Excellent Turnout at Nahant!

While most of us wanted conditions, any kind of conditions, the other few who like flat water, got their wish at Nahant. Their was barely a ripple in the bay, on the 9.41 course and that is no exaggeration. Despite the flat conditions, we all had a great time. 27 paddlers towed the line which was an excellent turnout.

A few more pics of the race. https://picasaweb.google.com/111670948231605580163/Nahant2012

Not a wave to be found!

Like any flatwater race, everyone found their pack they could work with after two miles when the packs separated out. Borys Markin won the race handily after waiting a few minutes to make sure he was headed in the right direction at the buoy turn. The second and third place paddlers, Eric McNett and Onno Bokhove pushed each other the whole race and were always within 50 yards of each other. After Eric and Onno, the 3rd pack was made up of made up of Francisco Urena, Tim Dwyer, and Greg Lesher who traveled the whole race together. Greg will be writing about his duel with Tim and Francisco later. Junior Prates was with the lead pack for a while but then got dropped and was passed by Tim, Greg, and Francisco later on in the race.

Captain’s Meeting

Graham Rockett Happy to be Paddling!!

Skis for Everyone

At the 2. 5 mile mark, Francisco’s pack dropped myself, Beata, and Graham Rockett. The three of us paddle the next 7 miles within a couple of feet of each other often trading pulls when we could. With a half mile to go as all three of us were turning up the pace for the final sprint, still within 3 ft of each other, Shazamm! I hit a rock with such force I capsized. Graham barely missing my head as I entered the water with his paddle, veered right, and hit another rock damaging his rudder. Beata veered another direction, and hit a rock jamming her rudder in the hull of her boat loosing steering. While I reentered my boat, they were limping home both in different directions based on what steering they had left. Suffering no loss of rudder control, I caught back up to Graham. Meanwhile, Beata landed 5o yards further down the beach beyond the finish line and sprinted up the beach like she had created her own Olympic event, a cross between Outdoor Volley Ball(think Misty Mae) and the 50 meter sprint. Graham nipped me at the end by a second. Exciting finish for sure!!! While we three sorted things out, we were passed my Dave Furniss and Mike McDonough in the last quarter mile of the race. Darn Rocks!! I should have gone around the rock garden like last year but I was so focused on the finishing sprint, I neglected to think about a proper line. Despite all this, it was a fun race. Mike Tracy came in behind our group caught in between packs. Behind us was another couple of packs with Chris Chappell out sprinting Kirk, and Bill Stafford in the last mile. I watched Bill K and Ken Cooper finish within seconds of each other with Bill unclipping his drinking tube seconds faster than Ken to nip him on the beach.