Beautiful Day, Truly Interesting Race! 

by John Stockwell

 

Early morning temp in the low 30s may have skeered some people off, but it turned out to be a beautiful day for racing. Crystal blue skies, temp in the high 60s. More, a paddler in a Huki dumped mounting his boat at the start but quickly reported that the water was a lot warmer than the air. 

 

The springs keep it an even temp in the high 60s. Twenty boats showed up. With gas prices down, there should have been maybe a hundred. Last year there were 27. Thanks to Kristen's magic with her laptop the times were posted next day on Rendon's new paddling site!

 

So many interesting things in this race that it's hard to know where to begin (and we could by no means cover them all--you'd have to be every where on the river to do that), so let's start with some news that may fuel the historic boat debates!

 

There were 2 of the new Spencer "Waves" in the race. Actually, this is the SU that we used to call the Wabash Valley or Landick I, that I have been calling the "Weagle," an inelegant name for a very special new/old boat, with the gunnels out aft for stability and pulled in at the shins for an easier paddle plant. The news is that Debbie Richardson in her light new Wave, finished as "First Woman" in 3:02:01, ahead of Erin's 3:09:08 in her world class k-1, and also ahead Dodd Yeager’s 3:03:01 in an SU, Gaston Jones's 3:04:37 in a C-1, and John Bugge's 3:07:02 in a C-1. SU paddlers often squawk that the k-1's have an overwhelming advantage, and Erin may have had a poor day (for her), but last fall Holly Nelson in my old SU Eagle nosed Erin in an ultra-fast Maco Millenium surf ski out by a half boat length. This obviously does not present enough data for a "study", but it does add a little fuel to the argument that "It isn't the boat...." and give pause to paddlers who complain that k-1's and hot surfskis always beat SUs.

 

Debbie affirms that this is a very sweet and comfortable boat. I can take some satisfaction since I've been advocating it for 3 years but, alas, nothing is that simple, is it? You see we now have Holly, Debbie, Erin, and Sandy who beat me and, Wait!, Ginsie is also training in one of these boats--that could make 5 women I follow down the river in races and training runs! And--"there's nothing really new in paddling"--the Wabash Valley was the boat Tom Goynes used for his historic runs. And Phil Bowden was telling me that Kevin's heroic Solo win a decade-plus back was in one of these boats with the gunnels pushed out to 25 inches (I have mine spread to 23 inches.) But, Debbie did not beat Tim Curry's 3:00:10 in his 20-years-outdated Advantage, now tweaked an called a Voyageur.

 

This interesting dude is blissfully unconcerned with all the clamor about faster hulls and beating people. He likes his old boat. Instead, he has concentrated on losing 30+ lbs and learning how to stroke, beating his own PB time, and--look at the people he beat in this race! Vance put his boat where his posts have been and has moved back to C-1. (What does one do for an encore when they have knocked off a #8 Overall Safari finish?) He advocates that everyone go C-1/C-2 in future Safaris--back to the basics, real paddling skills, no rudders and double blades--as is talking about someone wanted to buy his beautiful XStream. However, he did note that he is having to retrain back to C-1. His brother Garret nailed a credible 3:07:57 in a 55 lb. Tuff Weave Advantage that I wrapped on Cottonseed in 99. 20

 

Tommy nailed an excellent 2:21:46 in a once-beautiful Huki that is now decorated with duct tape. Said he spilled while training in 25 mph winds in Houston and the waves pounded it against some rocks. Ouch! Interesting: it took heavy damage to the light deck but none that I saw to the zylon hull (a lot stronger than Kevlar or carbon fiber and more expensive, but the gummint made a supplier take a lot of it back because it deteriorates rapidly under UV and they didn't want wings falling off planes).

 

Mike Rendon had a great run at 2:24:54 but our very unofficial clocks had him 4 minutes behind at Martindale, making up a minute on Tommy in the last 3rd of the race. Bike Drost's DSX was the first boat under the Staples bridge in a very credible 2:36:53--great boat. I think it's posted for sale on the new site Rendon is building.

 

Wade Binion was the first k-1 at 2:33:10. He can now paddle just about any boat. Chris Stevenson, who showed great improvement in his beautiful Eagle in the Jr., broke a rudder cable and prolly spent maybe 30 minutes improvising and repairing.

 

Bobby Snyder had a great start in his C-1, then spent maybe almost an hour making repairs at Cummings.

 

I watched all the boats through the upper end of the Martindale long portage, with interesting and useful insights: Wide stable boats like the C-1, Landick, XStream do fine at the traditional tree roots takeout--just step out on the roots and run. But the paddlers still had to pull their boats back and up to the road, and k-1's and Huki's had real headaches getting up from so low and onto the roots without the boat drifting away or the paddler going for a swim. Two of them lost 2-3 minutes. Two paddlers went down to the edge of the dam, but that was a lot slower and they had to carry their boats back over the rocks and cement. 25 yards upstream the paddlers could nose their boats into a slot, hop out into thigh-deep water, pull up a comfortable slope, and haul esse, with wet shoes. 25 yards further up there was a gravel/sand bar (at this water level), a piece of cake for portage ease and a dry-feet. Notably nearly all of the better paddlers took the upper takeouts.

 

Two racers carried their boats, everyone else dragged them. At the finish they had a tasty, healthy hot stew instead of the usual hotdogs (hotdogs are made from all the leftover cow parts at the meat plants)! What a race & day! Thanks to Race Director, Jay Daniel, his wife Kristen and God and/or Gaia!