Jeff Hoyer said: For paddlers, this often means that getting the currents right makes one feel like superman cruising along in the 6-8kt range with very little effort(often passing cars on the expressways); getting them wrong turns one into a helpless piece of driftwood able to make little or no headway. I've heard the horror stories of strong paddlers being swept backward and spun around in whirlpools. In 1967 I was a part of a crew in a war canoe from the American Indian Center of Chicago team that raced in the war canoe race around Manhattan Island that year. I think it may have been the first time the race was held. We started at the Inwood Canoe Club (if I remember correctly) and hit Hell Gate at something other than slack tide. Our eight man canoe was going backwards for a while when we were paddling at full speed. We finally ferried over to shore (I seem to remember the United Nations building being there, is that right?)and crawled our way through the chaos and went on to win the race by about half an hour. Took us almost eight hours, again if I remember correctly. This was a long time ago. I always wondered how anyone could swim around the island faster than we could paddle it. Now I know. Wish we knew then how to time it, but I guess that was the duty of the race organizers, not us. Makes for a good story, though, even forty years later. Jim Tibensky *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Oct 02 2006 - 06:18:12 PDT
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