We had an excellent turnout for yesterday’s race comprised of surf skis, kayak(Jim), tandem canoe( Gus and Jerry), and OC1 (Carol) on a beautiful day. In this mix of paddlers was a convert from sea kayak to surfski (Jeff), a top-notch triathlete( Loukia), and new racer Josko, first time Narrow River Racers, John and Mark. The water level was high, so knowing the shallow spots was not imperative.
Last year’s winner by a country mile Mike, duplicated his effort this year despite Mike warning us he was not training as hard. Greg outpaced Chris, 2nd and 3rd place finishers, while John put in a massive effort to come in fourth. Loukia drove up to place first in the women’s and Mary Beth placed second. As usual, there were many “one on one” races within the race. For example, Mark W and Chris Q were together most of the race, Tim H and Kirk were only lengths apart as well for the 8-mile scenic course. Bob Wright a local Rhode Islander and retired school teacher sidelined for a few months joined us to take the pics which are in the video below. Thanks, Bob!
The Narrow River is the first race of the New England season acting as a benchmark of how your off season training plans is progressing. Regardless of how you placed, the season has just begun. Covid 19 put damper on the 2020 race schedule however due to people getting vaccinated restrictions on racing are loosening. I get my second shot this week and many of the paddlers I spoke with are vaccinated fully, or waiting for their second dose or next in line for their age group. Hopefully everyone we paddled with become vaccinated for the sake of all of us.
You would think the race would have been my highlight of the day. Well, it was not. As I was talking to Janda on the way home crossing the Jamestown Bridge, I watched in slow motion, my two surf skis on my car being blown side ways. Not in panic mode, I told Janda, got to go as I slowed to 10mph, put on my flashers, and debated about stopping on the bridge. I did not but was very lucky that I made it off the bridge, stopped, put a couple of straps on the skis and drove another quarter mile to a pull-out to access what had happened. While I am pretty meticulous about all my gear, and had been driving this car for a few months with this rack system, one of the bolts that tighten right front foot, become loose allowing the front crossbars to slip out of the track.
I do carry my tools with me for rack and boat maintenance so I unassembled the Thule crossbars after I detached my Goodboy Vbars and then lined everything back up and put the whole system back on. However, just before the Newport Bridge I saw a 2-inch shift in the position of the driver-side ski, so had to pull off again. While I had tightened the front Vbar, I had not tightened it enough. The crosswinds across both bridges cause a lot of stress on your skis and your racks. I got home safely, realigned everything, tightened everything so good to go now. That is a scary situation seeing your skis swaying in the wind. The lesson learned is to check your gear often. I have a solid system but I failed to check everything a few months after I had installed it. I was incredibly lucky.
Next race should be on the schedule shortly which is the Paddle the Bay tentatively for May 15, 2021 in Newport hosted by Tim D.
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