With the Blackburn coming up 4 days later, nobody was particularly thrilled about expending too much energy on this warm and muggy evening. Somebody used the word "tapering", which sounded like a great excuse to sit on the beach watching with a beer or three. That's just what Francisco would want, though. No. I'd not go gentle into this good night. Perhaps I wouldn't be raging, raging, but at least I'd be sober.
With high tide less than an hour before the start of the race, it was a good night for double-header course #5 - out-and-back around Great Haste Island, then out-and-back around the red nun in the inner harbor. It was a night with very little wind and calm conditions. I noticed quite a few patches of floating weeds during warm-up. Given these factors, I decided to switch over to my new weedless rudder, hand-delivered by Ed moments before the race. To this rudder I mounted my new V10 for its inaugural race.
Because there were bathers on our beach, our starting arrangement was a little denser than usual. Matt and Francisco got away cleanly from the pack, with Ken and Mike and I maneuvering behind for position. Having disabled higher cognitive functions in preparation for the race, I was sloppy coming out into the harbor and received a few well-deserved jostles from behind as I started my turn with too great haste.
A minute or two later, I was on Matt's wash, Matt was on Francisco's wash, and Francisco was laying track for our little train. After a short while, it seemed like Matt was in danger of dropping off of the draft, so I moved around to the right and caught up with Francisco. Dreading the inevitable will-he-or-won't-he be able to pass drama that was about to unfold, I tried to pull around him on the right. The rest of the way to Great Haste we see-sawed side by side, sprinting to catch the unexpected little waves which kept popping up, and swerving to avoid the worst of Winnebago-sized patches of weeds.
Francisco had a slight lead as we started to round the rocky island on our left, so rather than taking the longer outside path, I dropped back onto his draft until we were safely heading back towards Lynch Park. This time I broke left and started working to regain the lead. Even though we had gotten quite a few little rides on the way out to the island, there was plenty of help heading back as well. Francisco took a line far off to the right so it was difficult to tell our relative positions at first, but as we approached the beach it seemed that I had a lead of a boat length or two, as well as having a more direct line to the finish. I ended up with an 11 second advantage for the first leg. Francisco was followed by Ken, Mike, and Matt in quick succession. Matt had a bad weed night. We've all been in that boat.
For the second leg, I got the boat in the water cleanly with only Matt ahead of me. To the extent that you can call my confused and feeble thoughts a "strategy", my strategy had been to make sure to hang with Francisco until the nun, then try to take him on the return trip. Finding myself in front of Francisco after the start, my revised strategy (ahem) was to paddle like hell and try to keep him behind. Taking an inside line to avoid the worst of the outgoing tide, I was surprised after a few minutes to find that there were some small waves to work with.
At the nun, I think I had a boat length or two lead, but I'm not sure because I had my eyes locked on the finishing beach the second I started to come around the buoy. I was pleased to find that there was a nice current in the channel to help carry us home. Halfway back, I threw a quick look over my shoulder and verified that I had a solid lead on Francisco. I maintained my pace, however, in part because I wanted to build some confidence in the speed of my new V10 going into the Blackburn, and in part because I sensed that I might have an outside shot at the course record. With help seemingly available in every direction you paddled and minimal wind, it was a very fast night.
I ended up well shy of the record (Ken's seemingly unassailable mark of 37:09, set in 2006), but Francisco and I turned in the 2nd and 4th fastest times for course #5, and the 1st and 4th fastest recorded times for the beach-to-nun leg shared by courses #4 and #5 (take that with some grains of sea salt - we're missing leg times for four past races, including the races that yielded the records for both double-header courses). Ideal conditions had indeed set us up for some excellent times.
Mike had a solid night to handily take third place, with Ken nipping Matt (by 1 second) for fourth. Bruce, trading boats like baseball cards, debuted his new Think Evo II (Honus Wagner edition, I'm guessing) for sixth. Here are the results for the night:
With 6 weeks left in the season, Francisco and I are tied for the lead. Is there a tie-breaking protocol for the League? If not... Shotgun! Dibs! Not it!
With high tide less than an hour before the start of the race, it was a good night for double-header course #5 - out-and-back around Great Haste Island, then out-and-back around the red nun in the inner harbor. It was a night with very little wind and calm conditions. I noticed quite a few patches of floating weeds during warm-up. Given these factors, I decided to switch over to my new weedless rudder, hand-delivered by Ed moments before the race. To this rudder I mounted my new V10 for its inaugural race.
Because there were bathers on our beach, our starting arrangement was a little denser than usual. Matt and Francisco got away cleanly from the pack, with Ken and Mike and I maneuvering behind for position. Having disabled higher cognitive functions in preparation for the race, I was sloppy coming out into the harbor and received a few well-deserved jostles from behind as I started my turn with too great haste.
A minute or two later, I was on Matt's wash, Matt was on Francisco's wash, and Francisco was laying track for our little train. After a short while, it seemed like Matt was in danger of dropping off of the draft, so I moved around to the right and caught up with Francisco. Dreading the inevitable will-he-or-won't-he be able to pass drama that was about to unfold, I tried to pull around him on the right. The rest of the way to Great Haste we see-sawed side by side, sprinting to catch the unexpected little waves which kept popping up, and swerving to avoid the worst of Winnebago-sized patches of weeds.
Francisco had a slight lead as we started to round the rocky island on our left, so rather than taking the longer outside path, I dropped back onto his draft until we were safely heading back towards Lynch Park. This time I broke left and started working to regain the lead. Even though we had gotten quite a few little rides on the way out to the island, there was plenty of help heading back as well. Francisco took a line far off to the right so it was difficult to tell our relative positions at first, but as we approached the beach it seemed that I had a lead of a boat length or two, as well as having a more direct line to the finish. I ended up with an 11 second advantage for the first leg. Francisco was followed by Ken, Mike, and Matt in quick succession. Matt had a bad weed night. We've all been in that boat.
For the second leg, I got the boat in the water cleanly with only Matt ahead of me. To the extent that you can call my confused and feeble thoughts a "strategy", my strategy had been to make sure to hang with Francisco until the nun, then try to take him on the return trip. Finding myself in front of Francisco after the start, my revised strategy (ahem) was to paddle like hell and try to keep him behind. Taking an inside line to avoid the worst of the outgoing tide, I was surprised after a few minutes to find that there were some small waves to work with.
At the nun, I think I had a boat length or two lead, but I'm not sure because I had my eyes locked on the finishing beach the second I started to come around the buoy. I was pleased to find that there was a nice current in the channel to help carry us home. Halfway back, I threw a quick look over my shoulder and verified that I had a solid lead on Francisco. I maintained my pace, however, in part because I wanted to build some confidence in the speed of my new V10 going into the Blackburn, and in part because I sensed that I might have an outside shot at the course record. With help seemingly available in every direction you paddled and minimal wind, it was a very fast night.
I ended up well shy of the record (Ken's seemingly unassailable mark of 37:09, set in 2006), but Francisco and I turned in the 2nd and 4th fastest times for course #5, and the 1st and 4th fastest recorded times for the beach-to-nun leg shared by courses #4 and #5 (take that with some grains of sea salt - we're missing leg times for four past races, including the races that yielded the records for both double-header courses). Ideal conditions had indeed set us up for some excellent times.
Mike had a solid night to handily take third place, with Ken nipping Matt (by 1 second) for fourth. Bruce, trading boats like baseball cards, debuted his new Think Evo II (Honus Wagner edition, I'm guessing) for sixth. Here are the results for the night:
| Greg Lesher | Epic V10 (New) | 0:37:54 | 12 |
| Francisco Urena | Stellar SE | 0:38:35 | 11 |
| Mike McDonough | Huki S1-X | 0:40:54 | 10 |
| Ken Cooper | Epic V8 | 0:41:25 | 9 |
| Matt Drayer | Epic V8 | 0:41:26 | 8 |
| Bruce Deltorchio | Think Evo II | 0:44:30 | 7 |
| Bill Kuklinski | Epic V8 | 0:45:12 | 6 |
| Chris Chappell | Epic V10 (New) | 0:46:10 | 5 |
| Mary Beth Gangloff | Huki S1-R | 0:54:08 | 12 |
With 6 weeks left in the season, Francisco and I are tied for the lead. Is there a tie-breaking protocol for the League? If not... Shotgun! Dibs! Not it!
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