Unless you wanted to spend the entire month of August in Rhode Island making up for missed credits, attending the Sakonnet River Race was a must to keep on pace to make quota.  Now in its 11th year, this Echols-branded event always attracts a rowdy band of paddlers anxious to throw off the shackles of flatwater and mix it up… in a partially-protected ocean inlet.  You don’t want to jump in over your head.

I car-pooled down to the race with newcomer Ryan Bardsley.  I’d previously made the trip with fellow old hands Bruce Deltorchio and Bill Kuklinski.  Although I tried to steer this year’s drive-time conversation to Metamucil, hip replacement, and DNRs, Ryan kept bringing us back around to concerns of the younger generation.  Touch-tone phones.  Corduroy.  Mumenshanz.  Man, did I feel ancient.  I don’t yet know Ryan well enough to feel comfortable gently mocking him the way I might Bill (as a random example).  So let’s just say he has some surprising views on on human-goat hybridization.

Wesley’s insistence on maintaining a “minimum safe distance” seemed odd until we got a whiff of one another after the race.

A win at the Sakonnet has proven… elusive.  For the past six years I’ve finished in second place – beaten by a veritable Who’s Who of non-me paddlers.  Dostal, Lishchuk, Lupinski, Markin, and Costa.  Not a single one of those me.  Over the years I’ve called in a bunch of favors to have the champions transferred out of the area, enrolled in college, infected with the hantavirus, etc.  But someone else always seems to step up.  And, of course, Jan is cockroach-like in his tendency to appear, alive and kicking, despite having a polonium-laced serum injected into his thorax.  This might be my year, however.  Since Jan had just returned from his stint as nauseous race commentator on Borys’ chase boat at the Molokai, with any luck he’d still be reeling from jet lag, sea-sickness, and acute radiation poisoning.

I had some grave concerns about Chris Quinn.  It’s always the guys that are quiet, even-keeled, and ridiculously fit that give you problems.  My only solace was that he’d be in a second-gen V12 rather than his habitual V14 – perhaps a slight disadvantage given the baby-butt sea conditions.  And there was Matt Drayer, who has been religiously following a before-work training schedule that has him making his daily devotion before monks have even hit their snooze buttons for the first time.  Chris Chappell has also been doing hard time on the water this year, and with flat conditions might just try to break out on the Sakonnet.

I may have discovered the source of the navigational problems we seem to face at every race…

With the possibility of thunderstorms moving through later in the day, Wesley took the precaution of modifying the course to keep us in a more contained area closer to McCorrie Point.  That way the authorities could more easily skim us collectively from the surface like dynamited fish.  Instead of heading to the mouth of the bay, we’d head south 3.5 miles to Black Point, return 3.1 miles back in the direction of the start, return down to Black Point, then finish up back on the beach.  To break up the typical Where’s Waldo monotony of turning on a specific mooring buoy within a field of indistinguishable alternatives, the northern turn would be on a lone moored motorboat.  I was tempted to dart out before the race and cut his fuel line to prevent a mid-race escape, but figured the resulting sea of flames might make it just as difficult to find the turn.

The day promised to be hot and humid.  When you find yourself in a cold-water/greenhouse-air situation, it’s always challenging to choose the right apparel.  We told Ryan that paddling in a scuba suit under these conditions was overkill, but he just winked and adjusted his regulator.  The rest of us were still shedding clothes as we boarded our craft for the start.

By implicit mutual consent, the field eased off the line with Jenga-worthy deliberation and cautiousness.  With little wind and growing mugginess, there was a legitimate danger of total collapse if you charged pell-mell out of the gate on your 13.2 mile trek.  By encouraging drafting, the glassy water further helped hold the field together.  I had a typical mid-pack start, but at least the collegial spirit of the field helped allay my usual apprehensions about my languor.  Jan and Chris C took the early lead, but remained within hailing distance should we need to recall them.  A minute into the race, Matt sprinted by me and headed out to join the scouting party.  His ease in overtaking me was a tad worrisome, but I figured he’d burn through his youthful zest pretty quickly.

I’m starting to suspect that Olga is sweet on Max. In any event, I’ve discovered the sure-fire way to feature in her photos is to stick close to him. (Photo courtesy of Olga Sydorenko)

Over the next few minutes I overtook a drafting clump of pursuers, gradually slipping past Wesley, Max Yasochka, Tim Dwyer, Chris Laughlin, and Chris Q.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make a clean escape.  I got a little too close and ended up with a Quinn stuck on my port draft.  A fading Chris C angled over and latched onto the other side.  Jan and Matt were working independently four or five lengths ahead on different lines.

I tried various maneuvers and intervals to shake off my drafters.  Chris C fell for a head feint to the right and dropped off, but Chris Q remained a thorn at my side.  Finally, I managed a short sprint that brushed him back to my stern wake.  From there it was a simple matter of bursting a few superfluous blood vessels in my head and neck to drop Chris completely.  I was hoping for a “blown out of the airlock” kind of separation, but had to settle for a gentler “lost grip on the module hatch” departure.  As Chris drifted lazily back, I concentrated on catching Matt, who seemed to be on the more direct line to Black Point.

A few minutes into the race, Matt had a four boat lead on me.  I had since been whittling that down. It took me twenty minutes to cover the 100 foot gap – a whopping closing speed of 0.05 mph.  A garden snail can’t even manage 0.03 mph, so I think you’ll agree I was putting the hammer down.  By the time I slid onto Matt’s draft at around mile 3, Jan had fallen back a few lengths, where he was joined by Chris in the chase.

Typical show-off Canadians. (Photo courtesy of Olga Sydorenko)

Approaching Black Point, I started to get nervous about identifying the proper turning buoy.  I wouldn’t exactly say that I had tuned out during the captains meeting, but I did keep picking up an NPR program on silkworms (nature’s tailors!).  Matt and I began a discussion on the relative merits of the various choices, finally settling on a spiffy white-and-blue job 150 meters ahead.  We were feeling pretty good about this decision when indistinct shouts from behind cracked our veneer of confidence.  The four lead boats stopped paddling to assess the situation, ultimately deciding to follow our hearts rather than the incoherent ravings of some lunatic.  Turns out it was Wesley, frantically directing us to the buoy we were in fact heading for (although from his angle, he couldn’t tell that).  So following the ravings would have gotten us to the same place.

I rounded the buoy just ahead of Matt, with Jan and Chris perhaps another 4 lengths back.  There was still a lot of confused yammering going on, but a lot of that may have been me chastising myself for making such a wide, lazy turn.  We’d spend the next few miles heading back into the wind.  Although later in the day we’d get slapped around by its aggressive bluster, at this point the gentle caress of the breeze soothed our blistered skin.  Or, in Ryan’s case, cooled the gooey contents of his wetsuit back to a mostly-solid state.

The 3 mile trip back to the upwind turn-around was relatively uneventful once I’d retroactively edited out all of the terror-filled glances over my shoulder to see who would soon be overtaking me.  I’d installed a Geiger counter app on my phone prior to the race, so at least I’d have some warning if Jan was sneaking up on me.  I never saw anyone distinctly (because, remember, I didn’t look) and the headwind helpfully swept away any scent of impending doom, so (to the syncopated clicks of intermittent cosmic rays) I began to think perhaps I would finally break my runner-up hex.  The subsequent downwind leg back to Black Point scorched away that hope, along with all others.

I had about a 35 second lead over Matt at the upwind turn (which, remarkably, was still attached and afloat).  Chris lagged behind him by a few lengths, with Jan a half-dozen more back.  With the wind now surgically tuned to match my exact speed, I could finally appreciate the full swelter of the day.  Despite shedding a half-dozen pounds in my cockpit sauna, I felt increasingly leaden as the miles to the next turn trickled by.  My target pace was slipping so often that I was forced to switch over to target deceleration.  Some quick calculations (and they say you never use calculus in real life…) indicated that I’d actually be going backwards by the time I reached Black Point.  I must have integrated incorrectly, though, because I actually had some residual velocity as we approached the turn.

Blinded by sweat and tears, heat blasted, and mentally exhausted from all the math, I was finally about to round the buoy when… again with the yelling from behind.  Given that he was only a few lengths behind at this point, Matt could have used his inside voice, but he must have sensed that my befuddled mind was only capable of responding to intense stimuli.  The fact that I was now paddling canoe-style and yelling out “hut” on side changes probably tipped him off that I needed some hand-holding.  In any event, he managed to redirect me to the correct buoy.

I was still in the lead, but watched Matt and Chris take the turn together – now only 20 seconds back.  Given my depleted state, I was done for.  Noting that Jan had dropped off the pursuit, I dreamed that I might salvage a third place finish from the charred wreckage.  Amazingly, however, it turns out that everyone else was also suffering on that past leg.  And that my seemingly debilitating fatigue was as much mental as physical.  It took only a few minutes of wind-in-the-face therapy to reinvigorate my hopes for a win.

While Chris prepared a hasty exit to avoid the press throng, I graciously stuck around to provide an hour-long Q&A session (mostly A, now that I think of it) with my deck camera. (Photo courtesy of Olga Sydorenko)

My upwind execution was sloppy, but the glee of being freed from the downwind kiln powered me back towards McCorrie Point.  About halfway home, I noticed one of the two chase boats back about a dozen lengths on an inside line.  He didn’t seem to be gaining, which allowed me to concentrate 100% of my anxiety on the guy I couldn’t see.  I hate that guy.  With a mile to go, a mischievous squall descended on the Sakonnet.  With an almost perfectly head-on wind, however, negotiating this final obstacle was more annoying than challenging.

I reached the line a half-minute ahead of Chris, with Matt taking third shortly after that.  Jan and Tim completed the top 5, with Leslie Chappell paddling away with the women’s title.  After rehydrating (I’d forgotten my IV saline drip so I had to do things the old-fashioned way – guzzling seawater), we headed up the road to the Echols’ house for the after-party.  Once you fought your way through the crowd of surfski pilgrims genuflecting towards The Garage, it was a pretty good spread.  Many thanks to Wesley and Betsy for a great day.  And a special thanks to guest lecturer Jan, who gave a sobering scared-straight presentation on the perils of the Molokai.  Or, at least, the perils of being on a chase boat there.

 

You know the angel/devil that pops up to provide advice in cartoons? Apparently that’s a real thing. Minus the costumes.

Due to popular demand, we’re all booked for a reunion tour in Rhode Island on June 16th for Ride the Bull.  Poring over navigational charts, tide tables, and unholy grimoires, Wesley and Tim are already hard at work summoning the latest incarnation of the cruelest course in New England.  Please preregister at PaddleGuru.