Category: Revelation

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.

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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.

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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.

I was looking at Scott Stenberg’s Facebook post where he says he’s done 1370 miles in his boat so far this year, and looking at my Garmin Training Center which says I’ve done 490 miles in my boat so far. Ok, granted I didn’t have the GPS until the 5th of April, and I didn’t bring it on every single work-out, but I wasn’t doing much distance back in March, and I’m sure I brought it on all the big ones, so I’ve probably really done less than 525 miles anyway.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a bit is someday doing the Adirondack Canoe Classic, aka “The 90 Miler”. In many ways, it reminds me of the Canadian Ski Marathon (CSM), which used to be the focal point of my cross country skiing season. The CSM was nominally 100 miles over two days, although the years I did it, it was more like 170 km. The 90 Miler is nominally 90 miles over three days, although I’m told it’s closer to 87. And hey, my Thunderbolt has done it already, so it knows the way!

I definitely don’t have the training base to do the 90 Miler yet, but if I try to do 650-700 miles next year, and 800+ the next, I might be ready. The race looks pretty daunting for a first timer. It’s not like the Canadian Ski Marathon where there were checkpoints every 15-25 km where you could quit and jump on a bus. At the 90 Miler, you’re expected to have a pit crew who meets you at certain road-accessible points – so I suppose if you need to quit, you have to wait for one of those points. One thing I might do to prepare is to join somebody’s pit crew and meet them on the portages to hand them water and food. That might give me some view of what it’s like without getting in over my head.

Another thing I’d like to look into is doing it in a K-2 with somebody on the team. I bet a couple of us in a West Side Boat Shop Bullitt could do pretty well for ourselves. The Bullitt is based on the EFT, which is the touring class boat that Mike likes. Too bad WSBS doesn’t make a K-2 based on one of their unlimited boats, like a Thunderbolt or Marauder.

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A couple of team members met up at Dan’s place in spite of the cold and wet weather. We worked on technique – mostly catch and rotation. Of course, as soon as we finished, it got sunny and started to warm up. Figures.