Category: Revelation

Today was the Erie Canal Regatta. It wasn’t as well attended as the other races this month, but after three weekends in a row, I think people have other calls on their time. I signed up for the 7.5 mile race. As well as me, there was Jim M, a colleague of my wife’s and the best local kayak racer, my coach Dan, Dan’s son Tom, Steve B, who I haven’t seen since 2010, two people in a canoe, and Chris, who was my only competition at the Armond Basset 5km race this summer.

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At the start, everybody went out hard. I was in my Think Legend which I’m still not stable in, and initially I had problems with the wakes, especially under the lift bridge where the concrete walls bounce them off and back at you. Half way through the village, however, Dan relaxed a bit and I caught him. Steve was riding Dan’s stern wake. I took a turn leading for about a kilometer and a bit, and then Dan signalled he was ready to take a turn. I’m afraid I was concentrating more on trying to find the right place on his wake because of the new-ish boat, and not noticing that my paddle stroke had gotten out of phase with his, and at about the 2km mark my paddle clashed with his, mine lifted his hand up and unbalanced him, and he fell in. In the confusion, Steve lost a paddle stroke or two asking Dan if he was all right, and so now I was on my own.

For the whole rest of the race, I tried to set my own pace, well aware of the presence of Steve practically breathing down my neck. I couldn’t actually see him except at the two turns, but every now and then I’d hear him shouting at somebody (like when Jim and Tom came in the other direction) or somebody shouting at him, and in between I was absolutely sure he was catching up and would soon be riding my wake and getting ready to pounce. This was especially true while navigating all the boat wakes – it was such a beautiful day, I swear every boat owner on the canal decided to go through that particular stretch of the canal at that particular time, mostly going in the wrong direction to be any help to me. And each boat wake cost me some time, sometimes because I actually had to stop paddling to brace, sometimes just because it would throw off my stroke a bit. I remember when Steve went through similar issues when he first got his V12, but that was back in 2009 and he is probably really used to it by now, so I figured he must be gaining on me.

As we approached the first turn, Tom and Jim were coming in the other direction, and very close behind them was a boat making a very large wake. I tried to warn them of the approaching boat so they wouldn’t be surprised by it, but I don’t know if they heard me. I could hear Steve very close behind me.

At the first turn, I found him about two boat lengths behind me and he did the turn better than I did, so if he wasn’t on my wake he was probably less than a boat length off it, so I hammered for a bit to try to shake him. Ok, looking back at the video, “hammered” is a bit of an overstatement. I went a tiny bit harder. I have no idea if it worked, because I was too unstable in the boat to look over my shoulder.

A bit later we passed Dan still coming down stream. He’d obviously lost a lot of time when he dumped, far more than you’d expect for a simple dump and jump back in. He tried to yell something but there was a freight train going through and I couldn’t hear anything. On the video I can hear the word “tangle”, which I discovered afterwards was because he’d gotten tangled up in his drinking hose when he remounted and had lost a lot of time trying to sort that out, and afterwards had decided he was never going to catch us. Steve yelled something to Dan, and again I couldn’t hear it, but I could tell that he was still close.

Further up the canal, I could hear little squeaks – at first I thought they were something on Steve’s boat rubbing, then I thought it was birds, and then I realized it was my hands against the bike tape on the grips of my paddle. I wasn’t sure if they were all mine, though. I still thought Steve was breathing down my neck.

As we came into Fairport, there was a steady stream of boats, mostly heading at us, but one or two going the same way as us. On the video, you can see me passing a packet boat that’s going the same way as us, and then dealing with multiple boats coming in the other direction. As we passed the start/finish line heading up to the second turn, I again got an indication that Steve was pretty close, but not as close as he’d been before. I must have pulled away in spite of the boat wakes and other problems.

At the turn at the top, I got another view of Steve. Now I could see that in spite of my lousy turn, I had at least 5 or 6 boat lengths on him. That’s good, because I was fading fast. My left arm was getting wet, which I’ve discovered is due to me “rushing my catch” (ie. pulling back on the paddle before it’s fully plunged into the water) on that side when I get tired. As we passed Dan’s place, which is about 1.5 km from the finish, Dan was sitting on his dock looking nonchalant, which surprised me. How did he get there so fast? He yelled something I didn’t quite catch about my technique, but I took the hint and tried to fix my catch. I also tried to put on a bit more speed, knowing that the end wasn’t that far away. My speed was surging up and down as I tried to squeeze out every ounce of speed, but then the exhaustion took over, and then I’d remember that Steve was probably not fading, and I’d try to pull out another effort.

In the end, I finished in 1:10:54, and Steve finished in 1:11:08. Not bad. I regret terribly Dan’s and my accident. It would have been a lot more fun if the three of us had managed to hang together for the whole race.
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[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.