Category: Kayaking

Last night was the paddle team end of season party. It was great time, not least because there were some of the members of the team who haven’t been paddling much or at all with us since the Long Lake race and it was good to see them again.

Last year there was a bunch of awards, mostly gag awards but some serious. This year there was just one award – I was given an award for “Most Improved Paddler”. That was very touching, if a little embarrassing to be singled out like that. It’s a great award – I’l have to scan it and post it here soon. But earlier, I got a better award.

I was paddling with Dan, Stephen, Mike and Frank, and Dan said to me that next year I’m going to have to do the Rochester Open Water Challenge in my Thunderbolt. And I said I’d have to get a lot of practice in the waves before hand. And Dan said “See, last year you would have said NO WAY”. He’s right. After this year, I’m starting to believe that anything he says is possible if I just work hard enough at it. And that’s a great gift – confidence in myself. And it’s a gift that was given to me by myself, but forged at the hands of Dan and the rest of the team.

When Mike says that next year we’re going to have to do 7mph instead of 6.5, I think of how we’re going to have to add more interval workouts to our training. When Doug says that I could do the 90 Miler next year instead of in a few if I put my mind to it, I think about what that means in terms of training volume. When Bill says I should do the Gananoque race, I say … ok, I say “not without a surf ski” because I don’t want to dump out in the St. Lawrence in a boat I can’t get back into. And when Dan says I could be paddling challenging waves in this incredibly tippy boat, I remember how tippy the Looksha felt this spring and how now it’s a stable old barge.

So to everybody on the team, I say thanks. Thanks for a great season, and thanks for the gift of confidence.

This time I was the camera man filming Dan and Stephen. I kept the camera at the front of my cockpit, which enabled me to reposition it as needed, but it also meant that my paddle and arm sometimes occlude the image. It’s a trade-off.

There was a fourth person along for the paddle whom you may glimpse once in a while, but he may or may not have been playing hooky from work so we won’t mention him.

[youtube KQMskReo2Yo]

Yesterday I went with Dan and Stephen to Baycreek so that Stephen could try out the new Epic V12 that just came in. It’s one of the specially decorated ones that was provided to the Dutch team in the US versus Holland challenge in last weekend’s Mayors Cup kayak race. Baycreek also got the one that Greg Barton himself paddled for the US team, but that one is already spoken for. I noticed with some amusement that Greg, who is one of the two designers for Epic Kayaks, gave himself a weed guard on his rudder but didn’t give one to the Dutch rival.

Because we were on the bay instead of on a canal or river, I wasn’t so concerned about picking up leaves so I was able to get back into my wonderful Thunderbolt. I also brought the video camera and put it on Dan’s boat. In the following video, I shot a couple of minutes of Dan from the front, and a bunch more where we turned the camera sideways to shoot myself and Stephen. I have to say, I’m really pleased with how good my technique looks. Everybody on the team has been telling me my technique is good, but it’s really cool to see it from another perspective.

[youtube r-R59nOJKSI]

Evidently putting a kayak into storage for a month and a half turns a fast tippy boat into a slow stable heavy barge. At least that seems to be what’s happened to my Looksha II while I was paddling my Thunderbolt. I got out the Looksha because for I went out on Wednesday in the Thunderbolt and spent way too much time trying to clear leaves off the bow and rudder. The Looksha has a gently curved bow that doesn’t pick up leaves the way the Thunderbolt does, and the kick up rudder is very easy to clear of leaves when it picks some up. Unfortunately it’s about 0.5 mph slower than the Thunderbolt. I’m also slamming my paddle into the sides a lot because it’s a whole 2 inches wider, and I’m not getting such good rotation because the seat is a tighter fit and not as slick. Oh well, at least I’m not spending all my time clearing leaves off.

The weather has also not been anything to write home about. Today it was in the low 40s, most of the time it was drizzling, but for a few minutes we were getting hailed on instead. It was grim. Not my favourite conditions to paddle in, but it beats sitting around getting fat.