[Paddlewise] A good weekend on the water.

So fall's here, schools back in session - I'm not coaching soccer for
the first time in 10 years.

This past weekend I did 2 races.

The fabulous Lighthouse to Lighthouse race in Norwalk Connecticut and
the much closer to home Great Stone Dam Classic in Lawrence
Massachusetts.

The lighthouse to lighthouse was also the east coast surf ski
championships.  Nelo and Stellar both had tents on the beach.

Michelle Eray - the current female world surf ski champion showed up.  
There was a nice picture of Michelle as the  cover art on the facebook
group 'church of the double bladed paddle' earlier this week. - taken
from Vadim Lishuk's excellent set of race photos
https://www.facebook.com/vadim.lishchuk/media_set?set=a.384070418386046.1073741832.100003492738912&type=1

I had my best day on the water all year.  I think I've finally figured
out how to paddle my Epic V12 in rough water.  

I managed to pass, during a choppy upwind section, 3 or 4 people who
have been ahead of me previously this season.
The race started at Shady beach , went out around the Norwalk Islands,
down to Greens ledge lighthouse and back.
The first half of the race was a headwind, which meant nice chop to cut
through.  The chop was sufficiently interesting that it managed to rip
the duct tape holding the numbers onto the top of the bow of my boat - I
didn't tape the whole front edge so the numbers peeled back, then tore
the duct tape.   Which meant some nice burying of the bow.  After
rounding the greens ledge light what had been head on chop turned into
wonderful green wave surfing.  According to my gps I hit 9.7 mph on one
of these rides   There was lots of linking of wave sequences.   For a
comical self deprecating look at the race Greg Lesher's blog is quite
good http://greglesher.blogspot.com/   Michelle Eray finished third
overall, with Reid Heil and Borys Markin ahead of her.   Reid did the 14
mile course in a blistering 1:41 which is about 7:17 minutes per mile.

For sunday I did the Great Stone Dam classic -
http://www.greatstondam.com.  This race was drastically different than
the lighthouse to lighthouse.  Instead of a 3 hour drive (each way) I
drove less than 3 miles to get to the race.  The race was in freshwater
with lots of the canoe racing crowd, instead of open water with lots of
waves.  The race is sponsored by the Greater Lawrence Community boating
program, which does a tremendous job of getting local youth on the
water.  Once again I managed to outrun most of the people I've been
behind all year while averaging 7.5 to 7.8 miles per hour on the
downwind section   Very pleasant...

Hopefully this weekend we have a little rough water to go play in.  One
of my cronies is picking up a new Epic V10 sport at noon.  It will be
fun to see how that compares.

-- 
  Kirk Olsen
***************************************************************************
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/
***************************************************************************