I took my repaired V12 down to the riverfront yesterday and paddled with Joe in the harbor for some 70 minutes. It had been an entire week since I'd last paddled, and I felt stunningly fresh, as if I could lay down a sub-four-minute 1000-meter sprint right then and there.
But I was more concerned with how the boat's rudder system would do. It worked, but like I said before, the rudder wasn't responding to the pedals as promptly as I prefer... there was sort of a mushy feeling in my feet that I didn't like at all. Part of the reason is the slack in the tube I talked about in my last post, and I've brought the boat back into the shop to try to secure the tube a bit better. Also, I think the new lines have a bit of stretch in them and need to be broken in. Even though I'd fussed with them a lot before paddling yesterday, the pedals were uneven and I'll have to fuss with them some more.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Monday, September 26, 2016
Monday photo feature
Do you ever get so engrossed in some project that you start seeing reminders of it in the most unlikely places? Such as in your dreams, or in the things you see while driving across town, or in the food on your plate, or in the word puzzles in the daily newspaper?
Finishing up
I completed the epoxy work by covering each of the tube ends in the cockpit with a piece of fiberglass, mostly to leave a slightly nicer-looking surface and to lock them in place a bit better:
I have a feeling that if there's a weakness in the job I've done, it's at the ends of the tubes, where I'm relying on globs of G-flex epoxy to hold them in place. In trimming the tube ends at the stern I tried to leave as much of that epoxy there as I could while giving the rudder bracket room to move freely. I used a slicing motion with a sharp chisel to cut off the excess tubing:
Here's how the tubes look post-trimming:
I also used the chisel to cut away the excess tubing up in the cockpit:
Not the most sightly things, I know, but they should be functional.
And now, all that was left was to re-rig the rudder. I got out the new rudder lines that the nice folks at Epic headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina, sent me, and was quickly reminded of what a chore it is to feed them through the tubes. I finally had success with Oscar Chalupsky's vacuum cleaner method. The first challenge was mounting my vacuum cleaner's hose to the tube ends up in the cockpit; I finally managed it with the help of a couple of spring clamps:
The top clamp is holding the hose to the boat's foot strap, and the bottom clamp is holding a scrap of minicell that acts as a seal to concentrate all the suction through the rudder-line tube. Sure enough, I tuned the vacuum on and fed the rudder line into the stern end of each tube, and it worked, though it took a few tries. The line would snag from time to time, and I'd have to pull it out a little and re-feed it. But eventually the line emerged up in the cockpit:
O praises be!!! Then I tied the lines off at the rudder post:
...and fed them through the pedals and attached them to the tension adjuster:
I'd forgotten how tedious this process is--getting the pedals adjusted the way I like them, getting the right tension in the lines, trimming off the excess line without cutting away too much... whew. I'm glad to have this job done.
Of course, I can't truly pronounce the job done until I've put the boat in the water and paddled it. I already have one worry: the rudder is a bit sluggish in its response to the pedals. The reason is that there's some slack in the tubes where they detour around the seat bucket. I really couldn't avoid this problem because of my limited reach from the hole I cut in the boat. I plan to paddle the boat tomorrow and I'll know then whether this is an issue I can live with.
Anyway, I thank everybody who has read this series of posts and I hope this information will be useful as you strive for a satisfying relationship with your boat.
The top clamp is holding the hose to the boat's foot strap, and the bottom clamp is holding a scrap of minicell that acts as a seal to concentrate all the suction through the rudder-line tube. Sure enough, I tuned the vacuum on and fed the rudder line into the stern end of each tube, and it worked, though it took a few tries. The line would snag from time to time, and I'd have to pull it out a little and re-feed it. But eventually the line emerged up in the cockpit:
O praises be!!! Then I tied the lines off at the rudder post:
...and fed them through the pedals and attached them to the tension adjuster:
I'd forgotten how tedious this process is--getting the pedals adjusted the way I like them, getting the right tension in the lines, trimming off the excess line without cutting away too much... whew. I'm glad to have this job done.
Of course, I can't truly pronounce the job done until I've put the boat in the water and paddled it. I already have one worry: the rudder is a bit sluggish in its response to the pedals. The reason is that there's some slack in the tubes where they detour around the seat bucket. I really couldn't avoid this problem because of my limited reach from the hole I cut in the boat. I plan to paddle the boat tomorrow and I'll know then whether this is an issue I can live with.
Anyway, I thank everybody who has read this series of posts and I hope this information will be useful as you strive for a satisfying relationship with your boat.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Now, about that big hole...
As I mentioned at the outset of this project, I had to cut a big hole in the deck of my boat so I could perform surgery on the rudder-line tubes within:
It simply wouldn't do to leave that hole there. The whole point of any boat is to keep the water out as you propel it across a body of said water.
Now, if I only paddled this boat on dead-calm flatwater, I could get away with leaving that hole there. It's in the deck, after all, and only the hull would be contacting the water.
But this boat happens to be a surf ski. That means the paddler might want to take it out in the surf, be it out at sea or behind a big barge rig on the Mississippi River or behind motorized boats on the lake. And in that situation the waves have a way of crashing over the deck, and the water would rush right through that hole and you'd have yourself a swamped-out boat in a hurry.
Okay, I'm being tedious and pedantic here. The point, of course, is that I needed to seal this hole up somehow. I could have done a permanent fix by taking the cutout portion and cementing it back in place with fiberglass and epoxy resin. But there are two drawbacks to that approach: (a) while one of the experts I mentioned in my last post could probably do a beautiful job repairing the gelcoat so that you could hardly tell the hole was ever there, such a repair done by me would probably look ugly; and (b) I might actually want to get back inside the boat again sometime... those rudder-line tubes might need replacing again in another six years.
Happily, there's a nice neat solution: a screw-in marine "inspection" hatch. Here's an 8-incher I found online:
I ordered this one from an Ebay seller, but I expect you can find one at a typical marine supply store, too. I'd cut my hole so the rim would drop right in, so all I had to do after that was attach it with stainless machine screws and an adhesive sealant.
One little problem is that the deck has some curvature to it, so the hatch rim wouldn't contact it all the way around:
To some extent I could tighten the screws and pull the rim flat against the deck, but I didn't want to be too aggressive with that because if the rim took on the deck's curve the lid wouldn't screw in properly, and it might put undue stress on the deck. So for the most part I chose to let the hatch and the deck keep their respective shapes and fill in the gaps.
First, I applied G-flex epoxy to the twelve o'clock and six o'clock areas of the rim's underside, put the hatch in place, and tightened the screws at eleven o'clock, one o'clock, five o'clock, and seven o'clock:
Note that I screwed in the lid to keep the rim from taking on too much of a curve. Also, I'd sanded all the mating surfaces so the G-flex would stick well.
Next, I filled in the gaps where the deck curves away from the hatch. For this job I used a thickened version of G-flex epoxy (also available from Sweet Composites). This version has the consistency of toothpaste, and fittingly enough, it comes in tubes:
Both kinds of G-flex mix up in a 1:1 ratio, so you just squeeze out equal amounts of resin and hardener (or as close as you can get, at least; there does seem to be some margin for error).
I performed this task in a couple of steps, stuffing a bit of thickened G-flex into the gap, letting it harden up a bit, and then stuffing in some more G-flex until the gap was filled:
I filled the right gap first, and then the left gap. Each time I had the boat rolled up on its side so I'd get as much help from gravity as possible.
And so, that hole is now sealed up, but I can open it anytime I want. After the G-flex cured I trimmed and sanded off as much of the messy excess as I could from the deck. The hatch almost looks like a little turret:
I suppose if I wanted to be cute I could stick a little machine-gunner doll back there. Or, if I had an infant child, I could install a baby seat. Maybe some future owner of this boat can do that.
It simply wouldn't do to leave that hole there. The whole point of any boat is to keep the water out as you propel it across a body of said water.
Now, if I only paddled this boat on dead-calm flatwater, I could get away with leaving that hole there. It's in the deck, after all, and only the hull would be contacting the water.
But this boat happens to be a surf ski. That means the paddler might want to take it out in the surf, be it out at sea or behind a big barge rig on the Mississippi River or behind motorized boats on the lake. And in that situation the waves have a way of crashing over the deck, and the water would rush right through that hole and you'd have yourself a swamped-out boat in a hurry.
Okay, I'm being tedious and pedantic here. The point, of course, is that I needed to seal this hole up somehow. I could have done a permanent fix by taking the cutout portion and cementing it back in place with fiberglass and epoxy resin. But there are two drawbacks to that approach: (a) while one of the experts I mentioned in my last post could probably do a beautiful job repairing the gelcoat so that you could hardly tell the hole was ever there, such a repair done by me would probably look ugly; and (b) I might actually want to get back inside the boat again sometime... those rudder-line tubes might need replacing again in another six years.
Happily, there's a nice neat solution: a screw-in marine "inspection" hatch. Here's an 8-incher I found online:
I ordered this one from an Ebay seller, but I expect you can find one at a typical marine supply store, too. I'd cut my hole so the rim would drop right in, so all I had to do after that was attach it with stainless machine screws and an adhesive sealant.
One little problem is that the deck has some curvature to it, so the hatch rim wouldn't contact it all the way around:
To some extent I could tighten the screws and pull the rim flat against the deck, but I didn't want to be too aggressive with that because if the rim took on the deck's curve the lid wouldn't screw in properly, and it might put undue stress on the deck. So for the most part I chose to let the hatch and the deck keep their respective shapes and fill in the gaps.
First, I applied G-flex epoxy to the twelve o'clock and six o'clock areas of the rim's underside, put the hatch in place, and tightened the screws at eleven o'clock, one o'clock, five o'clock, and seven o'clock:
Note that I screwed in the lid to keep the rim from taking on too much of a curve. Also, I'd sanded all the mating surfaces so the G-flex would stick well.
Next, I filled in the gaps where the deck curves away from the hatch. For this job I used a thickened version of G-flex epoxy (also available from Sweet Composites). This version has the consistency of toothpaste, and fittingly enough, it comes in tubes:
Both kinds of G-flex mix up in a 1:1 ratio, so you just squeeze out equal amounts of resin and hardener (or as close as you can get, at least; there does seem to be some margin for error).
I performed this task in a couple of steps, stuffing a bit of thickened G-flex into the gap, letting it harden up a bit, and then stuffing in some more G-flex until the gap was filled:
I filled the right gap first, and then the left gap. Each time I had the boat rolled up on its side so I'd get as much help from gravity as possible.
And so, that hole is now sealed up, but I can open it anytime I want. After the G-flex cured I trimmed and sanded off as much of the messy excess as I could from the deck. The hatch almost looks like a little turret:
I suppose if I wanted to be cute I could stick a little machine-gunner doll back there. Or, if I had an infant child, I could install a baby seat. Maybe some future owner of this boat can do that.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Affixing the rudder-line tubes
Still to be done in this boat repair project are cementing those rudder-line tubes in place and doing something about that hole I cut in the boat. For these jobs I will be delving into the world of fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP).
I do not for a minute claim to be a great expert in FRP. I know a number of people who are experts, or at least highly-accomplished amateurs; the ones I can think of off the top of my head include John Kazimierczyk in New Hampshire, Bill Hearn in Massachusetts, Doug Bushnell in New York, John Brennan in Colorado, and Brad Rex in Louisiana. Every time I have a problem with a boat I wish I had one of these people around to hold my hand while I fix it. But I don't, and as a result I'm a veteran of years of trial and error and I've managed to learn a thing or two in the process. And frankly, I believe that any canoe and kayak racer worth his salt has at least a modicum of skill in FRP repair. As I mentioned in a previous post, our sport doesn't have the abundance of tech support personnel that sports like golf and tennis and bike racing and auto racing have, so if there's a problem with your boat you should be ready to fix it yourself.
The first thing I did was affix the rudder-line tubes to the inside of the hull amidships so they won't just be flopping around freely in there. The boat actually does have existing eyelets that the old tubing passed through, but my new British-unit-sized tubing is a hair bigger than the old metric-unit-sized tubing, and it doesn't fit through them. Also, I can't reach most of these existing eyelets from the hole I cut. So I had to do something else. For this job, I used this product:
The two-part West System epoxy resin and hardener can be purchased from various retailers; I get mine from Sweet Composites, owned by my old slalom-racing friends Jennifer and Davey Hearn. The yellow pumps are calibrated to dispense the resin and hardener in the correct ratio. The plastic tub contains fine wood dust saved from my electric sanding tools (for those who don't know, I build wood furniture in my out-of-the-boat life). Fine wood dust makes a good thickener.
I mixed up the resin and hardener in the clear plastic cup. Then I added it to a pile of wood dust in the black jar lid. I added wood dust a little at a time until I had a paste with a consistency similar to peanut butter:
I then used little globs of this paste to glue the tubing to the inside of the boat in as many places as I could reach. This is about the best camera angle I could get:
The spring clamps are there to hold the tubing flat against the hull surface. I should note that I had sanded the hull surface ahead of time so the epoxy paste would form a good mechanical bond with it. Epoxy is unlikely to bond with the smooth glossy plastic of the tubing, so I tried to pile the paste up and over the tubing to create a crude "eyelet" that the tubing passes through.
Once the paste had had a few hours to get good and hard, I turned my attention to the ends of the tubes where they poke out of the boat at the stern and in the cockpit. To secure the tubes in these spots, I turned to another West System product (also available from Sweet Composites):
G-flex epoxy is supposed to better than traditional epoxy at sticking to common consumer-grade plastics like that of the tubing, and it's good for bonding dissimilar materials, so my hope is that it will keep the ends of the tubes where they belong. Hoping to create the best possible bond, I roughed up the tubing surface by sanding it lightly with coarse paper. Then I mixed up some G-flex and applied it where the tubing emerges in the cockpit:
...and where it emerges at the stern:
In both places, I'd pulled the tubing taut ahead of time. You can see the postal tape I used to keep it in place in the cockpit; at the stern, the left-hand tube was wanting to slide back into the boat, so I used the piece of wire to hold it where I wanted it. (Yes, the excess tubing will get trimmed off later.)
Coming up next: I'll do something about that hole I had to cut in the boat.
I do not for a minute claim to be a great expert in FRP. I know a number of people who are experts, or at least highly-accomplished amateurs; the ones I can think of off the top of my head include John Kazimierczyk in New Hampshire, Bill Hearn in Massachusetts, Doug Bushnell in New York, John Brennan in Colorado, and Brad Rex in Louisiana. Every time I have a problem with a boat I wish I had one of these people around to hold my hand while I fix it. But I don't, and as a result I'm a veteran of years of trial and error and I've managed to learn a thing or two in the process. And frankly, I believe that any canoe and kayak racer worth his salt has at least a modicum of skill in FRP repair. As I mentioned in a previous post, our sport doesn't have the abundance of tech support personnel that sports like golf and tennis and bike racing and auto racing have, so if there's a problem with your boat you should be ready to fix it yourself.
The first thing I did was affix the rudder-line tubes to the inside of the hull amidships so they won't just be flopping around freely in there. The boat actually does have existing eyelets that the old tubing passed through, but my new British-unit-sized tubing is a hair bigger than the old metric-unit-sized tubing, and it doesn't fit through them. Also, I can't reach most of these existing eyelets from the hole I cut. So I had to do something else. For this job, I used this product:
The two-part West System epoxy resin and hardener can be purchased from various retailers; I get mine from Sweet Composites, owned by my old slalom-racing friends Jennifer and Davey Hearn. The yellow pumps are calibrated to dispense the resin and hardener in the correct ratio. The plastic tub contains fine wood dust saved from my electric sanding tools (for those who don't know, I build wood furniture in my out-of-the-boat life). Fine wood dust makes a good thickener.
I mixed up the resin and hardener in the clear plastic cup. Then I added it to a pile of wood dust in the black jar lid. I added wood dust a little at a time until I had a paste with a consistency similar to peanut butter:
I then used little globs of this paste to glue the tubing to the inside of the boat in as many places as I could reach. This is about the best camera angle I could get:
The spring clamps are there to hold the tubing flat against the hull surface. I should note that I had sanded the hull surface ahead of time so the epoxy paste would form a good mechanical bond with it. Epoxy is unlikely to bond with the smooth glossy plastic of the tubing, so I tried to pile the paste up and over the tubing to create a crude "eyelet" that the tubing passes through.
Once the paste had had a few hours to get good and hard, I turned my attention to the ends of the tubes where they poke out of the boat at the stern and in the cockpit. To secure the tubes in these spots, I turned to another West System product (also available from Sweet Composites):
G-flex epoxy is supposed to better than traditional epoxy at sticking to common consumer-grade plastics like that of the tubing, and it's good for bonding dissimilar materials, so my hope is that it will keep the ends of the tubes where they belong. Hoping to create the best possible bond, I roughed up the tubing surface by sanding it lightly with coarse paper. Then I mixed up some G-flex and applied it where the tubing emerges in the cockpit:
...and where it emerges at the stern:
In both places, I'd pulled the tubing taut ahead of time. You can see the postal tape I used to keep it in place in the cockpit; at the stern, the left-hand tube was wanting to slide back into the boat, so I used the piece of wire to hold it where I wanted it. (Yes, the excess tubing will get trimmed off later.)
Coming up next: I'll do something about that hole I had to cut in the boat.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Putting in some new rudder-line tubes
Using some ropes suspended from the ceiling, I've positioned my boat at a comfortable work height:
The old lines had some useful information printed on them:
(O.D. stands for "outer diameter," and I.D. stands for "inner diameter.")
I googled Sun-Rise Polyurethane Tube and learned that it is a Taiwanese company. That makes sense, considering that this boat was manufactured in China. I browsed the Internet for a similar product manufactured domestically, and found tubing for sale at Grainger that was manufactured by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics of Akron, Ohio. I ordered some tygothane tubing in the closest British-unit size to the old tubing that they had: 1/4 inch O.D., 3/16 inch I.D.:
100 feet was the smallest quantity of this tubing I could buy. That means I'll have plenty left over after I cut the two rudder-line tubes, each of which will be around 10 feet long. If anybody would like some of this tubing, let me know in the Comments section and we'll talk.
I cut two lengths of tubing with a few extra inches so I'd have some excess to work with at each end. I used a long piece of wire as a "needle" to pull the tubing into place. I did so in two stages--from the cockpit to the hole I cut:
...and from the hole I cut to the rudder hatch at the stern:
I'd drilled a little hole through the end of the tubing through which I could insert the wire.
Now that the two pieces of tubing are in in position, it's time to cement them in place. That'll be the topic of my next post.
The old lines had some useful information printed on them:
(O.D. stands for "outer diameter," and I.D. stands for "inner diameter.")
I googled Sun-Rise Polyurethane Tube and learned that it is a Taiwanese company. That makes sense, considering that this boat was manufactured in China. I browsed the Internet for a similar product manufactured domestically, and found tubing for sale at Grainger that was manufactured by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics of Akron, Ohio. I ordered some tygothane tubing in the closest British-unit size to the old tubing that they had: 1/4 inch O.D., 3/16 inch I.D.:
100 feet was the smallest quantity of this tubing I could buy. That means I'll have plenty left over after I cut the two rudder-line tubes, each of which will be around 10 feet long. If anybody would like some of this tubing, let me know in the Comments section and we'll talk.
I cut two lengths of tubing with a few extra inches so I'd have some excess to work with at each end. I used a long piece of wire as a "needle" to pull the tubing into place. I did so in two stages--from the cockpit to the hole I cut:
...and from the hole I cut to the rudder hatch at the stern:
I'd drilled a little hole through the end of the tubing through which I could insert the wire.
Now that the two pieces of tubing are in in position, it's time to cement them in place. That'll be the topic of my next post.
Let's have a look inside that boat
As I've mentioned in recent posts, I was unable to thread new rudder lines in my six-year-old Epic V12 surf ski because, I believed, the tubes that house the lines were broken inside the boat. Having tried every trick I could think of to avoid it, I decided some major surgery was in order.
I hated to do it, but I sucked it up and did it: I cut a hole in the deck of my beautiful boat, some 14.5 inches (37 cm) aft of the seat bucket:
Right away I learned something new: the boat has a reinforcing wall running the length of its stern half (and maybe its bow half too, but with any luck I'll never have to lay eyes on it):
So I had to cut a little section of that out to complete the hole.
A look inside confirmed my suspicion that the rudder-line tubes were broken:
In fact, the tubes turned out to broken into may pieces:
How this happened, I'm not sure: the degradation of any plastic product typically involves exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and you wouldn't expect that with tubes sealed inside a boat like this. My best guess is that the fluctuating temperature is responsible. I keep my boat down at the marina where it endures the hottest temperatures of summer and the coldest temperatures of winter. The tubes do get moisture inside them and I can believe the freezing and thawing of that moisture in the wintertime takes its toll on the tubes over a period of years.
Obviously, I could avoid this problem by keeping my boat stored in my garage at home instead of down at the marina. But I love the convenience of having my boat waiting for me down on the riverfront, where I can just take it off the rack and put it right into the water. A little extra wear and tear on my boat is a price I'm willing to pay not to have to load the boat on and off my car every time I want to paddle. The boat, after all, is simply a thing that enables me to engage in paddling, and the paddling is what is important.
So... anyway. Now that the demolition is done, how will I rebuild? That'll be the topic of my next post.
I hated to do it, but I sucked it up and did it: I cut a hole in the deck of my beautiful boat, some 14.5 inches (37 cm) aft of the seat bucket:
Right away I learned something new: the boat has a reinforcing wall running the length of its stern half (and maybe its bow half too, but with any luck I'll never have to lay eyes on it):
So I had to cut a little section of that out to complete the hole.
A look inside confirmed my suspicion that the rudder-line tubes were broken:
In fact, the tubes turned out to broken into may pieces:
How this happened, I'm not sure: the degradation of any plastic product typically involves exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and you wouldn't expect that with tubes sealed inside a boat like this. My best guess is that the fluctuating temperature is responsible. I keep my boat down at the marina where it endures the hottest temperatures of summer and the coldest temperatures of winter. The tubes do get moisture inside them and I can believe the freezing and thawing of that moisture in the wintertime takes its toll on the tubes over a period of years.
Obviously, I could avoid this problem by keeping my boat stored in my garage at home instead of down at the marina. But I love the convenience of having my boat waiting for me down on the riverfront, where I can just take it off the rack and put it right into the water. A little extra wear and tear on my boat is a price I'm willing to pay not to have to load the boat on and off my car every time I want to paddle. The boat, after all, is simply a thing that enables me to engage in paddling, and the paddling is what is important.
So... anyway. Now that the demolition is done, how will I rebuild? That'll be the topic of my next post.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Post-race thoughts and post-season thoughts
On Sunday I felt remarkably good for the day after a race, with no soreness to speak of. I gave myself a couple of days off before making it back down to the riverfront yesterday. I had absolutely no agenda for yesterday's paddle other than to get in the boat and put some strokes together. When I got to the mouth of the harbor I saw a barge rig moving upriver, so I decided to avail myself of some surfing. I ended up with a pretty vigorous workout: the rig was already a hundred meters or so upstream of the harbor's mouth, so I had to paddle hard up along the Tennessee bank to gain enough that I could ferry out to where the biggest waves were. That was ten minutes or so of high-aerobic-zone effort. Then, catching each wave required a quick, hard sprint.
I hope to make it down to paddle at least once a week for the next little while, but I'm ready for a break from training and racing. As I mentioned a couple of posts back, there are some things going on in my out-of-the-boat life that demand my attention. And I'm just weary and ready for some rest.
Soon I want to start up a strength routine again. I haven't done any strength work at all since I left on my trip to New England last month, and I expect I've gotten a bit weak in that area.
I also still need to do something about my old V12 surf ski that has the rudder-line problem. I'll try to share some photos and commentary when I get around to that repair project.
In the meantime, now that the 2016 season is complete, how's about some reflection and introspection:
I participated in seven races this year, and I was not the overall winner in a single one of them. This is the first year in about as long as I can remember that I didn't manage to finish first in some event somewhere.
Several races that used to be easy wins for me have become quite competitive. Is this a sign that I'm not as good as I was three or five or ten years ago? Maybe. I'm certainly no more immune to the advancement of age than anybody else. But I also think that the quality of racing is going up here in my part of the country, and I'd rather focus on that because the issue is near and dear to my heart.
The greater Tennessee-Arkansas-Mississippi region is rarely seen as a national leader in health-and-fitness-oriented activities. More often we seem to make news for high rates of obesity and diabetes and heart disease and stuff like that. Our region has also never really been foremost in people's minds when they think of excellence in canoeing and kayaking. In one paddling discipline or another you'll find hotbeds in coastal regions and mountainous regions and a few of the trendier inland cities, but I'm used to getting looks of disbelief when I travel to one of those places and tell people I'm from Memphis, especially if I've just done well in a race.
I don't really care that much what outsiders think of my city and my region; oddly enough, I think we enjoy a certain quality of life as a result of not being a place that everybody else wants to move to. But there's definitely room for improvement to that quality of life, and for my money nothing enhances quality of life better than good opportunities for canoe and kayak paddling, training, and racing.
I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize my friend Joe Royer, who through his company Outdoors, Inc., has driven the outdoor sports scene in Memphis and the Mid South, sometimes singlehandedly. He founded the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race in 1982--long before such events were considered cool. Three and a half decades later that event continues to be as good as any I have ever participated in.
I'm not the same kind of leader that Joe is. I don't have his energy or his business savvy or his gregarious charm. But I can lead in other ways, and in general I try to set a good example in my approach to racing here in the Mid South. In particular, I want to convey the message that the races I go to are indeed athletic events, and that being an athlete is a good thing, a perfectly normal thing for a person of any age and any walk of life... that you don't have to be an aspiring Olympian or a member of a pro sports team to have a training plan and set athletic goals. I'd like to convince people that paddling hard and seeing how fast you can go is actually fun even though it's physically demanding at times.
Little by little, people are starting to show up who make it harder for me to win these races that I once could almost count on winning. There are some young people like Carson and Conrad and Peyton Pellerin, and there are some older guys like Shane Kleynhans and Rick Carter. I don't presume to deserve all the credit for their emergence, but I'd like to believe that at least a small part of their motivation comes from being tired of that Elmore guy winning all the races.
Mind you, I'm still a competitor and I don't exactly like getting beat. I'll be spending this offseason pondering some ideas of what I might do to regain a title or two in 2017. But it's a lot more fun to be part of a pack of people fighting it out up front that to be all alone in the lead. I don't expect the Mid South will ever become the ultimate paddling mecca, but that's okay. I'm just glad to see a few more people recognizing its potential for some exciting canoe and kayak racing.
I appreciate everybody who reads this blog and I hope you've enjoyed the vicarious experience of my race season. After a little time off I guess I'll start the process all over again. Because... why not?
I hope to make it down to paddle at least once a week for the next little while, but I'm ready for a break from training and racing. As I mentioned a couple of posts back, there are some things going on in my out-of-the-boat life that demand my attention. And I'm just weary and ready for some rest.
Soon I want to start up a strength routine again. I haven't done any strength work at all since I left on my trip to New England last month, and I expect I've gotten a bit weak in that area.
I also still need to do something about my old V12 surf ski that has the rudder-line problem. I'll try to share some photos and commentary when I get around to that repair project.
In the meantime, now that the 2016 season is complete, how's about some reflection and introspection:
I participated in seven races this year, and I was not the overall winner in a single one of them. This is the first year in about as long as I can remember that I didn't manage to finish first in some event somewhere.
Several races that used to be easy wins for me have become quite competitive. Is this a sign that I'm not as good as I was three or five or ten years ago? Maybe. I'm certainly no more immune to the advancement of age than anybody else. But I also think that the quality of racing is going up here in my part of the country, and I'd rather focus on that because the issue is near and dear to my heart.
The greater Tennessee-Arkansas-Mississippi region is rarely seen as a national leader in health-and-fitness-oriented activities. More often we seem to make news for high rates of obesity and diabetes and heart disease and stuff like that. Our region has also never really been foremost in people's minds when they think of excellence in canoeing and kayaking. In one paddling discipline or another you'll find hotbeds in coastal regions and mountainous regions and a few of the trendier inland cities, but I'm used to getting looks of disbelief when I travel to one of those places and tell people I'm from Memphis, especially if I've just done well in a race.
I don't really care that much what outsiders think of my city and my region; oddly enough, I think we enjoy a certain quality of life as a result of not being a place that everybody else wants to move to. But there's definitely room for improvement to that quality of life, and for my money nothing enhances quality of life better than good opportunities for canoe and kayak paddling, training, and racing.
I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize my friend Joe Royer, who through his company Outdoors, Inc., has driven the outdoor sports scene in Memphis and the Mid South, sometimes singlehandedly. He founded the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race in 1982--long before such events were considered cool. Three and a half decades later that event continues to be as good as any I have ever participated in.
I'm not the same kind of leader that Joe is. I don't have his energy or his business savvy or his gregarious charm. But I can lead in other ways, and in general I try to set a good example in my approach to racing here in the Mid South. In particular, I want to convey the message that the races I go to are indeed athletic events, and that being an athlete is a good thing, a perfectly normal thing for a person of any age and any walk of life... that you don't have to be an aspiring Olympian or a member of a pro sports team to have a training plan and set athletic goals. I'd like to convince people that paddling hard and seeing how fast you can go is actually fun even though it's physically demanding at times.
Little by little, people are starting to show up who make it harder for me to win these races that I once could almost count on winning. There are some young people like Carson and Conrad and Peyton Pellerin, and there are some older guys like Shane Kleynhans and Rick Carter. I don't presume to deserve all the credit for their emergence, but I'd like to believe that at least a small part of their motivation comes from being tired of that Elmore guy winning all the races.
Mind you, I'm still a competitor and I don't exactly like getting beat. I'll be spending this offseason pondering some ideas of what I might do to regain a title or two in 2017. But it's a lot more fun to be part of a pack of people fighting it out up front that to be all alone in the lead. I don't expect the Mid South will ever become the ultimate paddling mecca, but that's okay. I'm just glad to see a few more people recognizing its potential for some exciting canoe and kayak racing.
I appreciate everybody who reads this blog and I hope you've enjoyed the vicarious experience of my race season. After a little time off I guess I'll start the process all over again. Because... why not?
Monday, September 19, 2016
Movin' pictures
Here's a video clip of Saturday's race shot by Tom Taylor. He was posted along the course some 2000 meters from the finish. The K3 in the foreground has Conrad Pellerin manning the bow, Carson Pellerin paddling stern and controlling the rudder, and Peyton Pellerin paddling amidships. That's me sitting on their starboard wake. Shane Kleynhans hangs out a couple of boatlengths back.
Monday photo feature
At about this time two years ago I took my trusty whitewater boat down to the harbor for a couple of weeks of intense practice. My race season had concluded for the year, and I was about to drive up to Deep Creek, Maryland, to watch the world championships of whitewater slalom racing, after which I would spend several days on the Gauley River near Summersville, West Virginia. I hadn't been in the whitewater boat in a long time, so I figured some stroke drills and roll practice here on my home water were in order.
This is the same boat that got stolen this past April. It was a good boat and I sure wish it would turn up, but that seems less and less likely with each passing day.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Good competition in the Deep South
Racers gathered yesterday morning on the Pelahatchie Bay portion of Barnett Reservoir for the annual Gator Bait Race. This weekend the eyes of most North American surf ski enthusiasts might have been on a couple of higher-profile events including the East Coast Championships up in Connecticut, but I consider this race in central Mississippi one of the more underrated events of the entire year. It's not a splashy day-long event with a big post-race party full of live music and adult beverages and so on, but the race itself--the part that counts, after all--is meticulously organized and I have never been disappointed with the level of competition.
Starting and finishing at Pelahatchie Shore Park, the course makes a big loop around Pelahatchie Bay that takes paddlers across a couple of open-water expanses and through a narrow lily-pad-ridden channel behind a couple of islands. The course is advertised as 5.5 miles (about 8800 meters), but modifications to avoid some problematic shallow sections made it quite a bit shorter than that yesterday. The absence of the usual turning buoy at the beginning of the home stretch made it perhaps a full mile shorter. One of my fellow racers measured it at around 4.5 miles (7 km or so) on his G.P.S. device.
The race always starts right on time, so we got in our boats and warmed up and settled onto the starting line. At the gun I sprinted hard to establish good position, and the boats who matched my speed were exactly the ones I'd counted on. On my left were the 15-year-old Pellerin triplets from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Carson and Conrad and Peyton Pellerin were paddling their Spencer "Patriot" boat as a K3, and as such they had already beaten me twice this season, but I was hoping to repeat last year's narrow Gator Bait victory and provide a benevolent reminder that they haven't quite seen the last of me. Over to the right, meanwhile, was Shane Kleynhans of nearby Brandon, Mississippi, a newcomer to the sport who has made significant improvement in the last year.
I hopped on the Pellerins' stern wake, but they were moving so fast in that first kilometer that I couldn't hold it. It seemed, at that moment, that their teenage bodies had matured right out of my league. So I moved over and tried my luck on Shane's wake, but he was sprinting so hard in pursuit of the triplets that I had trouble holding that, too, and I feared that September 17, 2016, might be the day that I ceased to be relevant in the top ranks of canoe and kayak racing in the greater Mid South and Gulf South region.
Mercifully, this blistering starting pace didn't last. As they approached the entrance to the "back stretch" channel the Pellerins had to back off a bit as they sought the clearest path through the lily pads. Shane slowed down quite a bit as well, and I found an opportunity to sneak up into second place. As we advanced into the narrow channel I found the pace much more manageable and I began to think there just might be hope for me yet.
Work crews had made a valiant effort at lily pad removal, but we had to pick our path carefully nevertheless. A couple of times I thought I had snagged a hunk of vegetation on my rudder, but in the end my weed deflector proved equal to the challenge. The Pellerins and I and Shane stayed single-file throughout this part of the course to avoid any race-ruining mishap.
As the course began to open back up I sensed that Shane was falling off the pace a bit, and to press the advantage I sprinted up onto the triplets' right-side wake. That created a small gap and the pace began to nudge upward. We might have opened up the pace even more if we hadn't been searching for the buoy that, as I mentioned above, wasn't there this time.
We finally realized what the situation was when we saw race official Tom Taylor directing traffic from his position on a motorboat. We went left of a couple of islands and entered the final 2000 meters, and from this point on the race was remarkably similar to last year's in the way it played out. I held my position on the triplets' side wake, occasionally throwing in a surge to see how they would respond. Meanwhile Shane was hanging in there just a couple of boatlengths back and I knew better than to count him out.
With some 400 meters left I sprinted for the lead, but the Pellerins responded with a withering sprint of their own and I knew they had the upper hand this time around. I dropped back on their stern wake and tried my hardest to stay there. As the course veered left toward the finish line I made one last attempt to cut inside and slip by them there, but to no avail. Clearly the triplets have developed a top speed I can't match and they reached the line seven seconds ahead of me. Shane held on for third place, and a little while later Nick Kinderman of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, used a strong finish to claim fourth place overall and third in the men's single race boat class over David Dupree of Rayville, Louisiana.
The full results are posted here. Conrad Pellerin and Carson Pellerin are listed in first and second place, but they were in fact in the same boat along with their brother Peyton. So I was second, Shane was third, Nick was fourth, and so on. Camille Richards of Madison, Mississippi, was 20th overall and the top female finisher.
After a good hard-fought 40 minutes or so of racing we were happy to unwind and start the rest of our day with a nice catered lunch in the Pelahatchie Shore Park pavilion. Some rain moved in as the last finishers were completing the course, but there was no lightning and I would say the weather was nearly ideal overall. I expect the 2017 Gator Bait race will be about this same weekend and I hope more racers will consider attending this fine event.
Starting and finishing at Pelahatchie Shore Park, the course makes a big loop around Pelahatchie Bay that takes paddlers across a couple of open-water expanses and through a narrow lily-pad-ridden channel behind a couple of islands. The course is advertised as 5.5 miles (about 8800 meters), but modifications to avoid some problematic shallow sections made it quite a bit shorter than that yesterday. The absence of the usual turning buoy at the beginning of the home stretch made it perhaps a full mile shorter. One of my fellow racers measured it at around 4.5 miles (7 km or so) on his G.P.S. device.
The race always starts right on time, so we got in our boats and warmed up and settled onto the starting line. At the gun I sprinted hard to establish good position, and the boats who matched my speed were exactly the ones I'd counted on. On my left were the 15-year-old Pellerin triplets from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Carson and Conrad and Peyton Pellerin were paddling their Spencer "Patriot" boat as a K3, and as such they had already beaten me twice this season, but I was hoping to repeat last year's narrow Gator Bait victory and provide a benevolent reminder that they haven't quite seen the last of me. Over to the right, meanwhile, was Shane Kleynhans of nearby Brandon, Mississippi, a newcomer to the sport who has made significant improvement in the last year.
I hopped on the Pellerins' stern wake, but they were moving so fast in that first kilometer that I couldn't hold it. It seemed, at that moment, that their teenage bodies had matured right out of my league. So I moved over and tried my luck on Shane's wake, but he was sprinting so hard in pursuit of the triplets that I had trouble holding that, too, and I feared that September 17, 2016, might be the day that I ceased to be relevant in the top ranks of canoe and kayak racing in the greater Mid South and Gulf South region.
Mercifully, this blistering starting pace didn't last. As they approached the entrance to the "back stretch" channel the Pellerins had to back off a bit as they sought the clearest path through the lily pads. Shane slowed down quite a bit as well, and I found an opportunity to sneak up into second place. As we advanced into the narrow channel I found the pace much more manageable and I began to think there just might be hope for me yet.
Work crews had made a valiant effort at lily pad removal, but we had to pick our path carefully nevertheless. A couple of times I thought I had snagged a hunk of vegetation on my rudder, but in the end my weed deflector proved equal to the challenge. The Pellerins and I and Shane stayed single-file throughout this part of the course to avoid any race-ruining mishap.
As the course began to open back up I sensed that Shane was falling off the pace a bit, and to press the advantage I sprinted up onto the triplets' right-side wake. That created a small gap and the pace began to nudge upward. We might have opened up the pace even more if we hadn't been searching for the buoy that, as I mentioned above, wasn't there this time.
We finally realized what the situation was when we saw race official Tom Taylor directing traffic from his position on a motorboat. We went left of a couple of islands and entered the final 2000 meters, and from this point on the race was remarkably similar to last year's in the way it played out. I held my position on the triplets' side wake, occasionally throwing in a surge to see how they would respond. Meanwhile Shane was hanging in there just a couple of boatlengths back and I knew better than to count him out.
With some 400 meters left I sprinted for the lead, but the Pellerins responded with a withering sprint of their own and I knew they had the upper hand this time around. I dropped back on their stern wake and tried my hardest to stay there. As the course veered left toward the finish line I made one last attempt to cut inside and slip by them there, but to no avail. Clearly the triplets have developed a top speed I can't match and they reached the line seven seconds ahead of me. Shane held on for third place, and a little while later Nick Kinderman of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, used a strong finish to claim fourth place overall and third in the men's single race boat class over David Dupree of Rayville, Louisiana.
The full results are posted here. Conrad Pellerin and Carson Pellerin are listed in first and second place, but they were in fact in the same boat along with their brother Peyton. So I was second, Shane was third, Nick was fourth, and so on. Camille Richards of Madison, Mississippi, was 20th overall and the top female finisher.
After a good hard-fought 40 minutes or so of racing we were happy to unwind and start the rest of our day with a nice catered lunch in the Pelahatchie Shore Park pavilion. Some rain moved in as the last finishers were completing the course, but there was no lightning and I would say the weather was nearly ideal overall. I expect the 2017 Gator Bait race will be about this same weekend and I hope more racers will consider attending this fine event.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Racing to escape stress
I'm spending tonight in Jackson, Mississippi, ahead of the Gator Bait Race on Barnett Reservoir tomorrow morning. I've just been to the race check-in place where I filled up on some sponsored food. I expect there will be some good competition tomorrow so I'm hoping for a good night's sleep.
I've had a rather stressful week at home and I'm glad to be away from that for a few hours. I'm having some major renovation work done on a rental property I own and I've been dealing with some important decisions and some sizable bills. I've always been prone to anxiety and I will be glad when this is all behind me. It'll probably last another month or so.
I've been down to the river four times this week. Each time I did the stuff I typically do to get race ready: some relaxed stretching and visualization; a good long warmup; and some short sprints at maximum intensity with full recovery in between. By the end of each session I felt as upbeat and relaxed as I've felt this whole week. Exercise supposedly releases endorphins, and I think that was working for me.
I've had a rather stressful week at home and I'm glad to be away from that for a few hours. I'm having some major renovation work done on a rental property I own and I've been dealing with some important decisions and some sizable bills. I've always been prone to anxiety and I will be glad when this is all behind me. It'll probably last another month or so.
I've been down to the river four times this week. Each time I did the stuff I typically do to get race ready: some relaxed stretching and visualization; a good long warmup; and some short sprints at maximum intensity with full recovery in between. By the end of each session I felt as upbeat and relaxed as I've felt this whole week. Exercise supposedly releases endorphins, and I think that was working for me.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Monday photo feature
At the race on Center Hill Reservoir eight days ago, the tandem surf ski pair of Justin and Bella Burd had one of those Go Pro cameras mounted on their stern, and this is a photo it snapped just after the start. The paddler on the right is Myrlene Marsa of Rising Fawn, Georgia, who would go on to take the women's title. The paddler on the left is yours truly.
Season's twilight
I'll be spending this coming week trying to get some rest and polish up my speed for my last competition of the year, the Gator Bait Race on Barnett Reservoir just outside Jackson, Mississippi. Once this race is over I'll be ready for a break so I can give some other parts of my life the attention they deserve.
We're having a lovely several days, with low humidity and Fahrenheit highs in the 80s. It looks like it'll be hot again later this week, but the balance is shifting in favor of nicer weather.
Yesterday I found time to run down to the river for a 40-minute paddle. I warmed up and did eight 12-stroke sprints with full recovery in between. Then, as I was heading back to the dock, a ski boat passed me on my left and it was putting out an irresistible wake, so I quickly sidled over and rode it for at least a half mile.
We're having a lovely several days, with low humidity and Fahrenheit highs in the 80s. It looks like it'll be hot again later this week, but the balance is shifting in favor of nicer weather.
Yesterday I found time to run down to the river for a 40-minute paddle. I warmed up and did eight 12-stroke sprints with full recovery in between. Then, as I was heading back to the dock, a ski boat passed me on my left and it was putting out an irresistible wake, so I quickly sidled over and rode it for at least a half mile.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Summer keeps the heat on
Hot muggy weather has returned to the Mid South, albeit not as bad as what we had in July and August. We should get another break soon, and then it'll get hot again but not as bad as it is now, and so on, until just like that we're complaining about how chilly it's getting.
I got home from the Center Hill Reservoir race Sunday evening, and took my boat back to the dock Monday morning. I was wicked sore and I paddled easy for just a half hour, enough to get some blood flowing in all the relevant muscles.
By Wednesday the soreness had abated and I had a pretty good 70-minute session out on the river surfing a few barge wakes. By the end of it I was tired from the hard paddling in the hot sun, but I was determined to get back out today for my last hard workout of the year: I did eight 75-second pieces with 45 seconds recovery. It's arguably the most intense workout I do each year, intended to develop a bit of lactic tolerance for that late-race furious dash toward the finish line.
I expect there could be just such goings-on in my next race down at Jackson, Mississippi, a week from Saturday. I think I'm going to call it a season after this race and I'd like to make it a good one.
I got home from the Center Hill Reservoir race Sunday evening, and took my boat back to the dock Monday morning. I was wicked sore and I paddled easy for just a half hour, enough to get some blood flowing in all the relevant muscles.
By Wednesday the soreness had abated and I had a pretty good 70-minute session out on the river surfing a few barge wakes. By the end of it I was tired from the hard paddling in the hot sun, but I was determined to get back out today for my last hard workout of the year: I did eight 75-second pieces with 45 seconds recovery. It's arguably the most intense workout I do each year, intended to develop a bit of lactic tolerance for that late-race furious dash toward the finish line.
I expect there could be just such goings-on in my next race down at Jackson, Mississippi, a week from Saturday. I think I'm going to call it a season after this race and I'd like to make it a good one.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Monday photo feature
What we have here is the stern end of the tubes that contain the rudder lines for my six-year-old surf ski. Trouble is, anything that enters the tunnels from this end will not emerge up in the footwell because the tubes are broken within the bowels of the boat.
One of the realities of participating in a small sport like paddling is that you should expect to do much, if not all, of the repair work yourself. It's not that hard to find somebody to work on your tennis racket, or your golf clubs, or your bicycle; but for canoes and kayaks and paddles knowledgeable repair services are few and far between.
This is why I'm glad I started out in the sport as a whitewater paddler: I knew from the outset that my boat would need fixing pretty often, and I went out and acquired at least the bare minimum of skill for the job. There's still plenty I don't know or am not good at, but I hope to arrive at a satisfactory solution to my rudder-line problem and have this boat back in service before long.
Revisiting those good times from the USCAs
It was a sunny day in Middle Tennessee for my race on Center Hill Reservoir yesterday. The reservoir is part of the Cumberland River system: it was formed by the construction of a dam on the Caney Fork River near Smithville.
I arrived at the race site a couple of hours ahead of the noon start time and prepared for a rematch of my USCA Nationals race back on August 12: the distance for yesterday's race was approximately the same, and Scott Cummins of Louisville, with whom I'd matched wits for most of the USCA race, was registered.
Even the course layout was similar to the one we raced on up in Massachusetts: from the starting line we would paddle a few miles to a buoy turn, then paddle back past the starting line and continue a couple of miles to another buoy turn, and then come back and finish at the same place we'd started.
I was determined not to repeat the mistake I'd made at the USCAs, where I'd pushed the pace too hard in the first half of the race and paid dearly for it in the second half. And so once I'd sprinted off the line to put some distance on most of the field, I settled into a comfortable wake-riding pack with Cummins and Ted Burnell of Chattanooga.
We cruised along for several miles before Scott started throwing in some sprints to try to break up the pack. I covered each of his moves, but eventually we opened a gap on Ted. For the next half-hour or so I did my gentlemanly duty and took the lead from time to time, but I was careful to spend my share of time on Scott's wake. I was hoping he might be getting tired from the sprinting he had done earlier and maybe I could make a breakaway move in the late stages of the race. Meanwhile, Ted held his position just a few boatlengths behind us.
As the course brought us back by the start/finish line, it appeared that my chance had arrived sooner than I'd expected, as Scott suddenly fell off the pace. Years of racing with Scott have taught me that he is not a guy who gives up easily, and I couldn't quite believe the race was falling into my hands like this, but I began to surge to press the advantage. As we passed the start/finish line we supposedly had four miles still to go, so I knew I couldn't go too whole-hog with the surges. But it was hard not to say to myself "This race is mine, baby. All mine."
The race wasn't all mine. I glanced back and saw Scott moving back up onto my stern wake. The story, as Scott would tell me after the race, was that Scott had dropped back with Ted hoping that he could ride Ted's wake as Ted worked to reel me in. Ted didn't give chase, however, and Scott decided he needed to sprint back up onto my wake.
As soon as I realized I had not, in fact, broken Scott, I knew the race would come down to the last mile, if not the last hundred meters. By this time I was plenty tired myself and knew I would have to conserve what little energy I had left. I slowed way down and almost forced Scott to take a couple of shifts in the lead. In doing so, I allowed Ted to rejoin our pack.
I took the lead into the last buoy turn--two miles from the finish--and after rounding the buoy I stole a glance over my shoulder to see if I'd achieved a gap on Scott and Ted... and I almost ended up in the water. My motor control in my core muscles was failing and it took a solid brace to keep my boat upright. I decided to keep the pace slow until we came within sight of the finish line.
That moment finally arrived as we rounded a bend and saw the finish buoys less than 800 meters in the distance. I threw in a surge to see how much my competitors had left; they responded well and I backed off a bit. Then, with maybe 200 meters left, I knew it was time to put up or shut up. I began to sprint but Scott's bow stayed right there off my right hip. I let him take the lead, hoping to ride his port-side wake as long as I could before letting it rip for a photo-finish victory. With 50 meters to go, I let it rip... but Scott held fast and I couldn't move my bow ahead of his. I was running on fumes and my body was screaming Concede! Concede! My brain almost obeyed, but with 15 meters left I decided to dig in one last time. But I couldn't climb out of the trough of Scott's wake and his bow beat mine across the line by inches. The results would show a 0.29-second margin--one hour, 56 minutes, 53.81 seconds for Scott and 1:56:54.10 for me--and that sounds about right, I guess, although I don't know how the timing could have been that precise without any electronic eyes in place or anything like that. Let's just say it was a tight finish. Ted held on to take third place just six seconds back.
Myrlene Marsa led all females with a time of 2:20:07.65. She lives a few miles outside Chattanooga in Rising Fawn, Georgia.
Scott recorded the total distance at about 13.4 miles on his G.P.S. device. My time was almost identical to my time at the USCAs, at which the distance was reportedly just over 13 miles. In that race I had died with about two miles to go, whereas in this race I had paced myself much better and had something left at the end, if only just barely. My legs throbbed like jelly in that last mad dash to the finish.
The results are posted here. You have to click on "Results" at the top of the page, and then when you get the "Select an Event" menu, choose "14 Mile." Scott is listed as William Cummins.
I'm tired and sore today but generally feeling good about how yesterday turned out. It's easy to be disappointed when you've fallen just short of winning, but I honestly don't think there was anything I could have done to produce a better outcome. As the ever-gracious Scott said afterward, "We can chalk this one up as a tie."
I arrived at the race site a couple of hours ahead of the noon start time and prepared for a rematch of my USCA Nationals race back on August 12: the distance for yesterday's race was approximately the same, and Scott Cummins of Louisville, with whom I'd matched wits for most of the USCA race, was registered.
Even the course layout was similar to the one we raced on up in Massachusetts: from the starting line we would paddle a few miles to a buoy turn, then paddle back past the starting line and continue a couple of miles to another buoy turn, and then come back and finish at the same place we'd started.
I was determined not to repeat the mistake I'd made at the USCAs, where I'd pushed the pace too hard in the first half of the race and paid dearly for it in the second half. And so once I'd sprinted off the line to put some distance on most of the field, I settled into a comfortable wake-riding pack with Cummins and Ted Burnell of Chattanooga.
We cruised along for several miles before Scott started throwing in some sprints to try to break up the pack. I covered each of his moves, but eventually we opened a gap on Ted. For the next half-hour or so I did my gentlemanly duty and took the lead from time to time, but I was careful to spend my share of time on Scott's wake. I was hoping he might be getting tired from the sprinting he had done earlier and maybe I could make a breakaway move in the late stages of the race. Meanwhile, Ted held his position just a few boatlengths behind us.
As the course brought us back by the start/finish line, it appeared that my chance had arrived sooner than I'd expected, as Scott suddenly fell off the pace. Years of racing with Scott have taught me that he is not a guy who gives up easily, and I couldn't quite believe the race was falling into my hands like this, but I began to surge to press the advantage. As we passed the start/finish line we supposedly had four miles still to go, so I knew I couldn't go too whole-hog with the surges. But it was hard not to say to myself "This race is mine, baby. All mine."
The race wasn't all mine. I glanced back and saw Scott moving back up onto my stern wake. The story, as Scott would tell me after the race, was that Scott had dropped back with Ted hoping that he could ride Ted's wake as Ted worked to reel me in. Ted didn't give chase, however, and Scott decided he needed to sprint back up onto my wake.
As soon as I realized I had not, in fact, broken Scott, I knew the race would come down to the last mile, if not the last hundred meters. By this time I was plenty tired myself and knew I would have to conserve what little energy I had left. I slowed way down and almost forced Scott to take a couple of shifts in the lead. In doing so, I allowed Ted to rejoin our pack.
I took the lead into the last buoy turn--two miles from the finish--and after rounding the buoy I stole a glance over my shoulder to see if I'd achieved a gap on Scott and Ted... and I almost ended up in the water. My motor control in my core muscles was failing and it took a solid brace to keep my boat upright. I decided to keep the pace slow until we came within sight of the finish line.
That moment finally arrived as we rounded a bend and saw the finish buoys less than 800 meters in the distance. I threw in a surge to see how much my competitors had left; they responded well and I backed off a bit. Then, with maybe 200 meters left, I knew it was time to put up or shut up. I began to sprint but Scott's bow stayed right there off my right hip. I let him take the lead, hoping to ride his port-side wake as long as I could before letting it rip for a photo-finish victory. With 50 meters to go, I let it rip... but Scott held fast and I couldn't move my bow ahead of his. I was running on fumes and my body was screaming Concede! Concede! My brain almost obeyed, but with 15 meters left I decided to dig in one last time. But I couldn't climb out of the trough of Scott's wake and his bow beat mine across the line by inches. The results would show a 0.29-second margin--one hour, 56 minutes, 53.81 seconds for Scott and 1:56:54.10 for me--and that sounds about right, I guess, although I don't know how the timing could have been that precise without any electronic eyes in place or anything like that. Let's just say it was a tight finish. Ted held on to take third place just six seconds back.
Myrlene Marsa led all females with a time of 2:20:07.65. She lives a few miles outside Chattanooga in Rising Fawn, Georgia.
Scott recorded the total distance at about 13.4 miles on his G.P.S. device. My time was almost identical to my time at the USCAs, at which the distance was reportedly just over 13 miles. In that race I had died with about two miles to go, whereas in this race I had paced myself much better and had something left at the end, if only just barely. My legs throbbed like jelly in that last mad dash to the finish.
The results are posted here. You have to click on "Results" at the top of the page, and then when you get the "Select an Event" menu, choose "14 Mile." Scott is listed as William Cummins.
I'm tired and sore today but generally feeling good about how yesterday turned out. It's easy to be disappointed when you've fallen just short of winning, but I honestly don't think there was anything I could have done to produce a better outcome. As the ever-gracious Scott said afterward, "We can chalk this one up as a tie."
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Late-week optimism
As I wear a frown over my whole rudder-line predicament, there are reasons to manage a smile, too. For one, we're finally getting a break from the heat and humidity and enjoying a couple of beautiful mild days. For another, I've been feeling good in the boat for the last several days and am hopeful that will translate into a good race tomorrow.
This morning I did one last pre-race paddle--40 minutes with a few 12-stroke sprints with full recovery. Then I loaded up the boat, and this afternoon I will drive to Nashville to stay with a friend. I'll let you know how it goes.
This morning I did one last pre-race paddle--40 minutes with a few 12-stroke sprints with full recovery. Then I loaded up the boat, and this afternoon I will drive to Nashville to stay with a friend. I'll let you know how it goes.
Friday, September 2, 2016
Rudder bummer
I have signed up for a race this weekend: the Rock Island Paddle Rampage on Center Hill Reservoir near McMinnville, Tennessee, on Sunday. It's 14 miles, or about 23 kilometers. I'll try to handle that distance more wisely than I did up at the USCA Nationals three weeks ago.
This week has been a somewhat frustrating one as the rudder line issue on my six-year-old surf ski went from a small problem to a big problem. I received my new set of lines in the mail and went down to the dock Tuesday morning thinking that installing them would be a simple matter of carefully joining them with tape to the ends of the old lines and using the old lines to pull them through the tubes; but the tape junction failed and now the old lines are out while the new lines are not yet in.
The Epic Kayaks channel on You Tube has a couple of videos of former Epic principal Oscar Chalupsky demonstrating two methods of installing rudder lines--one using a vacuum cleaner to suck the line through the tube, and one using a stiffer wire inserted through the tube to pull the line through. I tried both methods with no success, and what I ultimately discovered is that both tubes are broken inside the boat.
I ended up not paddling at all on Tuesday, and that put me in a foul mood. I spent Wednesday letting the dejection run its course, and yesterday I took my new boat down to the riverfront and am now forgetting the mechanical woes for the moment and focusing on being ready for Sunday's race.
I'll get back to working on those rudder lines soon enough, and I'll post more here about the project as it happens. Barring some kind of epiphany that includes a snappy solution to the problem, the old boat will be going under the knife.
This week has been a somewhat frustrating one as the rudder line issue on my six-year-old surf ski went from a small problem to a big problem. I received my new set of lines in the mail and went down to the dock Tuesday morning thinking that installing them would be a simple matter of carefully joining them with tape to the ends of the old lines and using the old lines to pull them through the tubes; but the tape junction failed and now the old lines are out while the new lines are not yet in.
The Epic Kayaks channel on You Tube has a couple of videos of former Epic principal Oscar Chalupsky demonstrating two methods of installing rudder lines--one using a vacuum cleaner to suck the line through the tube, and one using a stiffer wire inserted through the tube to pull the line through. I tried both methods with no success, and what I ultimately discovered is that both tubes are broken inside the boat.
I ended up not paddling at all on Tuesday, and that put me in a foul mood. I spent Wednesday letting the dejection run its course, and yesterday I took my new boat down to the riverfront and am now forgetting the mechanical woes for the moment and focusing on being ready for Sunday's race.
I'll get back to working on those rudder lines soon enough, and I'll post more here about the project as it happens. Barring some kind of epiphany that includes a snappy solution to the problem, the old boat will be going under the knife.
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