Nahant Bay Race: Debronzed

The Nahant Bay Race was once a shining star in the constellation of New England races.  It hasn't lost any of its inherent luster, but with a couple of years off for the pandemic and some unfortunate fog-bound appearances prior to that, it's admittedly been a little difficult to see the sparkle of late.  Granted sweeping new meteorological powers over airborne pathogens and humidity levels by the Swampscott town council, however, director Mike McDonough has pledged to restore 100% of the dazzle to the race.  Based on the beautiful late summer day he had arranged, we were off to an excellent start.

The course of the race has always been malleable - adapted to the prevailing conditions.  With a 7-10 mph north wind forecast to swing around to the northeast during the race, Mike dug through the archives for some moments, muttering quietly to himself.  He emerged dramatically holding aloft a faded chart of the 2014 course.  From Fisherman's Beach, we'd pass by Dread Ledge at the northern cusp of Nahant Bay, proceed on a northeast course to Ram Island, where we'd turn east towards the Roaring Bull day marker.  After reaching the marker, we'd fly directly downwind back to Nahant Bay with a running (or hobbling - racer's preference) finish on the beach.

All I can say is that Mike's damned lucky that we weren't zombies.  (Photo courtesy of Francisco Urena)

In an odd twist for an ocean race, Timmy had to be treated for altitude sickness.

The course change left Mike in a bit of a quandary.  Famed (in no small part due to this blog, I'm proud to say) for his deft pointing skills during the captains meeting, he would now have to somehow illustrate a route for which none of the landmarks were actually visible from the shore!  I could sense his growing fear and confusion as he vainly scanned the vista in search of a viable target.  And then - in what I imagine it must have been like to witness Einstein finally crack the riddle of general relativity - you could see a wave of transcendent insight wash across his visage.  Starting with slow movements, but rapidly gaining momentum until his arms were a blur, Mike began pointing over the buildings of Swampscott to distant ocean way points discernible only to his mind's eye.  Bewildered paddlers whirled around in a panic, attempting to identify whatever aerial attackers were being indicated.  True genius is always misunderstood.

If Michelangelo had Mike for a hand model, maybe the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel wouldn't be such crap.

Despite Rob's grandiose claims, he has yet to foil a single crime.

Fifteen boats would be racing, including 3 tandem skis and an OC-2.  Rob Jehn, Matt Drayer, and Janda Ricci-Munn would be my principal antagonists, but I wasn't optimistic about my chances against them.  Rob, of course, has been beating me with a percussive regularity all season.  Matt, who I narrowly bested in the Blackburn Challenge, has won each of our Tuesday night league match-ups since.  And in a recent time trial on our local lake, Judge Janda had recently sentenced me to solitary confinement twenty lengths behind him - despite the fact that my V14 was ostensibly two notches faster than his Falcon and I was cutting corners with abandon.  As the "joke" Magic Eight Ball my parents gave me for my sixth birthday might have responded when asked if I'd podium at Nahant, "Nobody loves you" (or, alternatively, "Signs point to... you being an idiot").  Not directly responsive to the question, but illuminating nonetheless.  Don't get me started on the gag Ouija board.

We lined up off the end of the Fisherman's Beach pier to await the start.  You can count on Chris Chappell to launch himself violently off the line, but you're never quite sure if he's going to flame out after a few moments or continue to arc gracefully over the horizon.  With hard-charging Rob to my right and Catapult Chris (I guess this is something I'm doing now) to my left, I likely wouldn't have to paddle for the first couple minutes of the race.  Janda apparently had a similar plan, but Matt graciously self-handicapped himself to neutralize his home field advantage - positioning himself well off to the side behind some slower paddlers.  He was in the middle of strapping resistance bands to his hull when the starting horn sounded.

The race unfurled as expected, with Janda and me being towed to planing speed by Chris and Rob, while Matt bitterly regretted his better nature.  I soon found myself in a compromising position with my nose lodged between the sterns of the leaders.  Trouble loomed.  Before anyone could snap a blackmail photo, however, Chris suddenly lost combustion pressure and initiated emergency reentry protocol.  While he would have been well within his rights to shift onto Rob's port draft during this deceleration phase, thereby squeezing me out, Chris instead stayed on his ballistic trajectory, allowing me to maintain my own side draft.  This was a generous gesture, but ultimately fruitless as I quickly fell back to Rob's stern draft, with Janda quartered behind me.

During the cruise out to Dread Ledge, Janda fell back a few lengths and rendezvoused with Matt.  Nearing the scattered outcroppings that marked the visible part of the shoal, Rob veered wide to proceed through the so-called Inner Gut - a known safe passage at the current tide level.  Seeing my chance to out-maneuver the leader, I held my breath and, taking a more direct line, dove head-first into the uncharted bowels of Dread Ledge.  I saw barnacle-covered protrusions and weedy bulges in that nether region that I'll never unsee, but emerged unscathed on the other side, in the lead of the race.  My smirking glory lasted approximately 8 seconds, as Rob quickly relegated me to his side draft, then with a smirk of his own, dropped me back to his stern.

Of the three video frames in which I'm in the lead, this one best captures my joie de vivre.

Fortunately, I was spared actually seeing the self-satisfied expressions Rob manifested as he subsequently put a couple of his wakes between us on the 2 mile crossing to Ram Island.  I instead was subjected to Matt's steely look of resolve, chasing from some lengths back, but positioned on a wider line so that with just a slight turn of my head, his relentless determination was clearly visible.

I dropped a few additional lengths behind Rob on the trip from Ram to Roaring Bull.  Before this leg I would characterize myself as being "in contact" with the leader.  By Roaring Bull, however, Rob had blocked my number and filed a restraining order.  I had just about given up any hope of a reconciliation when I received a call.  Neglecting to check Caller ID before answering (I'm not saying the miles of telephone line spooling out behind was slowing me down, but I'm thinking it may be time to abandon the land line), I breathlessly answered.  You can imagine my shock and disappointment when I was greeted by Matt's voice instead of Rob's.  Turns out he was in the neighborhood and wondering if he could drop by.  Throwing a glance backwards as I completed the turn around the marker, I realized that the call was coming from inside the house - Matt was only three lengths behind.

The antithesis of "Never let them see you sweat."

Let's put aside our relative skills for a moment and concentrate on the tools we were working with.  Me in an V10, Matt in a V12.  Given paddlers of equal abilities, over a 3 mile downwind leg with moderate wave size you'd expect the V12 to have at best a 30 second advantage.  Given this, I call on the race stewards to conduct a thorough investigation as to how Matt gained over a minute on me in this stretch.  Without challenging any of the indisputable baseline assumptions!  I held off my pursuer for perhaps a mile before conceding to the inevitable.  At least I was still safely in a podium position.

At Roaring Bull, I had spotted Janda perhaps 45 seconds behind.  With relatively little downwind experience and in a new boat, I figured he had roughly zero chance of catching me.  Nevertheless, you underestimate Janda at your own peril.  Keeping this in mind, several times during the downwind leg and upon reentering Nahant Bay, I did a thorough scan for pursuers.  Crickets.  I was alone and could thus focus my efforts on getting beaten by Rob and Matt.

Before the race, in an attempt to straighten the backwards-facing GoPro mounted on my bow, I gave it a few injudicious whacks with my paddle.  Although I didn't know it at the time, this heavy-handed adjustment cracked the mounting mechanism in several places.  It was just dumb luck that the camera didn't tumble into the water at some point of the race.  And by this, of course, I mean dumb bad luck that the ignominy of my race was preserved.

As clever readers might have already surmised, Janda would soon be passing me.  It happened with a half-mile left in the race.  The GoPro video tells the tale - one moment he didn't exist, the next he was motoring by me on an inside line.  A close frame-by-frame analysis reveals that he didn't quite teleport, but his closing speed still defies the laws of conventional physics.  Once he had safely debronzed me, Janda must have disabled his quantum inverter, since I was able to track him to the finish.

Rob successfully held onto his lead, claiming his fourth New England title of 2022 with a time of 1:12:41.  Matt and Janda finished at roughly half-minute intervals behind to fill out the podium.  Kirk Olsen & Bill Kuklinski were the fastest tandem surfski at 1:19:22.  They had the overall doubles' crown all but locked up, but let the cagy OC-2 of Marc Lessard & Paul Dyka slip by in the final leg.  Mary Beth Gangloff was the sole women racer, but still brought some drama to that competition by threatening to paddle clean by the finish.

I just can't shake the feeling that they're laughing at me.

Many thanks to Mike and his family for a wonderful day, complete with a gratis post-race meal.  Next up on the calendar is the Great Stone Dam Classic, which returns on September 11 (a Sunday) to the Abe Bashara Boathouse in Lawrence, MA.  Registration is onsite.  And, on behalf of the Salem League, I'm happy to announce the new Salem Sound Spectacular, to be held at West Beach in Beverly, MA on September 24 (a Saturday).  It's free, but please pre-register on PaddleGuru.