Paddler's Rendezvous
Friday, September 7, 2001 to Sunday, September 9, 2001
route:
length: 10.0km, 3 days
difficulty: beginner
organizer: John Hupfield (Lost in the Woods Boatwor
participants: John Hupfield, Keith Nunn, Morgan Baskin, Tripper Dave, many others
report:
Saturday, September 8 evening
I'm feeling somewhat torn between this event and the Gull River Open Canoe races that are going on this weekend. I think it was the right choice, but if it conflicts again next year I'll probably choose the other way.
Morgan has made some friends here, which is good as there isn't a whole lot for her to do otherwise.
John, Dave, and a bunch of other folks are here, but the marathon paddlers got their dates mixed up and won't be here until next weekend.
Morgan and I did the Poker Paddle today and Morgan got a neat t-shirt. It has a night scene with lots of animal eyes in it. She's pretty happy.
I sailed better today, but have a hard time tacking. I had a great downwind run and beat Dave around the island, but he overtook me about halfway back and I stink at tacking, so he beat me by a fair bit. Second place, but then John din't finish (again) and Rob didn't come.
This evening, a young woman who did a cross-Canada canoe trip with a friend did a slide show at the amphitheatre and really got me thinking.
I don't want to paddle across the country, but a significant trip in each province and territory would be a great 13-year plan of 3-5 week trips. Yay! Now I just have to see what the options are. And, of course, convince my lover.
Well, I'm off to join the boozers for the evening. Morgan is happy and settled. I wonder if I could talk Dave into a serious canoe trip again or if he's too full of sailing? I'll have to work on Heather. 8-)
The sailing race (the sprint and three-corner races never happened)
AG was the starter and marked the water end of the start/finish line with his Norwegian/Viking fishing boat. It's a very cool lapstrake construction.
There was virtually no wind at the starting line and when the starting horn came, John and I sculled our way over the line and on toward the wind ahead. (Apparently this is not allowed, but nobody told me.)
Dave turned headed away from shore in hopes of finding some wind, but collided with the start boat on the way.
John and I were neck in neck, catching puffs as we headed directly for the island. We surged forward alternately as we individually caught the wind. dave was just starting to catch wind a way back.
John pulled ahead for a bit, but then I caught a fantastic wind with my sail out to port and just took off. I was really getting some great speed and planing at times when by block slipped and by sail blew out. Arrggh!
By the time I got it sort of fixed and my boat turned back around, I didn't have the angle anymore, John, was ahead and dave was hot on my tail.
I managed to stay ahead of Dave going around the island and John got confused about which side of the island and collided with it as he tried to rectify the situation.
I stayed ahead of Dave, by catching some speed off the Bernoulli effect of the wind close to the island. I sailed/sculled through the wind shadow and had a couple of good tacks before Dave passed me about 1/3 of the way back.
Given that I have only a weak grasp on sailing technique, the tacking back was brutal and Dave beat me by at least 10 minutes.
John gave up after falling way behind at the island.
A fun race. I doubt we'll get either of the other two races in, however. We'll have to be much more focussed in future if we're going to get all three of these races in on a weekend. |
