A Series of Local Fun Races

May: Lake Schwatka to the Dragon and back,
June, August, September: Chadburn Lake.

Results

Another beautiful evening for a paddle, but the current in Miles canyon is picking up. It is time to move the races over to Chadburn Lake, so that is what we will do starting next week.

The Race started on the stroke of 7pm, despite the absence of Peter , whose job it appears is to organise this rabble.

There was no wind, perfect for the surfski, enabling Jason finally to knock Tim off his pedestal.  And there were no altercations with mororboats in the canyon.

We had a rather disapointing turn out for the Icebreaker race this your, but almost perfect weather.  A slight breeze and sunshine.  It was 25°C at the end if the race.

Surprise, surprise, Tim won again, but Kam and Jason made him wor for it.  He only won by 3 seconds.  That means that Kam and Jason were less than a boat length behind.

It is getting to be past time that someone besides Tim won one of these races.  In the last four races, he has won by 15 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, and 3 seconds.

Another good turn out.  This week we had 8 teams, 11 paddlers.  To keep paddlers on their toes, and to instill a little discipline into this unruly crew, we started this race on the dot at 7:00.  This meant that Joe was a little late starting which might have cost him first place.  Oh well.

It was a beautiful evening, with a little breeze to stop it from being too hot.  Almost perfect paddling conditions.  Who could ask for more.  next race in the series is this Saturday, the Icebreaker.

What a zoo!  Again we had 8 teams, 12 paddlers.  And we tried the "handicap race" format.  I wanted to start paddlers in tranches 10 minutes apart, but Tim and Joe, who would then have started 20 minutes behind the first tranche whined about hanging around that long, so we started the groups 5 minutes apart.

The boats then arrived more or less in the groups as they started with the exception of Philippe, who really should have been in the second group with Pat and Peter.  It was like Tiger Woods claiming a handicap of 10.  Good paddling Philippe.  That Solo canoe he was in is good, but not a fast solo like Tim's.  That he came in only 2 ½ minutes behind Pat and Peter is impressive.

Tim worked harder than usual trying to beat Joe.  They both broke the 1 hour barrier, Tim eventually pipping Joe by 5 seconds.

It should be noted when reading these results that Tim was paddling his 20' landick canoe, a beautiful fast carbon solo boat, and Joe was in his (YRQ and Y1K illegal) Looksha 2, a very fast kayak.  Pat and Peter were in a Clipper Tripper, Philippe in a Clipper Sea-1, and the rest of the canoes were Clipper jensen 18s.  Ingrid was in her slower kayak, not her Epic; I think she does this to lull the competition into a false sense of security.  Besides, she can keep that same speed up for days.

May 12th

There were 5 boats in the Second race too, 3 K1 and 2 C2.  This time, though, we had wind.  "Wind SSE 28 gust 46".  That's from upstream.  So we had a hard paddle for the first half of the race and an easy second half.

May 5th

There were 5 boats in the first race of the year, 3 K1, 1 C1, and a C2.  It was a beautiful early summer evening with sunshine and a gentle breeze from upstream.  We saw 2 musk rat and a beaver.  And a dragon.