With King Borys and Queen Beata having moved on to a better place, the Northeast surfski thrones sit vacant for the first time in many harvests. With no heirs apparent, the upcoming season promises to be filled with deft strategic maneuvering, ferocious duels to the finish, and the occasional poisoning. Fasten your footstraps. Treacherous seas approach.
Just not literally. The first full-field race of the post-B&B era would take place on the tranquil waters of the Charles River. (While the second race… well, that will also be on flat water. But the third… uh, flat too. We’ll have to wait for roiling conditions until the fourth… unless of course the Sakonnet Race is glass-calm like last year.) A crew of 25 skis showed up for the 6 mile course of the Run of the Charles – nearly all kayakers having sworn off the 9 and 19 mile courses as “too portagy”. Fresh off their impressive showings in Florida at the Shark Bite Challenge two weeks earlier, Craig Impens, Eric Costanzo, and Jan Lupinski were looking to devour a field of soft and pasty New Englanders – while those of us who stayed true to the North looked to defend our (until recently) frozen realm.
Rocky makes some last minute adjustments to what may be the world’s oldest Huki(Wesley’s 1st Huki).
The 6 mile down-and-back (followed by a little up-and-back) course would take us on a tour of the bridges of Suffolk County. Wary of the Run of the Charles’ tradition of snap starts, the veteran field loitered anxiously about the starting line waiting for the surprise countdown. As a result, nearly everyone was facing the right direction when the 15 second warning was given. Ten seconds later the contest was on.
In last year’s race, I ruffled a few feathers while clawing my way to an advantageous position during a fevered initial sprint. The ends may justify the means, but Machiavelli didn’t have to race with the same set of guys week after week. I took a more tactful (and less tactile) approach this year, starting out with a more measured cadence and vowing to work my way honorably up to the lead pack. Finding myself momentarily trapped behind teenager Augstin Reboul and youthful-in-spirit Wesley Echols, rather than just muscling between them like I might have in the past, I instead muscled through while whistling nonchalantly. That gives you blanket immunity.
Fortunately, we got started before Judgement commenced.
Once in clearer water, I caught a mild boost from Eric Schulz and a whopping assist from Chris Chappell (always one to pitch in a helping hand). Chris managed to work us up to Eric Costanzo and an unfamiliar paddler in a classic V10L (that turned out to be Ben Pigott). The lead pair of Craig and Jan had pulled away several minutes earlier, and Jan had managed to drop Craig sometime soon after that. With Eric and Ben pulling, Chris and I hunkered in for a downstream ride.
As the field approached the final stretch to the first turn buoy, we saw two skis paddling effortlessly back upstream toward us. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could have had such a colossal lead on us. When I then discovered that the paddlers were Mark Ceconi and Sean Milano… I most definitely did not ramp my incredulity to flying-pig levels, but rather silently congratulated those illustrious fellows on their remarkable off-season improvements. I later discovered that Mark and Sean weren’t actually registered for the race, but were sent off early to clear the course of mines.
By the turn-around, it was pretty clear that unless Jan stopped for a picnic on the bank of the Charles, he had a lock on first place. So you can imagine how dumbfounded I was afterwards when he told me that not only has he not been training, this was actually the first time he’s ever even seen a surfski. Craig was firmly in second place at the turn, but his lead over our little pack didn’t look insurmountable.
Ben took the turn very wide and Eric made a tactical error by finding himself trapped on the outside of the turn. After some maneuvering, I managed to gain a boat length and put myself in a position to get on Ben’s stern wash. I had spent the better part of the first half of the race drafting Chris, Ben and Eric, so it was difficult (but not impossible) to feel aggrieved when Eric leeched onto my starboard to catch a ride of his own on the way back upriver. We had apparently dropped Chris before the turn.
I’ve read that the comfortable personal space distance varies considerably from culture to culture. Evidently, New Jersey is one of those locales where that distance is – at least for someone with a more repressed upbringing – on the claustrophobic end of the scale. Eric wasn’t so much side-drafting me as initiating docking procedures. I looked to my right a couple of times to discover that I had actually been paddling his boat. I kept waiting to be boarded, just hoping that I wouldn’t find myself in a “take no prisoners!” scenario.
In Eric’s defense, I found later that he was experiencing steering issues due to improperly threaded rudder lines. And, other than the mental anguish I suffered from being the ongoing target of a high-stakes game of “I’m not touching you…”, I can’t say that his close paddling had any impact on my race.
Sure, it can be a bit annoying to have Eric around all the time. But he’d take a bullet for me.
About a mile back up the Charles towards the start, Eric whispered conspiratorially in my ear that we should work together to hunt down Craig. I’m not sure why he focused on the guy who was two places in front of us rather than the one just ahead, but since Eric appeared to have enough cognitive function left to actually form a plan (fatigue had forced me to retreat into reactive lizard-brain mode), who was I to question his ingenious gambit? We angled slightly away from Ben to take a direct line towards Craig, perhaps a half-dozen boat lengths ahead.
We were almost immediately separated by an oncoming pair of plastic kayaks (an impressive feat – akin to splitting the atom), and that set the tone for the rest of our short-lived and pathetic effort. I managed to limp back onto Ben’s wash, but it wasn’t long before he dropped us. A half-mile later, Eric slipped back from his outrigger position on my starboard side to latch on to my stern. I checked back periodically to make sure he was comfortable until one time… sniff… I saw only my undisturbed wake.
Eric and I are comparable paddlers, although we have very different strengths in a ski. Whereas I thrive on the delicate elegance of flat water racing, he’s more comfortable in the bare-knuckles world of the open ocean – particularly if it’s a downwind kind of brawl. Last season I was faster when conditions were, say, “moderate” or better. Eric was faster when things got any messier. Based on his performance on the Charles, however, it appears that Lesher-Costanzo crossover threshold has shifted from “moderate” to “dead calm”.
I spent the last mile and a half a steady 4 boat lengths behind Ben. I was too exhausted from having dropped Eric to mount a serious challenge. Ben wasn’t going to catch Craig, and I wasn’t going to catch Ben. And Jan had already finished. So that was the top 5: Jan, Craig, Ben, me, and Eric. Bruce Deltorchio had a great race to finish 6th, followed by Chris, Tims Dwyer and Hudyncia, and Eric Schulz to round out the top 10. Mary Beth and Leslie Chappell finished 1 and 2 in the women’s division. I was a little disappointed in missing the podium, but I found ample solace in the Capellinis’ superb pulled pork and Chris Sherwood’s delightfully hoppy coffee.
Tim may have taken this round, but from Wesley’s expression I’m guessing he’s playing the long con…
Jan threw down the gauntlet with a decisive thrashing of the field. Will anyone rise to his challenge? Or will we meekly pick up his glove, dust it off, and apologetically return it with “I think you dropped this, m’lord.”? I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been honing my paddling skills for combat on the Narrow River.
I’m also preparing some House Lupinski banners. Just in case.
Greg Lesher
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