Category: Rant

Gorge Downwind Championships, Race Day

I’m writing this the day after race day because I was too demoralized and tired to write it on the day.

Friday was declared to be race day. The race organizer described the predicted wind conditions as “nuclear” and far bigger than anything we’d seen so far. I had signed up for the long 14 mile race back when I actually had confidence in my abilities, and I briefly considered changing to the 8 mile short course after evaluating my pathetic abilities and the forecast, but as Carter Johnson the race organizer said when I wondered if it would be too “gnarly” for me to do the full race, the “gnar” actually starts after the short course start.

Driving out to the start, it was cool and overcast, which are not conducive to making big waves, but what I saw on the river was already pretty gnarly. Not just in the famous “Swell City”, but also in the early parts of the race.

Brief note about geography here. All the runs I’ve done all week have started at Viento on the Oregon side of the river. Viento is pretty close to the top of Swell City, which is mostly on the Washington side. It’s also at a bend in the river – that’s probably what spawns Swell City as the wind goes around the bend. The short course race started on the Washington side of the river at Drano Lake, which is less than a kilometer downwind from Viento, but at the top of Swell City. The long race started at Home Valley, also on the Washington side. Conventional wisdom is that the Oregon side is more benign, especially from Viento to the finish.

At the start, we had to head out perpendicular to the river flow to a hot spot buoy that was most of the way to the Oregon side. I didn’t start hard, and by the time I reached the hot spot I was already nearly in last place. There were some faces I recognized near me and I kept thinking I could catch them and stay with them, but it never happened.

After the turn, I was catching some big stuff. I still don’t understand why but even when I was catching runs I just couldn’t seem to close the gap on anybody. It was discouraging. But worse was that every time I stalled out on a wave with water pouring into my cockpit, yet another person would come cruising by. And as I went on I seemed to be spending more time stalled or bracing for my life and less time linking runs. That’s not to say I wasn’t. There were some memorable long links that almost made it fun. At one point I was on this gigantic wave and I was braking with all my might, but I couldn’t help it and my bow slammed into the wave in front. I was thinking “I hope my camera caught that look of fear just before the camera bent down”, but reviewing the footage afterwards revealed that the camera had already bent on a previous wave so it didn’t catch anything. It was also while I was in that wave that I saw a guy remounting his boat. You’re supposed to offer aid in a situation like that, but I was barely keeping myself upright and I wasn’t going to be any help to anybody else.

So now I’m sore, I’m not having fun and I’m pretty sure that if it continues on this way I’m going to be too tired and miss strokes and fall in a bunch. I’m also pretty sure I’m in last place with the possible exception of the guy who fell in, although the sweep boat isn’t in my peripheral vision. Bailing out at Drano is looking like a good option. There is a bus waiting at Drano to pick up stragglers and as a consolation prize Carter had announced that anybody who abandoned at Drano would receive five beer tickets as a consolation. 

But just before Viento there is a large channel marker in the water, and right there the water calmed down considerably. I’m paddling fine, catching small runs and cruising along nicely. And I’m presented with a dilemma. I can see that it’s still pretty gnarly in the middle of the river, and I have no way to know what’s going to happen when the river bends at Viento. If it stays like what I’m in now, I have a chance of finishing and maybe even clawing my way out of last place. If what I’m seeing in the middle is what I’m going to be in around the bend, I’m going to be in trouble – there is really no place to abandon other than Drano. Abandoning at Viento would be easier, but there is no bus waiting there and I’d have to hitch hike back to the finish in soaking wet clothes.

So I made the hard decision and left the benign easy waves on the Oregon shore and headed diagonally across the waves towards Drano. And man I was glad for all the time I’ve spent in Irondequoit Bay this year because it was pretty confused in there. Big waves coming from two or three angles – I attempted to catch runs on some of the ones that were headed in the right direction, with some small success. It was hard going, but not as hard as earlier. The decision to abandon was getting both harder and easier. As I got near the entrance to the lake, the sweep boat came along side and asked if I was ok. I told him what I was doing. I didn’t realize until I was nearly at the boat ramp that he’d followed me in. He yelled to the bus driver who came down to help me carry the boat that I was the last one, and he could leave. But then he came back and said that there was one more. But that guy came in through the entrance to the lake, landed on the shore some distance before the boat ramp, and then paddled back out. I think he was approached by a fishing boat during that. I heard afterwards from one of the paddlers I met last week that he’d seen somebody on the course who was having trouble with the lock on his paddle – maybe he just needed a wrench or some duct tape to secure it?

So the bus took me (and only me – it’s pretty discouraging to realize you’re the only abandoner in the whole race) back to the start, I retrieved my car and headed to the finish. Driving down I could only see four or five boats still on the course. I retrieved my five beer tickets and proceeded to drown my sorrows (actually I had two or three and attempted to give away the rest, but only got one taker – you probably wouldn’t be surprised to find out that many top paddlers don’t drink, and I was so late to the show that most people had already hit their limit). 

At the finish, everybody was complaining – not about the big stuff that knocked the shit out of me, but about the fact that the wind died and the stuff I liked around Viento continued all the way to the finish. “Just a long up river grind” as one person described it. But I’m good at long grinds – it’s one of my strengths. If only I’d known.

So here I am, sore, tired and very discouraged. The thought that maybe I’m not cut out to be a real surfskier is high in my mind. On the other hand, most of the people I talked to there are far more experienced on waves than I am. I tend to think that because I’ve gone to Tarifa and had clinics with top names that I’m hot shit, but there really isn’t any substitute for experience. The way I see it, either I need to accept my limitations and stick with what I’m good at, or somehow get more experience in this big stuff. I wonder how Vicki would feel about retiring to North Vancouver?

What is the secret of balance?

Every time I “move up” to a new tippier (and hopefully faster) boat, there is a huge learning curve. The first time I paddled the Thunderbolt, two ducks paddled past and their wake nearly dumped me. The first time I tried to race the V10 Sport, I nearly dumped reaching for the start button on my GPS, and I gave up halfway round the course because there was a tiny little swell from the side and it was making me nervous. These days, I consider both of those boats pretty stable (although I did fall in at the Canadian Surfski Championships and then repeatedly at Blackburn in the V10 Sport).

Two years ago, I bought a Think Legend and I found it extremely tippy. I just couldn’t get on with it – I got some miles in it but I never felt like I was getting better. Although I did use it in two races on the canal – and nearly fell in on the 180 degree turns at each end. Also, I couldn’t remount it. It was something about the high narrow side walls on the cockpit, I think.

Last year I gave away the Legend and bought a V12. Immediately I found it easier to learn than the Legend, but still pretty unstable. But it looked and felt like an Epic ski, so I figured I’d be able to remount it – and sure enough, I could. Last year I paddled nearly 300km in it. So far this year I’ve paddled 200km in it. I still feel pretty squirrelly in it. Leaving the dock, it’s an act of faith when I let go and go to make my first stroke that I’ll get to apply power before I fall in. As a matter of fact, one day I set the offset on my paddle wrong so when I went to apply power there was no resistance against my pull and I fell in. Every time I cross even the wakes of another paddler I feel uncertain, and hitting an actual power boat wake will mean my heart rate spikes up about 20 beats per minute and I’ll have to stop paddling to brace at least some of the time. This is unfortunate because I really wanted to use this boat for the Round the Mountain race in 4 weeks, and the first 25 minutes of the race is across a lake with waves that used to make me nervous in the Thunderbolt. That’s one reason to find somebody’s wake to ride for that part of the race – it gives you a tiny bit of reduction of the waves.

I wish I could recall what it took to get comfortable in my previous boats so I could see how much progress I am making in this one. If I end up not being able to use this for Round The Mountain, I’ll be forced to use my V10 Sport. And there are two drawbacks to this:

  1. The V12 has an over-stern rudder, which might be handy in some of the shallower sections. The under-stern rudder of the V10 Sport could hit a submerged rock and either jam or damage the rudder, or knock me out of the boat.
  2. The V12 is “performance” layup, as well as being a bit of a clapped out old beater, so I don’t have to worry so much about damaging it. The V10 Sport is “ultra” layup which is quite light, but very fragile. There is a down slope in the portage where I’ve dropped my boat in the past – an “ultra” layup boat could easily get a hole or a crack if dropped on that slope.

On the other hand, the V10 Sport is light and I’ve been pretty fast in it. So if I can avoid dropping it and smacking it on a rock, it could be good.

My video work flow kinda sucks

So today I used two video cameras (and of course my Garmin Forerunner 920XT GPS and heart rate monitor). Trying to make a video from all that is kind of a pain in the ass.

  1. Use ffmpeg to assemble the multiple files from one camera into a single file – this was required when I was going directly to VIRB Edit but I might be able to skip this when I’m doing my current step 2
  2. Bring both files into iMovie. Use iMovie to try to synchronize the two clips, but still get the half a second or so off. (If anybody has a better way of doing this, please let me know). Make a split-screen in iMovie. Since the battery life on the new camera sucks, there is a section at the end with only one camera, so break the clip and switch back to non-split screen. Export.
  3. Bring the new file into Garmin VIRB Edit. Overlay the GPS/Heart Rate data (what they call “GMetrix”) on the video. Try as best I can to match up the place where I can see myself hit the start button on the Forerunner with the beginning of the “GMetrix”, get it within half a second or so, and call it done. Export.
  4. Bring the exported file into iMovie again, and use iMovie to cut it into highlights and add titles. I’ve tried doing this step in VIRB Edit and it’s pretty horrible. Export to YouTube and/or another file.

The worst part is those “Export” parts. Exporting from iMovie takes over an hour. Exporting from VIRB Edit takes over 3 hours. No idea why it takes so long. So obviously I’m looking for anything that could eliminate a step or allow me to do stuff in parallel.

Alas, poor Thunderbolt, I knew him well

Paddling today on the river, about 3km downstream of where I last saw him, I came across the trashed carcass of my poor old Thunderbolt.
IMG_0857

The poor thing is completely trashed. There is no way it can be fixed. It’s also full of hundreds of pounds of silt, so any attempt to drag it off the river bank and over to the other side of the river to some place where it could be recovered (like the RIT Gosnell Boathouse, which is about a hundred meters away and does have a couple of motor boats) would just cause it to sink like a stone. I should probably go and scrape off the “Baycreek Racing” stickers though, just so no blame for this disaster accrues to Bay Creek.

On the other hand, in the picture you can see a strip of duct tape leading from the side of the cockpit and a tangle of debris under the boat. That strip of tape is the last thing holding on that “tangle of debris”, which is a half-skirt and the tie down bungies from the back deck, and more importantly, the thing to which I attached my GPS. I pulled it out and the GPS was there! Pressing the power button showed the Garmin logo briefly and then it shut off, indicating that it was working but the battery was dead. After I got it home and put it in the charger, it uploaded the data from the fateful day I lost it. It appears to be working perfectly. Anybody want to buy a Garmin Forerunner 920XT?

Death of a Thunderbolt

Today is a tale of one smart thing and one stupid thing.

  • Smart thing: I got a dry suit.
  • Stupid thing: I got too close to the ice blocking the river

Let me back up a bit.

Yesterday (Saturday), Jim and I paddled on the river, and when we got to where the river was completely blocked with ice, we could see it a long way off and turned well before it. Jim remarked that since it was going to remain well above freezing, it should be clear further down today (Sunday). And sure enough, it was.

We were cruising along pretty nicely, there was ice on both river banks but plenty of room in the middle. We were both warm and dry in our Kokatat semi-dry suits and enjoying life. There were a few chunks of ice in the river, and nothing bigger than a foot or two in any dimension, and mostly so thin that you could bash through them in your boat. I was in my West Side Boat Shop Thunderbolt, which has become my “beater” boat for spring paddling because it’s so tough and stable and because I don’t really care much what happens to it.

Up ahead, we could see what looked like a very large floe in the middle of the river. It was only about 10 or so feet long, and I couldn’t tell if it was moving with the current. But we both agreed to head over to the right side since that looked clearer. But as we got nearly to the “gap”, I crunched up partially onto ice that was just below the surface of the water. Jim and I both back-paddled. He had no problems turning around, because his Epic V8 has an understern rudder with lots of rudder authority, but my boat is longer and has an overstern rudder, so it doesn’t turn anywhere near as well. I misjudged how far back I had to back-paddle before I started turning, and I ended up crunching sideways into the ice.

Now I’ve got a problem, because I need to paddle on the right side to turn, but there’s ice there. And the ice is pretty thin, so you can’t push down on it very hard. I don’t know exactly how it happened – either the ice gave way when I was trying to push it with the paddle, or I was trying to push myself away from the ice with my hand and I overbalanced. Either way, I ended up in the water. Immediately I realize that my dry suit is working perfectly, and no water is getting in, but I also realize that the cold water is still pulling heat out of my body. Also, I’ve freed my hands from my pogies and they’re utterly freezing. The boat is upstream of me, and it’s bumping into me. I ignored it because I know that there is no way to remount it until I can get onto solid(ish) ground. I tried pulling myself along the edge of the ice to get closer to the shore, but the ice kept breaking. I also tried pulling myself up onto it, but again, as soon as I got my upper torso onto it it would break. The current was pulling my feet under the ice and I was starting to get concerned. Jim had been trying to rescue my boat, but I called to him that I was having problems and he dropped the boat and came over. He couldn’t get in too close, because he didn’t want to end up in the same predicament, but he backed towards me, and as he got close enough I left my paddle up on the ice and swam over. I grabbed the handle on the back of his V8 and held on for dear life.

My hands were frozen solid – I kept thinking of Howard Blackburn purposely freezing his hands to the oars so he didn’t let go even though he couldn’t feel them. I was in a similar state – I was afraid to adjust my hand position for fear of not being able to grab back on. Jim paddled furiously, and I kicked, but we seemed to be just barely moving up stream. Jim’s goal was a bridge that was a hundred meters or so upstream of where I’d fallen in, but it seemed like the far side of the moon to me. Every now and then my neck would go below the water and a small trickle of water would come in – that’s the difference between a semi-dry and a full dry suit – but it wasn’t enough to chill me any more than I was. Actually, truth be told, besides my painfully cold hands, the rest of me wasn’t feeling cold. Maybe I was too worried about goal to think about it.

After what seemed like forever, we got to the bridge. Jim was trying to get around to the upstream side, but there was ice in close to it. Also, the current got really fast around the abutment because the water flows around it, and with me on the back acting like a gigantic rudder he didn’t have a lot of maneuverability. At one point he suggested I swim for it, so I reluctantly let go of the boat and swam – I wasn’t moving any faster than he had been towing me, and my hands were now fully in the water. But I grabbed the nose of his boat, and then the concrete of the nose of the abutment, and managed to pull myself around the nose and get into shallower water. And once I was in the shallow water, I was able to break the ice and climb up onto the bank. I think we were both pretty exhausted at that point.

Once I was up on the bank, Jim headed back to see if he could rescue my paddle and/or my boat. My immediate problem was my hands – now that they were out of the water and warming up a bit, they were extremely painful. Just unbelievable amounts of pain. Last time I felt something this bad was the time in Sudbury when I got frostbite on my penis. I wanted to put my hands in my groin or my underarms to warm up, but I couldn’t grasp the dry suit zipper cover. I knew that even if Jim managed to rescue my equipment, I wouldn’t be able to get back to the put-in under my own steam because I didn’t think I could hold the paddle. I looked downstream and saw Jim had my paddle, but he didn’t have a place to stow it and so it kept digging into the water and falling out. He left it, and I guess he tried to reach the boat but couldn’t reach it safely.

He came back up to me and we briefly discussed what to do next. The bridge I was under was the New York State Thruway (I-90) so I couldn’t very well get picked up there. And of course, for the first time in a long time I forgot to bring my phone so I couldn’t call anybody. Jim pointed out a house on the other side of the river, and he said he was going to look for a rope. I walked over the bridge and the man in the house came out wearing a loose bathrobe and boxer shorts, and a woman was in the background looking equally casually dressed, so I worried that I interrupted something. Anyway he let me use his phone, but suggested I stand outside to do the calling because several dogs were barking at me. But of course since I was calling from a number Vicki didn’t know, she didn’t answer. (We’ve been getting a lot of calls from local numbers that are usually the “we’re calling from credit card processing” scams, so we don’t usually answer when unfamiliar numbers show up in the caller display). I left a message, hoping that she’d call back. But by then Jim was out in the water just offshore of this place asking for a rope. The guy and I went to look for one, but by the time we got back it was obvious there was no hope – you could see my boat was sitting in the water nose down with the stern in the air at about a 70 degree angle from the horizontal. Obviously the boat had tipped over and bow had filled with water, which meant that even if Jim could get a rope on it, it would be impossible to tow with several hundred pounds of water in it – West Side Boat Shop boats don’t have bulkheads, so when water comes in, they’re freaking heavy. Jim reported that he could also see my paddle had slipped under the ice. Maybe somebody will find them when they pop out the other side of the ice floe, but it’s more likely somebody will wonder what the strange shape is going over the weir near Dinosaur BBQ in a few weeks.

Craigslist “Lost kayak” listing

Anyway, Jim said he’d go back and get his car and come back and pick me up. I told the guy in the house that I’d walk to the end of the driveway (because I was already feeling like I was interrupting their Sunday afternoon). And once I got to the end of the driveway I kept walking to keep warm.

It’s now 3 or 4 hours later. My fingertips are still all pins-and-needles even though they’re not cold – hopefully it’s nothing permanent, because this is really annoying when typing.

My take away from all this? Well, I haven’t paddled in icy rivers in a number of years because I was afraid of what would happen if I got sucked under the ice. Today proved that just because I had on a dry suit, that’s still a major danger. I got over confident and got into real danger because of it. The dry suit is going to be great in the spring and fall – and if we do a downwinder at the TC Surfski Immersion weekend, but I’m not going to paddle near river ice ever again.