"Crunch!" Sigh.

I went down to the river yesterday intending to keep the intensity moderate.  As I paddled toward the mouth of the harbor I focused on my stroke mechanics, making sure I was inserting the blades fully and firing all the relevant muscles, from my feet up through my shoulders and arms, in unison.  As I ventured out onto the Mississippi I found rather choppy conditions even though the weather was calm--there were a fair number of fishing boats and small pleasure craft about.  I tried to keep taking good strokes on this less-stable platform.

I ferried over to the Arkansas side and worked my way upriver.  Here there are wing dams built by the Corps of Engineers to direct water into the main shipping channel, and at the current low water level (-3.3 feet on the Memphis gauge yesterday) they are exposed.  The dams are basically just piles of rocks, and most of the time I can read where the deep water is around them, but yesterday I apparently wasn't giving them a wide enough berth because I suddenly felt and heard that awful Crunch!  that every paddler of a lovely composite boat fears.

It was my rudder that had taken the impact, and just like that I found myself with no steering.  The rudder was stuck so that my boat pulled sharply to the right, and I had to use sweeps and backstrokes and stern pries to muscle the boat alongside the wing dam so I could hop out and inspect the damage. The rudder's tip was a tattered mess, and the post was bent so that it couldn't swivel like it should.  I tried to bend it back into a state of functionality but couldn't get the needed leverage.  In the end I forced the rudder into a straight-ahead position so that at least I'd have a skeg.

I didn't really doubt that I would get back across the river, but I knew it would be a chore.  I was upstream of the mouth of the harbor, so I pointed my boat at the east (Tennessee) bank and began to paddle, letting the current carry me downriver.  An upstream-bound barge rig had just passed, and there were some good-looking waves in its wake, but without a rudder I'd have to pass up that bit of fun and frolic.  Instead I employed the trusty whitewater skill of using the waves to steer the boat: even a 21-foot surf ski can turn pretty easily when it's up on the crest of a wave.

Soon enough I was back in the harbor, pointed at the marina some 2000 meters distant.  The boat was pulling ever so gradually to the right, so once in a while I had to do some corrective strokes to get back on course.  Back at the dock I put the boat away and walked up to the parking lot grumbling I can't believe I did that through clenched teeth.

And I guess that raises the obvious question: why did I paddle into water of uncertain depth in the first place?  My answer is pretty simple.  Deep down I'm a whitewater-river kind of guy, and I enjoy messing around in the eddies and whirlpools and boily water created by wing dams and bridge pilings and stuff.  Yes, I know boats are expensive and repairing them is a chore, and for that reason I am in fact quite careful most of the time.  But I'm not going to let fear of a little boat damage stop me from paddling the way I want to paddle.  A wildwater racer I know summed it up best.  "Wildwater" is downriver racing through rapids, and as you might guess, such racers lead the paddling world in banged-up boats.  I once asked Michael Beavers, who raced on several U.S. wildwater teams in the C1 class, if the possibility of hurting his boat was ever in the back of his mind during training and racing, and he just shrugged and said "You gotta learn proper boat disrespect."

And so, I got over my frustration quickly and was feeling pretty chill by the time I was heading back to the river this morning.  I took a spare rudder with me, along with the necessary tools for making the swap, and in no time my boat was functional again.  I'll take the damaged rudder back to the shop, where I'll bend the post back straight, grind off the raggedy stuff, fill the gouged-out parts with some thickened epoxy, cover it with a new piece of carbon fiber, and sand it nice and smooth, good as new.  Ain't nothin but a little rudder, after all.

In 60 minutes of paddling today I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints and then paddled a healthy tempo out on the river.  I stayed in the deep water.  Yes, I've learned my lesson, at least for a little while.