When I got into kayaking in 2006, Wye Island quickly became my favorite place to paddle. When I tried some races in 2007, the Wye Regatta was the one I was aiming for. Mother nature caused last year's race to be shortened to an 8 mile out and back, vs. a 12 mile circumnavigation, so this year would be my first chance to actually do the entire Wye race. The marine forecast kept wobbling back and forth between saying 5-10 knot and 10-15 knot winds, with mostly overcast skies, temperatures in the high 80's and high humidity.
Saturday was a complicated day - to do the race, I would drive 75 miles east to Wye Landing and then after the race drive about 75 miles south to meet my wife at a party at a friend's waterfront house in Drum Point, MD. I usually bring a few kayaks to Chris and June's party, so in addition to the Marlin I loaded up our Perception Dagger rec boat. Plus, my daughter was going to meet us at the party, driving up from St. Mary's College, so I loaded up her bicycle and some supplies for her. Hurricane Ike's impact had driven gas prices around here up about 60 cents per gallon - my 250 miles of driving would cost a bit more. Since there was also the potential for heavy fog, I loaded up my GPS with maps, packed the VHF radio - this turned into a major production.
As usual, the weather pundits were all wrong - Saturday morning dawned clear and breeze-free. After the traditional 7-11 coffee and a muffin, I was over the Bay Bridge at 0715 looking down at an almost glassy Chesapeake Bay. I arrived at the start way early and spent about an hour shooting the breeze with Charlie and other regulars, looking at the wide variety of kayaks, canoes, sculls and dories that were entering the race. Many other usuals, like Cyndi, Brian, Susan and Jeff P. were nowhere to be found and at about 0915 they called for kayakers to get on the water. When I did my usual graceful dock entry, the guy helping accidentally pulled by front hatch cover off - we put it back on but I was sort of wondering all race long if it was really sealed.
The Wye Regatta does not do mass starts, which is a bit of a bummer because you really can't race directly against others - you are really racing against the clock. Since we were on the water well before the published start time I was just sort of dawdling along when I noticed Charlie was starting out - they were letting kayakers start early. So, I paddled over, got in line and launched several minutes later. I actually remembered to start my GPS and turned the display to show speed, distance and heart rate but not elapsed time. I figured I'd watch my heart rate to see if I should push more and would not watch my time - I was aiming for 2 hours but if I was way behind that pace I didn't want to know because I might ease up.
My goal was to only be passed by skinnier, younger, faster people in skinnier, faster boats and for the first few miles I was mostly passing others in recreational boats and the occasional rowboat (dory?). Shortly before the bridge I was passed by a guy in a racing kayak who had a beautiful stroke and shortly after the bridge I was passed by Holm with his powerful stroke. We were riding a bit of current since the tide was still going out and I was keeping my speed up above 6 mph, which is what I would have to average to finish in 2 hours. The water was flat, the sun was burning, the humidity was high but there was a bit of breeze in our face as we headed west - it was pretty pleasant paddling on this stretch.
I've done Wye enough times now that I have a line I follow and it was interesting to watch the various paths everyone else took. Shortly before we made the turn south onto the main Wye River at Grapevine Point, Melissa passed me in an Epic V10L surfski and then Stephen on his surfski. On the main Wye, the wind and waves picked up a bit and there was a decent amount of boat traffic. Nothing major, but one guy in a large boat did the usual thing: he was trying to be helpful and slow down, but in doing so he slowed down to the exact speed where he is displacing water (vs. being up planing) and making the largest wake possible. I stayed on my line and took most of the wakes on the side, but for that one I turned to cut directly across - whee.
As we headed towards Bordely point I started to be passed by 2 person sculls, and right before the turn east I was passed by a guy in a long kayak using a very strange paddle: it looked like two crutches joined together, with paddle blades in place of the rubber tips and diagonal hand bars. He was paddling a very low angle stroke but he was chugging. When we made the left turn at Bordely Point we started going against the outgoing tide, and the wakes coming from boats on the main river were trying to force me towards the island so I slowed down as I took the swells on the right rear quarter while attempting to maintain the right line. Probably would have been faster to try to surf the way the wakes wanted to go and then cut back across but it gave me a chance to practicing handling seas from that angle.
I stopped paddling every 1.5 miles or so to drink (I still haven't gotten the Jeff Pringle/Stevie Wonder harmonica holder thing), so I stayed pretty well hydrated - at the finish I only had a few ounces left. The last four miles was a slog. I started hearing "skitter skitter skitter skitter" as the 8 person sculls started passing and they are always fun to watch. At a right hand bend in the river, two of them were side by side and seemed to get into a game of chicken - the one on the inside of the turn kept going straight and the one on the outside wouldn't slow down to turn behind them, so they both heading way across the river, almost all the way to the island. Either they were just being competitive or they were both making a navigational error, but they were way off course.
Jeff Evans caught up to me at one point so I cranked up the rate a bit but mainly focused on the paddling stroke. The last four miles were a real slog - it was in the high 80's by then, no breeze, etc. Way too many of my training paddles were limited to 6 miles this year and the 10 mile Broadkill is my only long race this year - if you are going to commit the crime, be prepared to do the time, or something like that. I really wasn't in great shape for a 12 mile race this year, the heart rate vs. speed chart below shows that.
I barreled across the finish line and made sure the timekeeper got my number - last year they added about 20 minutes to my time. My GPS said 2:10 but the official results credited me with 2:02 - I think the Annapolis Rowing Club had some synchronization issues between the starting clock and the finishing clock. My goal is to get below 2 hours, so I'd like to believe their time but I'm positive I did it in 2:10. That is about 20 minutes faster than I've been able to do before in the Capella, so I did a little better than the minute a mile improvement I'm crediting to the Marlin. Charlie and few others were lounging on a beach in the shade a few hundred yards after the finish, so I sloowly paddled over there and chatted for a bit but I mainly wanted to get out of the boat. As I paddled the last .5 miles back to the launch point, I passed the starting boat which shot off a cannon for some reason when I was about 10 feet beyond it - I thought my kayak had exploded and literally almost leaped out of the boat. While I was looking around to figure out what happened, they shot off another one!
After a stunningly graceful dock exit (onlookers commented that it reminded them of Mikhail Baryshnikov, but when he fell down the stairs leaving the stage) and a bit of chatter with the usual suspects, I loaded everything back up and made the long drive down to Drum Point. The Wye regatta is a pretty low frills event, at least from the point of view of freebies, but the mix of boats, the challenge of the length of the course and the mix of conditions and the plain old fact that it goes around Wye Island make it my favorite event of the year. Next year I will be in shape and break 2 hours.
Google's version of the route:
I'm the guy with the weird paddle at Wye. A few of years ago I started doing training paddles of 9-10 miles in the Susq., at least twice a week in summer, and got sore wrists. The "crutches" paddle turns my wrists into a more upright position. Problem solved. Plus I get a lot of interesting comments.
Posted by: lightkayak | 05 November 2008 at 07:52 PM