Great Stone Dam Classic: Startled by a Turkey

When they named the Great Stone Dam Classic 10+ years ago, co-chairs Francisco Urena and Shawn Burke were taking a risk on the initial and final words.  Great and Classic.  OK, it's named after the Great Stone Dam on the Merrimack River.  And, yeah, "classic" is sometimes used as a synonym for "race".  Put both those words in the same name, though, and you're setting yourself up for false advertising lawsuits.  And yet Francisco and Shawn have batted away claim after claim.  They've got the best legal team a community-based non-profit can afford standing behind them, sure, but their defense has been that both adjectives are objectively true.  Hosted at the Abe Bashara Boathouse by the fantastic Greater Lawrence Community Boating Program, nobody wants to miss the GSDC.

We can argue about the "best" paddling race in New England until our throats are raw and one of us finally loses consciousness from blood loss, but the debate is closed on the best value in a race.  The entertainment-per-dollar ratio of the GSDC leaves all other competitions wanting (notwithstanding the divide by zero error of some).  This helps to explains why even surfskiers who usually eschew flatwater races make a pilgrimage to the Merrimack.

The course consists of two upstream loops totaling 8.2 miles.  Starting from the boathouse dock, paddlers progress 3.25 miles to round Pine Island, then return to a "No Wake" buoy just before the dock to start the shorter second loop.  Racers must then round inflatable buoys placed just off the opposing shores before returning to finish at the dock.  I've argued that a never-ending series of increasingly smaller loops should be added to the GSDC, but the race directors claim that their insurance only covers races of finite length.  So much for my vision of the Death Spiral.

My only hope was that Rob would get confused and accidentally select a SUP.

The race boasted a strong field of 30 surfskis.  Rob Jehn risked being decertified by the New Jersey Paddling Commission by attending his 6th New England race this season.  I'm not admitting to being a sore loser, but he might want to ask elsewhere for sponsors on his amnesty application should he try to emigrate.  Although he had to be the favorite, Rob would at least have some competition.  Dave Thomas of Stellar brought along a professional hitman from the West Coast and outfitted him in an SEA - The Assassin.  Ben Lawry is one of the most respected kayak instructors in the country, who - despite being younger than me - has somehow managed to train the last three generations of American paddlers.  Go ahead - ask your grandparents who honed their forward stroke.  Of course, technical proficiency doesn't necessarily translate to speed.  I was pretty sure that Ben would hold his own, though.

Local Janda Ricci-Munn would be the wild card.  Despite having taken his ski out for perhaps a half-dozen training sessions in 2021 and having a modest paddling resume, I wasn't betting against him.  Michelangelo said that the sculpture was already complete within the marble - he just had to chisel away the superfluous material.  Via his training for a fall triathlon, Janda has similarly chipped away everything from himself that's not an elite athlete.  He's lean and hungry.  Janda's sheer level of fitness makes him a threat in almost any sport - he just missed a spot on the Olympic table tennis team and placed 5th in the Kentucky Derby!  Could our David tackle the New Jersey Goliath?

That was too cutesy, right?  MB warned me that the whole Michelangelo arc was going to backfire, but I just couldn't help myself.  If you never reach for the stars, how are you going to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?  Uh-oh.  She's now threatening to move out unless I remove all this.  It's a steep price to pay, but I'm prepared to ride this metaphor to hell.

As shown here, Janda and I were virtually inseparable during the race.

Back at the 2016 running of the race, my GoPro was dropped into the Merrimack by a petulant local paddler whom may have been poked once too often in this blog.  He's always claimed that it was "semi-accidental", but the truth is still inscribed in 0s and 1s, waiting to be dredged from the river when they finally get around to straightening out the Merrimack.  I thought that Burger Kingski - to choose a random alias wholly unrelated to his real name - had finally gotten past all the innocent gibes (and the malicious slander), but when I went to snap my GoPro onto my boat, I discovered that the connector had been sabotaged.  Had I failed to notice the issue before the race... there goes $34.99 into the river (yeah, I learned my lesson about investing in top-of-the-line equipment).  Fortunately, Rob Michalec was able to hook me up with a replacement.  Based on the quantity of spare parts he had on hand, I suspect he spends a lot of time lurking on the fringes of adventure races, surreptitiously whispering "Pssst.  Need an L joint?" to competitors.  For me, at least, the first one was free.

Racers hit the water as the 11am start approached.  Like a pair of drum majors leading our parade, the lone double ski manned by Bruce Deltorchio and Ed Duggan comprised the first wave.  They refused to wear the fuzzy tall hats we all chipped in on, but their start was festive nevertheless.  All single kayaks were to take off in the second wave, one minute later.  I jockeyed for the worst possible starting position, but was distraught to find myself towards the more favorable shore when the gun went off.  Thank goodness I at least managed to remain a half-dozen boat lengths behind the line.

Rob and Francisco - separated laterally by a few boats - vaulted out to the early lead.  I'm pretty sure an 87-year old Francisco will expire from over-exertion 15 seconds after the start of the GSDC, content in the knowledge that the entire remainder of the field will have to dodge his now derelict surfski.  Over the next few moments, Rob started to pull free along the right shore, with Ben and Janda chasing.  I took this opportunity to survey the remainder of the field from stern to stem, finally working my way past Francisco to move into 4th position on Janda's draft.  Somewhere along the way, I picked up Jon Greer.

With Rob and Ben still continuing along the shore, Janda, Jon, and I started our cut towards the opposite bank in preparation for the upcoming curve in the river.  At the time, I thought we were making a bold move, but my backward facing camera later revealed that others had broken much earlier to the left.  The various lines didn't appear to make much difference, however - there were no changes in the order.  I pulled even with Janda during the crossing, who let me lead the way upstream along the left shore.  Jon dropped off the pace shortly after.  

With Janda in tow, we chased Rob and Ben up the left shore.  I'm using "tow" figuratively here, because from what I could tell from cursory glances, Janda didn't seem exactly to be on my draft, but in some kind of no-man's-land off to one side.  And even though I was seeing him for only a fraction of a second in my periphery, his hazy blob somehow conveyed a sense of quiet ease.  I was beginning to fear that Janda might have a lot of power in reserve.

At this point, I suspect that some of you may be wondering when the damn turkey is going to make an appearance so that you can satisfy your curiosity and then bail out.  I empathize.

Rounding Pine Island required once again crossing the main current of the Merrimack.  It was Rob's turn to break early, while Ben stuck stubbornly to the left shore.  Janda and I chose a middle path, but Ben's late ferry across the channel was probably the right play.  It's too early in Rob's career to pigeonhole him as a habitual course deviator, but preliminary scouting reports have flagged him as a flight risk.  So when it appeared that Rob might try to bolt upriver to Lowell rather than turning downstream at the end of the island, we felt justified in shouting out a warning.  Whether heeding our alert or curbing his wanderlust of his own volition, he made a wide turn to head back towards the start.  Ben's deft maneuvering had perhaps cut a few seconds into Rob's lead, but the latter was clearly still in the driver's seat.  Janda moved past me halfway down Pine Island.  I jumped on his side draft as our pace quickened - the combined force of current, wind, and Janda's competitiveness now all on our side.

Kirk's always been more of a wave guy than a ripple guy.

Open water paddlers talk about catching a "paddle down" ride on a wave, but Rob managed a much rarer "paddle down" ride on Hank's draft.

When you're struggling to hold on a draft, there are some things you don't want to hear from the lead boat.  For example, "OK, I'm done with my gel break."  Or "Huh.  Hadn't realized that I was using a canoe paddle."  However, I can now tell you definitively what's at the very top of the list: "I'm going to throw in some suicide intervals."  Having never heard that term before, I didn't know exactly what it meant, but those two words together didn't exactly evoke rainbows and puppies.  I was still leafing through the index of "Fitness Training for Dummies" when the first surge of acceleration hit.  I was pulled along unwittingly on Janda's side draft for the first few seconds before realizing that if I didn't tap into my rainy day fund, I'd be unable to keep paying the exorbitant fees my body was racking up.  After a few moments of eternity, I heard my cohort say "Another one".  I hadn't even realized that the first interval was over - perhaps not surprising given that I could no longer read my GPS speed through the tears.  Through an aggressive program of deficit spending, I was able to stick with Janda, although I dropped from side to stern draft.  I was so deep in oxygen debt that in preparation for the next "Another one", I hallucinated a sympathetic bystander with a leather strap saying "Here.  Bite down on this."  It didn't help.  When the next interval rolled around, the pain was too much.  I tapped out.

I had suspected from the beginning that Janda had unilaterally roped me into a suicide pact, but he ultimately didn't hold up his end of the bargain.  I was dead and buried, but he was very much alive.  He would continue his masochistic intervals, although I suspect having deprived him of the sadistic component, it was no longer quite so satisfying.  Although he decreased the advantage held by Rob and Ben, the three would end up in the same order established within the first minute of the race, with scarcely more than a minute separating the podium finishers.

Thanks in part to the turbo boost provided by drafting Janda, with nearly half the race still left I felt secure in my 4th place position.  Upon finishing the first loop and starting upstream again for the second, I got my first glimpse of the drama that was unfolding amongst the 5th to 10th place paddlers.  Even with conditions conducive to drafting, we very seldom see more than 2 or 3 paddlers together at a late stage in the race - there aren't usually enough competitors to end up with a large group with comparable abilities.  But with less than 2 miles left on the Merrimack, here were Tim Dwyer, John Redos, Kirk Olsen, Wesley Echols, Tim Hacket, and Jon Greer within 30 seconds of one another.  These paddlers, who have since taken to calling themselves the Stone Dam Six, were together for virtually the entire race.

Much like Bigfoot, photos of the actual Stone Dam Six tend to be blurry and of questionable veracity.

For the complete story of the Stone Dam Six, you'll have to read the forthcoming 3 volume history, which advance reviews have called "sorta like Little Women, but with guys and paddles" and "completely unnecessary".  They've also penned a Manifesto, but that's mostly just Flat Earth theories and gluten-free recipes.  Here's the gist of the SDS race.  After Jon's brief stint accompanying Janda and me, he was absorbed into the collective.  He stayed in the lead around Pine Island to the Route 93 bridge, after which Tim D took command of the fleet.  John soon joined him in the lead, despite paddling a V9 amongst much faster boats.  The formation of the Six stayed fairly constant for the remainder of the first loop, with Kirk, Wesley, Tim H, and Jon following the leaders.  After a navigational blunder at the start of the second loop, however, the SDS descended into chaos.  Leads changed.  Tempers flared.  Shivs were drawn.  When the spray had finally settled, Tim D emerged victorious, followed by Kirk, Tim H, John, Wesley, and Jon.  Vive le Six!

JoAnn and Andrea duked it out in the closest finish of the day.

I keep seeing photos of people smiling during a race, but the best I can hope for is a look somewhere between "grim determination" and "severe intestinal discomfort".

As noted above, the actual winners of the men's competition were Rob, Ben, and Janda.  The women's race came down to a finish line sprint between Andrea Vogl (in a K1 trainer) and JoAnn Hanowski (in a ski), with Andrea just nosing out the victory.  Leslie Chappell took the 3rd overall spot, with Loukia Lili taking 4th (as the 3rd ski).  Bruce & Ed swept the tandem podium, and then stood alone on the spotless top step.

As we've come to expect from the GSDC, a veritable army of enthusiastic volunteers (Thanks all!) ensured that everything ran smoothly, including the post-race festivities.  Unsurprisingly, the air was abuzz with the thrilling exploits of the Stone Dam Six.  The buzz was coming exclusively from their own mouths, but they made sure to circulate for maximum narrative penetration.  I'm sure the rest of us will continue hearing about it ad nauseam, but take heart - after a year or two, the fog of time will enable all of us to proudly claim we were one of the Six.  Start prepping your wondrous tales of derring-do!

The Stone Dam Six, prior to you Photoshopping yourself in.

Months ago I confidently predicted that I'd beat Rob at the GSDC.  I might want to remember this photo before opening my big mouth next time.

The Essex River Race has just been cancelled, but locals assure me that there will be a substitute race on October 2 somewhere in the vicinity - perhaps even on the same course.  We'll be broadcasting the latest news on UHF channel 31 ("Surfski Tonight", every other Tuesday, 2am), but if you can't find your antenna, maybe just check on social media.  For those looking further into the future, there's the Seneca Monster on October 10 in central NY (which last year featured a crackerjack match-up between Matt Skeels, Ed Joy, and Jim Mallory) and the Plum Beach Lighthouse Race on October 16 in Narragansett Bay (which last year featured a humiliatingly lopsided match-up between Nate Humberston and myself).

Oh yeah.  Almost forgot.

We keep some of our boats in our basement, which has a walkout sliding glass door.  After arriving home, I went downstairs to unlock that door.  You have to pay attention down there, or you risk taking a surfski bow to the face or a Concept2 rower to the foot.  I'm halfway to the door when I finally look in its direction, only to be confronted by a terrible dark horror topped with a violent streak of red, peering directly in at me from 6 feet away.  As anyone with an acute sense of self-preservation would, lacking anyone to instinctively push forward as a sacrifice, I let out a mighty defensive scream while jolting myself backwards so violently that my brain was left hovering several feet in front of me.  I'd have a splitting headache for the next hour, but at least I showed MB that with a little help from some double-glazed glass, I'm up to the task of defending us from marauding turkeys.

Great Stone Dam Classic: Apples and Oranges

Despite being an undeniably flatwater race (I measured) during ocean racing season, the Great Stone Dam Classic has become an essential stop in the New England surfski circuit.  Hosted by the Greater Lawrence Community Boating Program, co-chaired by Francisco Urena and Shawn Burke, and staffed largely by an enthusiastic army of student volunteers, it's no secret why the GSDC has become such a favorite.  Sure, it's an appealing venue - a magnificent boathouse set on the verdant shores of the Merrimack River.  And yes, participants enjoy the warm glow that comes from helping to fund a wonderful youth program.  The real reason most of us show up, however, is our shared respect and esteem for Francisco.  And by "respect and esteem" I mean, of course, "fear".  After all, Francisco has some very powerful friends.  Skip this race and you just might wake up one night to find Governor Baker preparing to smother you with a pillow.

Robin was quite tolerant of Mary Beth in the tandem, despite the fact that (based on first-hand K2 experience from our past) she consistently does everything completely wrong.

The GSDC is a classic out-and-not-quite-back-and-out-and-over-and-back course totaling 8.2 miles.  From the boathouse dock, we head upriver 3 miles to turn around Pine Island, then return towards to the start.  But wait, there's more!  With the finish line tantalizingly close, we must reluctantly turn around a "No Wake" marker, head back upstream to round inflatable buoys on each shore, then finally head back to the boathouse to be put in a medically-induced coma until the burgers are ready.

The forecast indicated that a band of storms would move through Lawrence prior to the 11am start, leaving us with breezy but mostly clear conditions for the race.  As we milled about and tweaked our equipment, a disturbing band of dark clouds that had been gathering intensity over the last fifteen minutes off to the west suddenly hurtled in our direction.  Having recently painted our house, I still had the Benjamin Moore color-chooser app on my phone.  Pointing it at the sky, it reported a hue halfway between Deep Charcoal and Impending Apocalypse.  Just as a helpful competitor pointed out that a deadly tornado had swept through Lawrence back in 1890 ("Touched down just over there, if I'm not mistaken!"), the first drops of rain started to fall.  After ensuring that my boat was securely strapped to the car and quickly scanning the heavens for tell-tale flying cows (clear), I high-tailed it for the boathouse.  From there, we watched as the passing storm whipped the Merrimack into a white-capped frenzy while - based on the sound, at least - smaller livestock thudded down on the roof.

Given the likelihood that the raging waters of the Merrimack would soon sweep us all away, the gang was remarkably cheery.

Within fifteen minutes, the squall had passed through with no damage.  With the radar showing no significant threats heading our way, racers started launching their boats and massing for the on-water captains meeting.  In a rush to join them, I tucked my GoPro (which I call GP - short for George Parker) in my PFD pocket, grabbed the V14 from the car, and waded into the river.  I had intended to mount the camera on my boat during launch, but in the adrenaline-fueled excitement, I found myself up the river without GP saddled.  Was that a groan I heard?  Hey - nobody is forcing you to read this. 

Let's skip ahead and get right to the important lesson I learned a few moments later.  It's actually two lessons.  First, that I'm 90% bonehead.  Preaching to the choir on this point, doubtless.  Second, that everything Archimedes said about GoPros was indeed true.  They do lack sufficient volume to displace a weight of water equal to or greater than their own mass.  And they should always be tethered.

As an unblinking witness (and inveterate blabbermouth), GP has captured (and heartlessly disseminated) many of the more thrilling (and humiliating) moments in my life.  Although we often locked horns over what was appropriate for public consumption, I was saddened to think of my friend documenting his final frames from the forgotten depths of the Merrimack.  The cosmic irony of not being able to broadcast this particular blunder would not be lost on him.  Some time after the race was over and we perhaps were enjoying lunch, the fight to carry on would just be too much for GP.  Battery exhausted, his recording indicator light would courageously flash until the dark curtain fell at last.  Blink...  Blink...  Blink...  The rest is silence.

[I'm going to leave an open space here so that I can insert a jubilant coda when GP is ultimately dredged from the river and returned to me in 2087.]

Shaking off my recent misfortune (after all, it only ranks about 7th on this season's pre-race bloopers), I surveyed the field of 25+ skis.  Chris Chappell had brought a shiny new toy to the race - one of the first reinvented Nelo 560s to find its way to the Americas.  Designed to slip between individual water molecules, the boat is ridiculously tiny.  Chris spent most of the morning looking for it after inadvertently setting the boat in the grass near his car without first activating its locator beacon.  Despite its meager 18' 4" length, all reports indicate that the 560 is as fast as a grown-up ski.  I figured this made Chris my biggest threat.

I also had to be concerned about the Human Alphabet, Andrius Zinkevichus.  If his muscular build, imposing accent, and 32 point Scrabble surname weren't intimidating enough, the guy can paddle.  I had beaten Andrius at the Nahant Bay Cup a few weeks earlier, but that was on choppy ocean waters.  This time, he'd be in an ICF boat and in his more natural flatwater milieu.  He'd also bulked up since the last race, adding an entire second paddler.  David VanDorpe would only be contributing 14 points to their combined total, but his impressive paddling resume would more than compensate.  To make matters worse, the duo would start in the heat ahead of me.

The double kayaks, which included Mary Beth (in her first-ever doubles race) and Robin Francis, were sent off first while the skis and ICF boats paced nervously in the on-deck basin.  Less than a minute later, we were ourselves underway.  Poised atop his micro-ski, Chris jumped to an early lead, with Francisco and Wesley in earnest pursuit.  As Francisco told me after the race, since he's been too busy nobly working to improve the lives of Massachusetts' veterans to actually train, he sprints at the start so that he can be in the lead pack for at least a little while.  That guy... always making the rest of us question whether we add any value to society (when he's not sending the governor out to settle scores, that is).

We keep telling Kirk it's "hands high, chin up, back straight, elbows down", but all he ever seems to hear is "tongue out".

After the first few hundred meters, Chris started to pull away from the field.  As a member of that field, I took umbrage at the cavalier attitude with which he was abandoning us.  No over-the-shoulder cry of "Good luck, chaps!" or wistful look back at his former comrades.  I imagined him sneering in contempt ahead.  Watching Chris recede over the next few moments, this expression started to sound increasingly appealing.  Adopting a pay-it-forward approach, I separated myself from the field with a similarly callous disregard for esprit de corps.  I sneered as well, but the only contempt I felt was for [melodramatic pause, followed by breaking voice] myself.

Chris had started out perhaps four to five boat lengths ahead, but I quickly closed the gap to three to five boat lengths, then to two to five lengths.  I figured if I left some ambiguity in there, he wouldn't feel as threatened as I (possibly) crept up on him.  When I eventually I reached the lesser end of zero to five boat lengths, there's was nothing he could do about me snapping concretely onto his stern draft.  After resting for a moment or two - the legendary wash that the Bunyonesque Chris provides is notoriously difficult to give up - I reluctantly pulled around to take the lead.  Of course, he didn't take this move sitting down.  Extraordinary balance, I must say.  He yoked himself behind me and inexplicably shouted out, "Whoa there, Big Blue!  Almost got away from me!"

I tried to free myself from Chris' pitiless grip several times, but he would not be thwarted.  When I've been pulling someone, I try not to look back too often to ascertain if they're still there.  When the situation is reversed, I always interpret the back-glance a sign of weakness.  Sure enough, whenever I succumbed to temptation, I could see Chris smirking at my vulnerability.  Well, I couldn't see much more than a vague shape in my periphery, but since I've already started ascribing facial expressions willy-nilly, let's say he was smirking.

After a mile of this, a quick peek back revealed that I had wiped that smug expression off of Chris' imagined face.  I had finally gapped him.  Shortly afterwards, I passed the last of the doubles, excepting Andrius and Dave.  They were still toiling well ahead, but I was definitely closing on them.  By the time we rounded the upstream end of Pine Island, they were squarely in my sights.  Having seen me so close behind at the turn, I figured they'd scramble away rabbit-like and the chase would commence in earnest.  They weren't into playing the prey, however.  Like a viper, they reared back as I approached, then sank their fangs into my port draft.

I haven't mentioned that we had been bucking a headwind on the upstream part of the course.  We now enjoyed a stiff quartering breeze behind us.  At the next turn of the river, we'd be going dead downwind.  Figuring the two boats had roughly the same sail area (that is, one upright paddler silhouette's worth) but mine had roughly half the weight, that's when I would try to pry myself loose from the tandem.  It was a plan backed up by hard science, but two attempts at super-maximum intensity intervals failed to produce noticeable results.  Presumably the guys had set out a jib or spinnaker or something.  Finally, on my third attempt, just as I was about to go into the light, I heard a slight pop as Andrius and David disengaged from the draft.  Evidently Andrius, stewing in the skirt-covered front cockpit, had overheated and called off the pursuit.

The remainder of the race was painful, but mostly uneventful.  Surprisingly, I found the downstream turn-around marker without problems, and wasn't slammed in the chest by either of the remaining two inflatable turn buoys.  As I approached the finish, a roar rose up from the dock.  The volunteer kids were cheering me home!  Unused to such outbursts from spectators (or, for that matter, spectators), I was quite startled, but managed to stay upright - narrowly avoiding an embarrassing photo finish.

I don't recall doing multiple tequila shots after the race, but that pose is unmistakable.

Chris finished (grinning, let's say) in an easy second, with Tim Hudyncia taking third.  Kirk Olsen and Bruce Deltorchio rounded out the top five (despite Bruce taking the "No Wake" turn buoy a little too seriously by giving it 75 meters of leeway).  Jenifer Kreamer and Leslie Chappell battled the entire race for the women's lead, with Jen eventually earning the win.  Of course, Andrius and David claimed the tandem crown.  Afterwards, we enjoyed burgers and dogs while Francisco gave out awards and liberally distributed bags of fruit (to the great disappointment of those of us who were told there were donuts and Twinkies inside).  Thanks to the Greater Lawrence Community Boating Program (which should consider adopting a cool acronym, like GLAWCOBOP), and to the many volunteers who made the race possible.

The Lighthouse to Lighthouse is this coming Saturday (register at PaddleGuru by 11pm on Thursday, 9/15).  It's also the East Coast Surfski Championship, with $2,000 in prize money split evenly between men and women paddlers.  Is it going to be competitive?  Let's see.  Austin Kieffer.  Jesse Lishchuk.  Reid Hyle.  Rob Hartman.  Erik Borgnes.  Apparently the men's places start at 6th.

Check out the drone footage from the GSDC.