Category: Kayaking

This morning, Paul D, Bill F, Jim M and I met for a paddle around the bay. At Jim’s suggestion we rode his wake and experimented with getting used to our various heart rate zones.

First during our warm up we paddled with our hands very low, which feels very unnatural, in order to warm up our “obliques”, muscles in the lower part of our torso. The idea is to build up some more muscles down there and learn to use the ones that are there already.

Then we paddled about 30 minutes trying to keep our heart rate between 120 and 130, which is the fully aerobic “zone 1”. The speed ends up being around what I still consider my “10 mile pace”, although I think I can probably do a bit faster in a race situation – I think it’s supposed to be the pace you can keep up for hours and hours, although for me it’s probably more like 2 hours max. As Jim says, you start off a race with a certain number of poker chips, and the idea is to spend your last one as you cross the line, not before and not leaving any behind. And also not to spend the chips when you don’t need to, unless you gain a race benefit from doing so – the example he gave was hammering ahead in “suck water” to cause the person behind you to lose your wake, and have to expend energy to get back on. So you spend two chips in order to force him to spend five. This pace is supposed to be the one that doesn’t cost you any chips.

[youtube -Qafv_lP0Io]After that set, we tried 15 minutes keeping our heart rates between 130 and 140, which is “zone 2” or “aerobic base”, which is more like a realistic race. You can see from the video that we keep yelling out our heart rates because Jim has to adjust his speed to get us into that zone. In this part and the following part, I noticed that Bill’s heart rate was higher than mine, in spite of the fact that he’s in a fast light surf ski and I’m in my big heavy boat. He’s normally a much faster paddler than me, so maybe his heart rate zones are higher than mine, or maybe I was just doing a better job of using Jim’s wake. But the point of this speed is that you’re building up your heart muscle.

After that, we did 7 minutes keeping our heart rates between 140 and 150, which is “zone 3”, which gets to the anaerobic threshold. That was tough, especially since the boat wakes had started to kick up and we were really getting thrown around. It was hard staying in Jim’s wake and also really hard to get back into it if you drop. I’m just thankful that I didn’t decide to try the Thunderbolt because of those waves.

After that, Paul D left and the rest of us went out to look at the lake, but the waves weren’t anything very exciting. A large fish surfaced next to my boat and seemed to gulp air. It was at least as big as my Basca VIII-max paddle blade, if not bigger. I have no idea what it was, but it was definitely not salmonoid.

After the paddle, Jim asked me what my plan is for the rest of the year. I hadn’t really thought beyond the Long Lake race at the end of this month, but I told him that I figured after Long Lake I’d concentrate on trying to learn to paddle my Thunderbolt, and then after the paddling season just try like hell not to lose all this fitness I’ve built up this season so I don’t start off gasping after 2 miles like I was this spring.

Update: Jim sent me a correction to how I’d characterized the various zones. I’m still not sure I entirely understand the differences – all I know is that “zone 1” is what I can do for a few hours, and “zone 3” is something I can only do for a few minutes.

I went out for a short paddle in the new (to me) boat. At first I tried to paddle it in the lake, which I’d chosen because if I had to swim, a nice beach with clean sand and a gentle slope was the way to go. But there were breaking waves there, and I got swamped a couple of times just trying to get into the boat. And as I paddled out into the waves, the waves would come into the cockpit. I hope this isn’t normal for this boat, otherwise I’m going to have to get a spray skirt for any sorts of waves. It’s also really hard to get all the water out of. It’s been suggested by a few people that I try to install some bulkheads or at the very least put in dry bags. The boat had these foam “beams” front and back to brace the top deck up, but they’ve come away from the boat, and the back deck oil-cans a bit when I’m trying to get in, so a bulkhead might be just what I need.

After a few minutes of trying to paddle in the surf, and a lot of swimming, I decided to try the other side, and paddle a bit in the bay. At first I couldn’t seem to steer anywhere, until I went back to shore and discovered that with the tiller bar centered the rudder was hard over to one side. Once I straightened that up, things got a lot better. At first, I had to (and this is absolutely true and no exaggeration) brace when I got hit by the wake from two passing swans, but after 10 minutes of paddling, I felt pretty comfortable in flat water in the boat. I had no trouble at all getting it up to 7 mph. I’m not sure if it’s any faster than my current boat, but you can feel the lightness and I suspect that it would be less fatiguing to paddle at that sort of speed than my Looksha. Unfortunately both the bow and the rudder are magnets for weeds, which is a problem in the bay.

I’m eager to get more experience in this boat and get comfortable in waves. I’d be tempted to try it on Tuesday’s team work out since we’re doing a time trial on the canal, but I think I need to concentrate on the Looksha since that’s what I’m going to paddle at Small Swells and Long Lake.

Now all I have to do is name it. I didn’t use the names much, but to me my Skerray was always “Mary Ellen Carter”, after the song by Stan Rogers, because it enabled me to “rise again”, and the Looksha was “Gideon Brown” after the song by Great Big Sea, because she can “punch ahead in any gale”. I’m thinking maybe “Anne-Marie” after the boat in Stan Rogers’ song “Acadian Saturday Night” because it has “wings on the water”.

Last night I picked up a new (to me) kayak, a gift from Scott Stenberg who has a large number of boats and was looking to get rid of a few. This one has been rode hard and put away wet over a long career with a couple of owners who are far more intense than I, but in spite of a number of nicks and bangs and customizations and re-customizations, the gel coat is still clear and unclouded by UV and it’s still pretty smooth under the waterline. Scott even included a cover to keep it that way. The boat is currently rigged with a rudder underneath, although it came with an over-stern rudder or two if I want to convert it. I have a suspicion that the underneath type is better in the surf, but the over-stern one is better in weeds. I’ll have to see. The boat is only 29 pounds – I’d never weighed my Looksha before, and was astonished to find it come in at 49.5! I’d always assumed it was lighter because it felt so much lighter than my Skerray. The Thunderbolt is also about half a foot longer and about 2 inches narrower. Dan described it as “tender”, which I think is a polite way to say “tippy as hell”.

One consequence of the underneath rudder is that I had to dig a hole in the lawn in order to sit in the boat to adjust the foot bar position. I guess I should mention that the first time I tried sitting in the boat on a flat lawn, I tipped over. That doesn’t bode well for my first experiences on the water, does it?

The strange thing for me is the tiller steering. I’ve never really looked at one before, so I’m not sure how stock this one is. I know that Scott added the PVC pipe to extend the tiller bar because he couldn’t reach it the way he had the foot brace. Interestingly, even though he’s shorter than I, I actually had to pull the foot brace towards the cockpit a few stops to get enough push to get some rotation. I’m going to order a set of “normal” foot pedals from Onno Paddles just as soon as I figure out which of those things he needs the dimensions for.

I tried to enlist Widget’s help while I was adjusting things on the boat, but he was no help at all. In this shot, you can see the “cargo net” behind the cockpit for keeping PFD or extra hydration, and in front of the cockpit you can see that red tapey thing which I’m not sure is some sort of carrying handle or to attach the GPS to. There are also patches of velcro here and there that I’m sure had a specific use for one of the owners. One of the strangest things is a couple of wide velcro straps across the cockpit – you can see the screws they attach to just to the left of Widget’s giant head. Scott said they were thigh straps, but I can’t see how you’d use thigh straps and get a good racing rotation, so maybe he or a previous owner paddled more like a sea kayaker than a racer? I will probably remove them and patch the holes with some epoxy and Fiberglas.

Once it warms up a bit today, I hope to get out to try to paddle this thing. Obviously I’m going to need to bring a change of clothes and a towel because there is no way I’m going to avoid dumping. I guess I’ll go to the beach where the bottom is sandy and not too unpleasant to swim in. I’ll let you know how it goes.

[youtube YE17iVskad4 Team Practice]
Today instead of just me and Mike doing a long grind, it was five of us – Mike, Paul D, Bill, me, and coach Dan. We met at the lake, and the lake was flatter than a pancake. Even I, the big wuss, paddled with the PFD lashed to the rear deck instead of wearing it, although Paul D wore his, but I think that was more due to his lack of experience and comfort in the ski rather than waves or wind.

We started off doing a moderate pace, riding each other’s wash, and every mile doing a “pickup” or a faster piece, not a sprint, but faster than our “grind” pace. At other times, instead of doing our “pickup” at a given time, we sprinted across a river channel, or turned to ride a large wake coming in. We did two level pickups where we increased pace to something like 6.5 mph, and then after 45 seconds increased to 6.7 or 6.8 for another 45 seconds. It was a good work out, lots of variation, and I’m quite wiped right now.

It’s an awesome sight seeing those four gleaming white surf skis skimming along the water, and my boat is also pretty gleaming itself, although it looks a little out of place. Based on my brief experience with the V10 Sport at Baycreek, I figure I’m half a mile an hour slower in my boat, so I think I’m doing pretty damn well to keep up with these guys for 2 hours.