Lotus was long!

We took three crews up to Lotus Iron Saturday. We didn't have enough women available to field a full women's crew so we had a mixed crew of Minnie, Rives, Melissa, Will, Todd, and Lianne steered her first race. Our men's blue team was Alan, Eric, Jesse, Clem, Kevin and Tom steering, the men's white team was Frank, Ernie, Patrick, Ed, Jason, and Troy steering. It was the latest race start I've ever had before, scheduled for 2 pm. In Canada the women's crews race together and afterwards the men's and mixed crews race together.

The race course was leaving in front of the Lotus Clubhouse across the Burrard Inlet north in to the Indian Arm, turn around Raccoon Island, then south towards Cates Park, then west back into Burrard Inlet to a turn around McBarge, and then a final eastward run back towards the Clubhouse. The race distance was posted as 17 km which converts 10.56 miles. I think it was actually closer to 19 km because my GPS read 12.1 miles at the end of the race and we really didn't do that much zigging and zagging around.

Two boats huli'd within 3 minutes of the start line. The wake across Burrard Inlet was substantial, there is a lot of big (huge) boat traffic along the Inlet. We may have been a little cautious but I'd rather be cautious and not huli during a race. Will and I worked out a system where Lianne would call out "Protect the ama!" and whoever was on the right side would switch over to the ama side, I kept calling the changes so the others wouldn't become too fatigued staying on one side too long and when things had calmed down Will or I would switch to the side we should be on. Once we were further up Indian Arm it was less bad but there were still moments of some pretty big wake. As we came upon Raccoon Island I saw a couple sunbathing, I'm not sure if they were completely naked but they definitely were from the waist up! I didn't call it out to the rest of the boat, didn't want to distract the guys (lol). On the other side of Raccoon Island there was a boat full of partying youth, I didn't see them but heard afterwards there were two topless girls, I just heard the guy hollar that we were dead last; not true there was another boat behind us! However, they did pass us once we were back into Burrard Inlet. We were getting tired by this time and had nothing left to try and fend them off. On our way to McBarge one of the chase boats was hanging nearby us and the crew which had just passed us. It was both endearing and a wee bit annoying that the guy was calling out to pull and twist, general pep-talking kind of thing. One part of me just wanted him to bed quiet, while another part of me actually pulled a bit better for the encouragement!

We were finally into the home stretch, tired and needing to make it that last bit, Lianne dipped the her steering blade in for a slight correction and the current ripped it out of her hands! Todd gave her his paddle and went for the spare paddle taped to the iako. We started to turn back for the blade when the guy in the chase boat offered to get it for us! We kept on towards the finish line and he passed off the blade to Lianne. With the exception of the start of the turn to go back those of us in the front would never have known there was anything different happening! Way to go Lianne! I was (and I think most of our crew was) thinking that the finish horn would happen a minute or so before it finally went off, but we had to keep paddling until we heard the horn. So tired, so tired, but finished!

Our men's blue team finished first overall/first open men's, at 1:24:17, the men's white team finished 11th overall, eighth open men's, at 1:39:00, and our mixed crew finished 19th overall at 1:57:40. I was in line for the BBQ plate lunch when I heard one of the race officials asking around for one of the SSP mixed crew paddlers. I called him over, he wanted to confirm that we had registered master category (35 and over). Yup, we were all over 35, we were masters. He then said we'd taken first place! Seems we were the only crew to register master mixed. HA! We went from last to first in a heartbeat!

Between the late start, long race, lunch, awards, and loading the boats we weren't on our way home until 6:45 pm. Talk about a long day. I finally got home at nearly 10 pm. Thanks to my neighbors for taking the dog boyz out for a few potty breaks today and feeding supper, too.

SSPO in a one two sweep!

Wahoo! We kicked some serious butt today! Our crew was Albert, Lise, Jason, me, Jen, and John steering. There was a little confusion at the start, the starter insisted all the boats had to be lined up between the two bouys. Our boat had lined up just outside, there was no room at the near end so we had to paddle down the entire length of the start line so we could line up at the other end. We got set and the horn went off, we leapt off the start line and never looked back. We opened the gap between us and all the other boats. Our nearest competition was the SSPO women's crew made up of Minnie, Meilee, Lianne, Nancy, Chantelle, and Kristen steering. I was surprised how close the were at the turn, we turned on the juice after the turn and extended the gap between us.

There was never any threat of any boat catching us! I've never been in that position before, it was kinda cool. Our SSPO women seemed closer during the turns but there was never any chance for them to actually catch us. Although the last 25-30% of the race everyone had slowed down and was feeling tired. It was a challenge to convert what energy we had left into moving the boat faster. Keep paddling until you hear the horn, keep paddling. We heard the toot of the air horn and we made it! A few moments later we hear another toot and see the SSPO women crossing the line! We'd taken first in open mixed at 1:20:35 and first in open women at 1:21:00. Way to go!

We fielded three men's crews. The open blue crew was Kevin, Tom, Clem, Than, Ryan, and Alan steering. The open green crew was Frank, Claude, Todd, Patrick, Michael, Koko from Kai Ikaika steering. The master's white crew was Brady, Ernie, Ed, Ken, Karri, and Troy steering. With our Mirage out of commission since the race at Jericho the first open men's crew used a boat borrowed from Seattle Outrigger Canoe Club (SOCC). Even paddling an unfamiliar boat the blue crew was able to turn in a strong performance, they were second in open men at 1:05:14 and were second across the line. The white crew took first in master's at 1:10:06 and were sixth across the line. The green crew took seventh in open men at 1:16:46, still nearly four full minutes ahead of our mixed crew time, and were thirteenth across the line.

We'd hoped the men would sweep their race as well. But I think it was a good day racing all around. The weather was decent if a bit cool and there was no rain. Next year Da Grind should be back at it's regular August weekend and the weather should be a more like summertime. Thanks SOCC for hosting a great race.

Jericho 2008

Thankfully the beginning of the day was not a precursor of the activities to come. I'd planned to be up at 3:50 am, potty and feed the boys, shower, make coffee and have a light breakfast before leaving at 4:30 am to pick up Lise and meet our carpool at 5:00 am. Well, Lise called me at 5:00 and woke me up!!! Oh Shit! Hopped out of bed, dressed and was dragging the dogs out to potty as I was calling Troy, the carpool driver. My saving grace was the idjit who left his car and boat blocking the trailer egress down at SSP. I was out of the house, dogs feed and pottied, in 15 minutes! Got Lise and made it to SSP another 20 minutes after that. And the guys had just cleared the path for the trailer. We had 5 people in a Ford F150 crew cab. Troy and Patrick in the front seat, Lise, me, and Frank in the backseat. I took the hump seat as penance for my tardiness. We were on our way.

We stopped in Bellingham around 7:00 for gas, coffee, and pit stop and connected with Tom and Lianne, their son Kyle and dog Gibson. Then we caravaned to the border, a quick hello to the border guard and off to Vancouver. We arrived at Jericho beach around 9, unloaded the boats and set to rigging them. Jericho is on English Bay which opens into Howe Sound and the water has the potential for big waves, certainly bigger than we see in Lake Washington, so we needed to put on the spray skirts. They are similar to kayak spray skirts only bigger and a real pain to put on. And I needed to locate our steersperson. Kristen was unavailable for so she lined up Miranda McNamara from Jericho as her replacement.

The boats were ready and everyone was there so we got the boat down to the water. Our crew was Lianne in stroke (her first race ever), Rives, Nancy, Melissa, Lise, and Miranda steering. We headed out for a little warm-up and then set up for the start. And we're off! We started towards False Creek, around an inflatable bouy and then back towards Howe Sound. It was a very exciting turn, there were many boats clustering together for the turn and Miranda took a very aggressive line. At the turn there were two boats slightly ahead of us bumping each other a bit, our bow was just a little between them. We nudged the tail of the boat closest to the bouy and they spun out away from the bouy and in the process hit the boat they were next to and both boats went off totally away from the bouy and we were left with a nice clean turn! Wow, talk about an adrenaline push right at the start. You could hear those crews yelling at one another for a long time afterwards. Then it was a long push to the red bell can bouy, it felt like forever until we finally got there. We had clear water and as we were coming around Miranda cut us a bit close and then called Lianne and Rives to draw, that helps bring the nose of the boat around more quickly. We the wind was a bit stronger than she realized and we were closer to the bouy than expected and then there was that sickening, stomach clentching sound as the ama scraped/crunched along the bouy. Well, nothing we can do about it now, we have to get back in, time to dig deep and get us home.

We paddled hard until we heard the finish horn, done! It was a long, hard race, but we finished. We were 11th across the line and the 3rd master women's crew. Back on the beach we were able to take a look at the ama, it was split at the seam, about 5 inches long, and you can see a bit of the foam inside, there was also a bit of cracking on the top, too. It will take a bit of repair to make it watertight again, but the damage is all above the water line. In all we got off easy, one of the boats from Mt Home, a club down from Portland, had their ama damaged so badly at the start of the men's race they were taking on water during their race. Our men's A team (Doug, Clem, Than, Ed, Ryan, and Tom) were 4th across the line and took 3rd in open men's, our men's B team (Frank, Ernie, Patrick, Ken, Todd, and Troy) were the last men's crew to finish and were 10th in open men's. It was a good day racing in all.

Jericho has a yummy BBQ after the race. After the prizes were passed out we gathered our carpool and hit the road again. It took a while to get back to SSP and drop of the trailer and put the gear back into the container. I was off to drop Lise home a bit past 8 pm and home around 8:30 pm or so. A very long day, a very good day. Way to go SSPO!

SSPO Rocks!

The race went really well Saturday, but it was a very long day. I ended up leaving around 5:30 to go pick up Kristi and then Lise and then we were off to pick up Kristen in Tacoma. We got down to Portland in very good time, arriving around 8:30 or so. The first order of business was rigging the canoes only one hadn't arrived yet, we'd passed them on the highway. We off loaded the Mirage (our fastest canoe) and rigged it for the race. I turned in our forms and payment and received our race t-shirts, a much better design and color than last year. Then off to the very long line for the toilet, get changed and make ready to race. Our race crew was Minnie in stroke, then Rives, Nancy, me, Lise, and Kristen steering. A few sucks on the albuterol before we started and I was ready for the warm up. I asked Claude from our men's novice crew to shoot some snaps with my camera, he did a great job and shot some videos with narration, too! Thanks Claude! The first video is us leaving the beach to begin our warm up and the second video is our race finish.



We lined up with all the other boats, a dozen or so, if I recall, and waited for the horn to start the race. And we're off! Paddling hard all the boats stayed pretty close together in the beginning. There were lots of fishermen out hoping to catch some salmon. They were fairly decent obstacles that the experienced steersmen had no difficulty avoiding. However, there was one very green crew with an even greener steersman that had a very hard time keeping a straight line. There was some serious full contact paddling going on. They hit us on the right side of our boat, we had to switch some paddlers over to the left side to be able to keep paddling. Their crew was nearly rabid with intensity and couldn't hear their steersman telling them to stop paddling and allow us to get clear of them. We finally extricated ourselves and continued on passing around behind them only to have them come up against us again. Only this time our ama popped up onto the rail of their boat! I hiked way out as did Kristen to keep us from huli'ing, Nancy, right in front of me didn't even notice our ama was up that high. We managed to get them off us again and continue on. We ended up sprinting nearly all the remaining way to the first turn. At the turn they were technically in front of us but their steersman was sufficiently unsure of herself that she couldn't press her advantage, we made it through the turn first and made a hard push leaving that troublesome crew in our wake.



Now it was the long hard press up river past the start line to the next bouy turn. This was my first ever race last year and that section of the race was brutal last year. This year it was a long hard stretch but we all were able to keep our stroke long, good rotation, and reach, with a good hard pull. No other canoes were nearby us for the remainder of the race. The wind was to our backs for the against current run and once we made the turn to head down river again the refreshing breeze in our faces combined with the current made it feel as if we were flying down to the finish line. You can see in the video, we all still look really strong as if we could continue some distance further.

Our finish time was 1:14:32 and we took second in the master women category. And I think we were 6th across the finish line. The official results are not yet posted or I would have more details. Our post race team photo is at the top. Here is the photo of the SSPO open men's crew, they took first overall in the men's race with a time of 58:17! They rock! In the photo they are Kevin, James, Geoff, Alan, Tom, and Eric. Our golden master men's crew crossed the finish line 5th, I think, and their finish time was 1:02:35. Their crew was Dave, Doug, Koko, Ed, Mike, and Clem. I have referred to them as our 50+ guys in the past. They rock, too! And then we had a third men's crew, the novice men. Their crew was Ryan, Frank, Ken, Claude, Troy, and Ernie. They finished in 1:08:16. As with all of SSPO, they rock!

I think in all SSPO had a pretty darn good day. Everybody raced hard and raced well. SSPO represented with 24 club paddlers, what an awesome turnout for the first OC6 race of the season. Props to everyone! Let's keep it up. Here's one last photo of everyone in the club that paddled here at the Rusty Iron.

Da Grind 2007

We had a really great practice tonight. I have that good, tired, been exercised feeling. In my undying yet unsuccessful efforts to try and get to bed early I'm only posting a very short message tonight.

I was looking for outrigger videos yesterday and this morning and I found this one of Da Grind sponsored by Seattle Outrigger Canoe Club (SOCC). If you pay very close attention at time stamp 1:22 you will see me! I'm wearing a dark blue long sleeved shirt and have a neon green fanny/hydration pack on. Also at time 5:12 you can see our crew. I am in seat 4, remember seat 1 is the front and you count back.



I'm hoping to be less tired tomorrow night and plan to actually write something!