The only thing I didn’t see on their site that I had on my list were the ones I wasn’t sure anybody would care about, like social sharing, multirace leader boards, and the ability to do timing with devices that were not connected to the internet but which would sync up after they got back into coverage (so you could do split times at a remote location with no cell coverage, for instance). And I also found out about another web site that does the almost exactly the same stuff WebScorer does, only very specifically for water sports, called PaddleGuru. I put my idea back in the drawer of forgotten dreams, along with the other million ideas I’ve had that were either not practical or where I’d been beaten to the punch. Oh well, maybe idea one million and one will pan out.

Another Armond Bassett race has passed into the history books. I first did this race in 2009, and I don’t think I’ve enjoyed it ever. It’s a race to survive, not to enjoy. But it’s local, so you don’t have to drive a long distance or even make up your mind if you’re going to do it until race day. And you get to hang out with your paddling buddies and some paddlers for further afield before and after, so why not?

Why is this race so unenjoyable, you might ask? Well, there are one two weather conditions for this race: torrential downpours in a thunderstorm, or hot and humid and airless. This year it was hot and humid, although there was a breeze. Unfortunately the breeze was completely saturated, so it didn’t seem to evaporate your sweat. Even after a fairly easy warm up paddle I was soaked.

Jim and I had paddled a part of the course yesterday, and a couple of times we’d stopped relative to the water and looked at our GPSes and it had said 0.0km/hr. I tried it while warming up, and it was reading 3.2km/hr, mostly caused by the wind rather than any current. So obviously getting out of the wind would be the priority when paddling upstream. That was going to be tricky, because it’s not something you can practice the way you can practice staying out of the current, because every day’s breeze is different.

The kayaks started in the third wave, 10 minutes after the C-1s and 5 minutes after the C-2s. There was also a guide boat in one of the early waves, but I don’t know which one. When they called 4 minutes to go, Jim Phillips was already on the line, but everybody else was hanging out 5 or so boat lengths behind. Nobody wanted to pull up to the line because with the wind pushing us downstream, you’d have to keep back-paddling to stay on the line. I went up earlier than most people, meaning that other people were keying on my position on the line rather than me making the decision who I lined up next to. Probably a mistake, but since I ended up with Roger Gocking on one side of me and John Hair on the other, it worked out perfectly.

At the siren, Roger took off fast. I grabbed his side wake and resolved to stay there. John was on my side wake. I couldn’t risk a glimpse back, but I assumed that Pete Gugel was close behind, and maybe Scott Stenberg. Mike Finear started as well, but he’s coming back from an injury and hasn’t had a lot of time to train, so there was little hope of him keeping up with us so I wasn’t looking for him – his job today was to paddle smart and not hurt himself (and it looked like that’s what he did).

Roger obviously didn’t want a reverse of the Old Forge race because he tried several times to scrape me off. At least twice and possibly more times he aimed me directly at a channel marker or dead head so I could either drop behind him or swing out around the other side of the marker. Fortunately John was paying attention so when I swung out around the marker he gave me the room I needed.

John is weird to paddle with – he is evidently so fit that he can carry on a conversation in the middle of a race. I’ve got barely enough breath for the task at hand, but he’s asking me about my trip out west and stuff. And his attitude is contagious – after Roger tried to run me into another channel marker I said to John “he’s a cagey one, he is” or something similar.

On the way down to the first turn, we ran into some real suck water. I had to reluctantly leave Roger’s wake and try to get back out to deeper water. I told John what I was doing, again being more talkative than is normal for me in a race. But it worked, after a fashion. I just started getting some real glide and speed back when Roger came angling out towards us and and I latched back onto his side wake.

As we approached the downstream turn buoy, I was quite concerned about this large power boat coming upstream. Jim and Todd turned safely in front of him, but if he continued his speed he would arrive at the buoy almost exactly the same time as us. There was a C-2 that overshot the turn – I’m not sure if he was going up to talk to the boat or if he thought he was going to turn behind the boat. But the power boat slowed down, and we actually had room to get around in front of him. I powered ahead of Roger on the approach because I wanted to be able to take my own line and not be forced wider – at some previous races like Long Lake I’ve seen Roger take a much wider arc around buoys and since I was outside him rather than behind him I wouldn’t have any choice in the matter.

After the turn, I glanced back and I seemed to have gapped Roger. I started heading to the wall, for the dubious shelter from the wind, but John was coming up to me and he was more in the center. I moved back and grabbed his side wake. We stayed in our echelon for a minute or two, but we started to get into the suck water and I told him to move out more towards the center of the channel. And as we did, John said “I’m going to pull for a while to get a bigger gap on Roger”. He went, and I tried to follow. But I only managed to hang on for a couple of minutes. Within minutes he was several boat lengths ahead and he continued to pull away for most of the race. I found my good pace and just tried to stay there for the rest of the race without blowing up.

Once past the shallow stuff and under the former railway bridge at Bausch and Lomb Park (University of Rochester campus), it was now time to try and find shelter from the breeze, and tucking in as close to the edge as you can get without getting into suck water. At the second pedestrian bridge, there are a few weed beds to look out for, and I passed the race’s sole guide boat around there. As I passed them, I risked a glance back and I couldn’t see Roger or Pete anywhere.

By this time we were passing a lot of canoes. Usually I’d come up through their stern wake, then just as I reached their stern I’d pull off to one side or the other and blast past. Once in awhile I’d pause in a C-2’s stern wake to grab my drink hose and suck down some electrolyte drink. Generally I’d do that when I was near an even number of kilometers from the start, using the lap indicator on the GPS to remind me to drink.

Somewhere near the fire training station, I came up on two C-1s who were obviously fighting neck and neck. I thought I could squeeze on the inside of them, but I misjudged it and ended up having to stop paddling for a second and I said to them “well, I misjudged that one pretty badly” to make it clear I didn’t blame them for cutting me off. The guy who was in second spot pulled out a bit and said “you’ve got room to go up between us”, and so I did. Nice little bit of sportsmanship, I thought.

Nearing the turn, there were two C-2s who were also neck and neck. One of the canoes had two guys who were my size, wearing matching team shirts, and the other canoe was two young women who had some nice silver and blue accents on their canoe. The two heavy guys were throwing out a gigantic messy wake, and the two girls were throwing out a smaller wake but it was mixing in with the other wake and making things very chaotic. It was almost impossible to find any aid from it. I was thinking about poor Pete Gugel – I didn’t know how far back he was, but he was in his Huki, which is a pretty tippy boat. That messy wake would be quite a challenge in my V12, so I was hoping Pete could handle it.

After the turn I could finally have a look back and see where I stood in relation to the people behind me. Pete was close, but not close enough that I really had to worry about him unless I really blew up. Roger was far back. I think Scott Stenberg wasn’t too far behind Roger, and Mike Finear wasn’t too far behind Scott.

When you turn down wind, it’s nice that you’re getting a bit of a push and your average speed goes up. The disadvantage is that you no longer have a cooling breeze blowing on you, and you start feeling like you’re in an oven. Psychologically you no longer feel like you’re paddling fast, although your GPS shows that you are. Also, the C-2s you’re catching are faster than the ones you were passing earlier (which probably seems obvious to you now, but that took me a minute or two to work that out in the race), so they seem to be dangling out in front of you for a long time. And just in time to increase my torment, the sun came out from behind the clouds adding sunburn to the list of discomforts. The last couple of kilometers seem to take forever and you have to keep telling yourself that you can rest when you’re done, not before.

When I crossed the line, I had to remind myself that I was wearing my head mounted camera, so I probably should resist the temptation to fall out of the boat. It was hot and I was soaked, and even that smelly green water looked inviting.

In the end, I was 4th overall, behind Jim, Todd and John. John is still under 50 years old, so I was third in the all important “Men’s 50+ Unlimited”. A couple of C-2s crossed the line ahead of me, but I don’t know if their time was better than mine because of the start waves. I heard that Jim and Todd crossed the line before any of the canoes in spite of starting 5 or 10 minutes behind them.

So – Good race, glad I did it, and I’ll be back next year.