Category: Kayaking

[dciframe]http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/375634626,465,548,0,auto,border:1px solid blue;align:left;[/dciframe]Today was the first long race I’ve done since coming back from my surgery. BayCreek Paddling Center sponsored a race up and down Irondequoit Bay, starting and ending at their dock. Mostly I avoid the bay because its usually a horrendous mess of conflicting boat wakes, and the first kilometer and a half from BayCreek is shallow, which is very slow if you’re in a long boat, especially if you’re heavier than the average paddler like I am – we call it suck water because it feels like its sucking the boat down. Fortunately today the cold and the lateness of the season kept most of the power boaters away except the fishermen, so the wakes weren’t a problem. This allowed me to paddle my Thunderbolt, which is a tiny bit faster and lighter than my v10 Sport, which is what I’d use if waves were going to be an issue.

We lined up in front of the dock. I took the far left because almost as soon as you start you go under the Empire Blvd bridge which is low and dark and in the darkness under the bridge there is a hidden obstacle just below the water on the right side. Bill was to my immediate right. Bill always starts really fast and fades in a km or so. To his right were my coach, Dan, and then his son Tom, and a couple of others.

At the start, Jim M and Tom took off incredibly fast, as expected, followed by the Canadian guy (sorry, forgot his name, but he drove down from Toronto today) who was being tailed by Matt, then Dan with Bill and I tailing him. Half way through the suck water Bill starts to drop off, and Dan decides to leave the channel for a direct route. Gutsy move considering its even worse suck water out of the channel. I put in a huge effort to get onto his tail wake and latch on. It’s cost me – by pulse is up to 163, which is my max and not sustainable for very long. After I caught his wake I tried to recover a bit but he was pushing pretty hard and I think I got it barely under 160. By about the third kilometer or so I was feeling a bit better so I came up into his side wake. By the fourth kilometer I was actually able to take a turn in front. By that point Jim had put a big gap over Tom, and Matt had dropped behind so we really only had to think about trying to catch the Canadian guy if we could. The great thing about Dan and I is we didn’t really need to talk things over, but Dan said I should pull to the Bay Bridge, and then he’d pull to the marker. But I was fading again and he had to take over before we reached it. He led to the turn, and then at the turn he held off accelerating out of the turn until he knew I was with him, which was a really nice thing for him to do since he could have gapped me there.

At the turn you get a chance to assess where you are in relation to the people behind you. Matt was about the only person behind us we had to worry about, and he was pretty far back. We weren’t catching the Canadian guy either.

Soon after passing the Bay Bridge, the Canadian guy seemed to turn to parallel a moving fishing boat, and then cut in front of him. After the race he’d said he’d yelled at them to slack off their speed so he could go in front of them because they were trailing long lines so he couldn’t go behind them, but at first they’d just stared at him stupidly and not cut their speed but he managed to make himself understood after he turned alongside them. That problem made me think we had a chance of catching him, but he was just too strong and he continued going fast as we got more tired and slowed down.

Both us were slowing down a bit, but I felt like Dan was fading faster than me. For one thing, he seemed to have a slight problem with a couple of boat wakes, and then he dropped onto my stern wake and then went off to the leeward side into what he said was some faster water. He came back up to me after a few hundred meters and we resumed switching leads. He said to switch leads every thirty seconds or so, but it felt like when it was my turn to lead I accelerated to the front but when it was his turn to lead I’d have to slack off and let him come up. From about the 9 kilometer mark I decided not to bother letting him come through and just lead. That lasted up until the 10 kilometer mark where the suck water started. Both of us were totally in the bag, and trying to put down power in the suck was hurting my shoulder. Dan said to take it easy, we weren’t going to catch the Canadian and nobody behind was going to catch us, so we should just relax and get home. 500 meters from the finish, Jim, who is out warming down, says hi to us then yells just behind us saying “Come on Matt, only 500 meters to go”, and sure enough Matt comes by over my right shoulder. Where the hell did he come from? He powers by, Dan and I both try to hold on to him but he shakes us and finishes a couple of boat lengths ahead. Dan and I don’t sprint, but I make sure to finish a few centimeters ahead of him just so I can say I finally beat him. Back in 2009 Steve B challenged me to some day beat Dan, and today I did. He helped me on various spots on the course, and I helped him on a few spots, but overall I felt like we were incredibly evenly matched.

I’ve got three boats:

• Epic V10 Sport surf ski. Under-stern rudder, good on bigger waves, a bit slow.
• West Side Boat Shop Thunderbolt. Regular (non-surf ski) kayak. Over-stern rudder, not so good in the waves, turns like a barge, faster than the V10 Sport.
• Think Legend surf ski. Fast, but tippy as hell. Not sure I can handle any sort of waves, not even boat wakes with it. I still have problems getting it around 180 degree turns without slowing right down.

I’ve also got three races coming up:

• Baycreek Kayak and SUP Cup, Sat Sept 14 on Irondequoit Bay
• Long Lake Longboat Regatta, Sat Sept 21 on Long Lake in the Adirondacks
• Erie Canal Regatta, Sunday Sept 29th at Fairport

I’ve pretty much decided that for the third race I’m going to paddle the Legend. There aren’t going to be any wind driven waves and probably not many boat wakes to deal with, plus it will be the third race in three weekends so if I DNF I won’t care that much. That leaves the other two.

Today I was paddling on the Bay in my V10 Sport, and nearly died after my rudder snagged some weeds and I was trying to keep up with Paul D. I ended up having to stop and back up to clear the rudder, and I eventually caught Paul but as soon as I did I got another weed. I had been leaning towards using the V10 Sport but if weeds are a problem, the Thunderbolt might be a better choice for the Baycreek race.

I had also been leaning towards the Thunderbolt for Long Lake. The only downside is that if the wind is really whipping up the lake, I might wish I’d brought the V10 Sport. Weeds aren’t likely to be a problem there, but waves might. I don’t have room on my roof rack to bring both and decide on the day. The other factor is that all during my recovery, my one shining goal on the horizon was to do Long Lake again. I’ve always enjoyed that race and I’ve had some good results. I don’t want to fuck it up by bringing the wrong boat. On the other hand, in 2010 I had a great result because I was better in the waves in my Thunderbolt than others were in their boats. So I’m still leaning towards the Thunderbolt.

I should preface this with a few things about me:

• I’m a competitive paddler in Rochester NY, USA.
• I’m a big guy for a paddler, although I recently lost a lot of weight, I’m still on the upper range for what you’d normally see in a surf ski.
• Companies that sell gear for competitive paddling are few and far between in the USA, and most of what I have experience with is NRS.

Since it’s getting on for fall here in the north country, I have been wearing my Vaikobi V Cold Short Sleeve top a lot. In the cold early mornings, I add the V Cold Warm Up Sleeves for the warm up, and then strip them off for the actual work-out. The top gives a great combination of warmth, sweat evaporation and wind resistance that makes it great when you get in the boat and it’s 56°F and by the time you get out it’s 72°F. There are no rub points or irritations. It moves well with you.

I love the cut of this top, and I love the look. The zip is good for temperature regulation, and they’ve put a little flap over the top of the zip track so it doesn’t rub against your neck. It appears extremely well made with good attention to detail.

I’ve paddled two recent races in this top – the first one it was 52°F and I kept the sleeves on (and wore my Vaikobi V Cold Paddling Pant), and the second one was 66°F and I took the sleeves off after doing my warm up. In both cases, I was comfortable and wasn’t either too warm or too cold.

And keeping in mind that I’m not as athletic as most people you see on product reviews, here’s a picture of me paddling in the top:

If the top makes me look this good, imagine what it can do for you.

I should add a bit of a caveat here. I had a huge sticker shock three weeks after receiving my order. You can find the whole story in my review of the Vaikobi V Heat short down towards the bottom. If it wasn’t for this factor, I’d want at least one more of these tops, and maybe the long sleeve one as well. But now they have a US distributor so that’s no longer a factor. So I’m going to be ordering some more.

Today was the first of this year’s edition of Baycreek’s famous “Downwinder” series. Basically Ken figures out which way the wind is blowing on the lake, and arranges a boat shuttle so that we can put in and paddle with the wind and waves for a decent distance.

Today, the wind was blowing from the west, and the waves were decently high. We put in at Little Pond, in Greece, and paddled to Irondequiot Bay outlet. As is usual for Lake Ontario, the waves were at an angle to the shore, so we paddled out a bit and then turned downwind to surf. The waves were big, but they were moving faster than you could surf them, so you’d get on a wave, get a short ride, and then it would overtake you. You’d then try to build up some speed before the next one, but the distance between them was too short. Not too long into it, I realized that the other two kayaks, Paul and Matt, were behind me and I couldn’t turn around to see them. I also realized that we’d cut downwind too early and so the waves were carrying us into the middle of the pier at the Genesee River. So I was trying to paddle at an angle to the waves, increasing the difficulty – when a bigger wave hit, you’d have to turn towards the middle of the pier again, and then when you got a lull turn almost 90 degrees to the waves and paddle hard to make up some distance to clear the pier. And to add to the difficulty level, I was also getting hit with waves that had bounced off the pier and back at me.

I managed to just clear the pier, passing a few feet away, which was much closer than I’d hoped. After I cleared it, I kind of blundered in front of a sail boat coming out of the river, but he turned to avoid me and didn’t even yell at me. (It was about 6pm and there was a continual line of boats coming out of the river.) I cleared the river and got into what seemed like much easier waves without the bounces from the pier, and I could finally look around a bit and have a drink. Paul came around the end of the pier and yelled to me something about Matt. I turned around to paddle back to him to see what the problem was – I think he thought that Matt might have abandoned the downwinder and returned to the put-in. As I got up close to him, I was back in the churn of waves from upwind, echoes from the piers, the current from the river, and lots of boat wakes, and I dumped. Unexpectedly, however, when I attempted to remount instead of getting stabilized I went over the other side. And again and again. I asked Paul to come up to let me lean on his boat to stabilize, but when he managed to make it up to me I went over again. There was a largish sailboat hanging around asking if we needed help. Initially I waved them off, but after the fourth or fifth attempt to remount I was getting tired, so I asked them if they could tow me into the more sheltered water behind the pier. They threw me a rope and towed me, but when we got there, instead of just using their boarding ladder to stabilize myself as I remounted, they insisted that I come aboard “for a rest”. They were very insistent, and because they’d helped so much at this point I didn’t want to be rude and force my opinion. So I came aboard.

They ended up driving me all the way to Durant beach, with Paul and Matt paddling along behind us. Sitting there on their boat “resting” made me cold and cramped up, but after they anchored in 5 feet of water off Durant beach, I was able to use their ladder to stabilize myself and remount. I paddled off cautiously – the waves were diminished and only coming from one direction, but like I say, I felt kind of cramped up and cold so I wasn’t at the top of my game. Again we had to head out to sea to get a better angle to our destination so we could surf there instead of going at 90 degrees to the waves. And again, I don’t think we went out far enough, because later I found myself trying to surf at an angle to make it to the beach that was our destination. Still getting only short runs, but it’s better than paddling across the waves, anyway.

Just off the beach, though, I caught a wave that didn’t overtake me and didn’t die. It was the longest fastest run of the night – I glanced down at the GPS at one point and I was hitting 15km/hr. That was the highlight of the night for me.

Good news! You can now order Vaikobi gear from TC Surfski in the US. No more uncertainty about customs duty!

I was looking for a new paddling short because my Mountain Surf shorts were chewing up my back where the drawstring and laundry tag was rubbing between my back and the bucket of my surf ski, and my NRS Hydroskin shorts were so hot I’d seek out water coming over the side of my ski just to cool off my ‘nads. So I was looking for something high waisted like the Hydroskin shorts, but with a lighter material. Most of the shorts I found on-line seemed to be made of some form of neoprene like the Hydroskin, so I was unsure if they’d be any better. Based on a post on Facebook, I thought I’d give Vaikobi a try.

Vaikobi is an Australian brand with no distributor here in the US, but they offer free shipping for any order over $150 AUD (about $140 US), so I ordered a few things to hit that mark. Their gear comes as either “V Heat” for warm weather, or “V Cold” for cold weather, and they had paddling shorts in the “V Heat” range which seemed ideal. Every item on their web order form has a drop-down for the colour, but there isn’t much point because everything only comes in one colour combination, usually some shade of black or grey.

The shorts arrived yesterday and I went for a paddle in them in 81°F weather.

First off, I should say that they look great. They really fit well, and they’re extremely comfortable. They have a flat waistband, and the waistband is high enough that it doesn’t rub between your back and the boat. The seams are well stitched without anything to rub on you or irritate and no stupid tags or hang straps. They have an inner pad, almost like a bike short chamois, but smaller and less stiff that doesn’t interfere with your ability to rotate in your seat. But most importantly, I kept cool, even when paddling hard in hot weather. And when I fell in, they drained and didn’t trap the water underneath. And after hanging in my bathroom overnight, they appear to be dry enough to paddle in today.

All in all, I’m extremely satisfied with them, and I’m planning to order another pair. I just wish they had a few colour choices.

Update: Three weeks after receiving my order, I got a bill from a customs broker who handled the order. They want about 25% in duty, plus two $15 handling fees, for a total of $95 on a $245 order (obviously I didn’t just order the one pair of shorts, more about that later). I’ve ordered a lot of stuff from overseas in the past, but never clothing, and never been charged duty, so I wasn’t expecting this. I don’t know whether somebody screwed up and misclassified the items so they got hit by a higher tariff rate than is normal, or if that’s just normal for imported clothing, but that seems like a huge extra charge that I was not expecting. Especially since I made another order from Vaikobi a week ago and I’m probably going to get another bill for that. I don’t know about you, but for me that really changes the dynamic of ordering. Not only are the prices going to be much higher than you’d think looking at the site, but also there is essentially a $30 per shipment “handling fee” from the broker. Before this bill, I was considering making a third order in the spring. Now, I’m wondering if I can re-purpose some running or cycling gear instead. And that’s too bad, because so far I love everything I’ve got from them.

Update 2: I’ve been contacted by Pat from Viakobi. He thinks that the short, because it’s made with a neoprene fabric, should be subject to a 4% duty rather than the 25.9% duty on other clothing made from synthetics. He thinks that might apply to the V Cold pant, V Cold Plus L/S Top as well, but unfortunately not the V Cold S/S Top and other items in my two orders. So that might change the balance of payments to the better for those items.

Update 3: Pat now tells me that they have their first US dealer, “TJ Surf Ski in Lake Michigan”, which unfortunately I can’t find online. Even better he says they’re importing their products into the US themselves through their own logistics facility. I have high hopes that this means the price you see on the order form will be the actual price you pay. Which is awesome, because I love their stuff.

Update 4: The US dealer is TC SurfSki, so now I order the best gear I’ve ever paddled without worrying about the duty. And so can you.