Cambridge to Hamilton Kayak Race

I headed down to Cambridge for the annual Cambridge to Hamilton kayak race. Russell from Canoe and Kayak gave me a ride to the start and we all mulled around the start of the race for the race briefing. Because there were so many kayaks of differnt speeds, the race started in waves every 5 minutes, and I was in the Multisport/K1 wave, starting 2nd to last. I got in early and made my way over to a vacant bank to wait for the start. I was joined by a south african lady in a k1 who was a little twitchy on the water. About 5 minutes later a double kayak, saw our calm resting spot and decidied to come over. They clearly had never kayaked in a double before and the woman at the back had no idea what she was doing, as evident from the slapping of the water with both sides of the paddle. Sure enough, they attempted to swing around and totally miscalculated it and run there steel rudder along my kayak and despite my protestations of telling them to go forward, they put a 2m long scratch on my kayak. And not a word of apology, just a panicked look. But worse was to come. They then run their rudder along the Ladys boat despite 3 people now shouting at them to go forward. But what do they do? They reverse! Absolute idiots. Now they reverse with such force that they smash into the lady's rudder and the two medal rudders lock together. The stupid woman stupidly tries to pull the kayaker closer, and only succeeds in making her tippier than ever, and she is now screaming at them to stop. We tried to tell the lady to move to a 90degree angle so another guy could untagle the rudder. After some scrambing and a few freocious tugs it came free. The double kayak was free and kayaked off to the start, not even apologizing once for the absolute mahem they caused. And left the 3 of our boats there cursing there inept skills. It was probably a classic case of a man dragging his unprepared wife along on a double. I'm not sure which of them was dumber. All i know was that i had a totally unecessary scratch on my new kayak, and some poor woman had to complete the race with a bent (and possibly broken) rudder thanks to them.
I learnt a lesson I guess, and that is that Kayakers are some of the biggest dangers on the river, not just rocks and moving water.

As for my race it was mostly without much incident apart from a tight section about half way through the race. There was a canadian canoe full of scouts that I had follwed for a few minutes looking for a place to pass. I found a spot and overtook them, but then there were some large boils just after I passed them that I had to slow down to negotiate. I was fine for the first two and then I felt my boat turning to the right uncontrolably. I was soon to discover to my horror than the canadian canoe had run me down and its bow was now sitting on the back of my kayak and my bow was now raised out of the water and I was travelling down the river backwards with my tail buring under water. The scout leader asked me if i could get out from under his boat, and I replied that i would obviously do that if i could, but I was pinned. I dont think he understood. Meanwhile we were slowly drifting towards the bank and the trees. I got hid in the head by a branch and shouted at them to paddle sideways to get out of the danger. There was no response from their inexperienced scouts so I decided to save myself while they sat there. I wresteled the boat inch by inch and managed to get the tail free from under there boat, grabbed my own paddle and paddled out the back and back up the river. At least they apologized. The sad irony was that they were only going half way, and 2 minutes later they pulled over to stop anyway. I was furious.
Since then I have wondered whether this was my fault or theirs. My passing manouver was fine, and maybe my pause around the boils caused the accident, but they clearly did nothing to avoid running me down and certainly did nothing to help me free. Again the same lessons. Kayakers are the major danger in a race.

More lessons learned and the remainder of the paddle was uneventful and I came down to the end and finished up with a time of 1:54:23 finishing 119th of 243 finishers. I had lost the 'tired arms' sydrome and it just felt like a good workout.

Horahora to Cambridge Race + New Paddle

The BoatShed Cafe runs a regular paddle from HoraHora to their cafe just out of Cambridge. Most people, including me lined up for the 9km paddle although there was a 18km paddle option.


When I arrived I talked to Richard (the owner) about a paddle, and he lent me a full carbon 210cm C22 (Catch 22) which was a new paddle from Andrew Martin but branded as Legend Paddles. This proved to be a massive success as my previous blade was a 218cm Plastic blade that had previously ripped my arms off in Coromandel. This affirmed that I should be looking towards a much shorter paddle, and after some discussions I decided to buy a Hydra paddle so ordered one there and waited 10days for delivery.


As for the 9km race, we dropped in at a pleasant park behind Horahora bridge and about 20 of us started at about 9:30. Two people took off but I stayed with most of the pack for about 30minutes, before slowly losing touch. This paddle was in a different world to the Coromandel incident, and I really enjoyed being out on the river in perfect conditions on a lovely morning which was getting quite hot by the time I finished. I managed to hold on my speed for the whole race and finished up with an unofficial time of 1h6min, just a few minutes behind the 2nd pack.

The cafe has some great food, and I waited for the prize giving, but didnt do spectacularly well enough (or poor enough) to win anything. Still a great day and I'm glad I have settled on a paddle.

Busy Lazy Days + Coromandel Classic

You'd be forgiven for thinking I've been lazy which is why I haven't updated this blog in a while. But quite the opposite has been true. I have clocked up a lot of miles (in NZ and out of the country) both in the air and in the car. I really wish that my friends would get married closer to home, and there were decent Grade II rivers in the Auckland area so that I could reduce my carbon footprint. And lets not even talk about 70+ hour work weeks that have seriously hindered training.


Coromandel Classic Race - 23/24 August
The Coro classic was a game of 2 days.

Day 1 - Saturday
The calm before the storm. The storm was taking its time to arrive and Saturday turned out to be a perfect day for multisport, with patchy clouds, very light winds and calm rivers. The boys (Rodney and Mark) that I had teamed up with, were Lawyers from Thames, so we all had dinner together after the Race Briefing and I crashed on Mark's couch. Beacuse of the logistics I got to sleep in and Rodney took Mark to the start, before picking me up and heading to the start of the run. This was where I was to get my first taste of the madness of a "multisport transition". Coming from the highly organised world of triathlon where rubber bands are used to get the pedal alignment exactly horizontal, athletes pace out the meters to the exact row/column of there gps located bike. And then they get to a multisport transition, where there is no transition, just a whole buch of random friends shouting at befuddled athletes, and people falling over people, and the unmistakely funny sight of a panicing athlete who is screaming to try and find there support crew, who are probably standing right next to them, but just were listening. Hilarious. Occasionally amogst the chaos you do see some form of oraganisation, usually the people who pull at seat under an athlete just before they collapse (to which you might see a Boxing trainer do to his athlete after 10 rounds with Mohammed Ali), a uicking change of shoes and being forcefed some pureed substance, before charging out again.

So, Mark came along a few minutes slower than his time last year, but still well in the main bunch. He handed the baton over to Rodney, who took off like a rocket, and said he was in good form and looking to shave a few minutes of last years time.

We had to wait for the tailend charlie before leaving, and made our way back to base in Thames for a quick bite to eat and change of cars (with my kayak). In retrospect, this was a mistake, and both of us underestimated both how fast Rodney was, and how much time we wasted during our 'transition'. A stop off for some necessary fuel on the way and we were running a bit late.
At the kayak start parking was at a premium so I had to park up the road a bit, and carry my kayak over the highway. And then just after I had taken the straps off, and had my gear on, Rodney cames blasting out of the Run exit and starts shouting at us "Bloody Hell - Hurry up". Mad panic ensuses and a race official lends a hand carrying my bost down to the river as I finish up dressing myself, and I jump into the kayak. Not having time to run through the 'kayak entry' routine, I get pushed into the river before I have a paddle and have the skirt down up, before screaming at somebody to wait a second. I gather my composure (like I had any), and begin my first race in a complete fluster.
I had been warned about the Grade II rapid at the very start of the kayak, but after 5 minutes of dread I realised that the first 20m was what they were talking about. Beding a complete beginner I have to say that was the saddest excuse for "Rapid" if I didnt even notice it.
So now I was in a race! I was in my flash ne kayak, with a paddle I would later find was totally ill suited to me but I was in a race, and I was as happy as Larry. But 10minutes later someone passed me, and that would be the tone of the rest of the day for me. After 30mins I was totally shot. I had nothing left, but I knew I had to keep going no matter what. I decided to pick up my spirits by having a drink and something to eat. This almost proved a deadly mistake, as I found out just how difficult it is to take both hands "of the wheel" and not tip straight out of your boat. Not wanting to be the only one to fall out, I found a quite mangrove to pull up alongside and then attempt to refuel. A sesnsible idea, and I made a note to try and think about how to refuel withou stopping for future racing. I had heard about people taping bars to their paddle and ripping them off with there bare teeth and thought how ridiculously over the top that was. Now I was thinking that these people were smarter than they looked.
After about 90mintes, which felt like 10 hours I made my way through the Whitianga channel and beached up at the finish to tage Mark. I just about fell out of my boat through tiredness. I noticed that even after 5 minutes, I wasnt even slightly physically tired, it's just that my arms were completely stuffed. I had read what this translates into - Poor Technique. But you have to start seomwhere, and I had made it to the finish unscathed, albeit a tad slow.
















Day 2 - Sunday
I woke up in Tairua on the cliff tops and looked outside the window and witnessed the power of nature absolutely pounding the coast. There were white caps out on the ocean as far as I could see and the weather report had a NorthEasterly of 200km/hr at sea and 70-80km/hr in the harbour. Mother nature had decided to unleash the fury upon us. It was so bad we had convinced ourselves the race would be cancelled. But we decided to pack up our gear and head down the to race start anyway. We arrived 10 minutes before the scheduled start, and saw a few kayaks on the ground but most still sitting on the roofs of cars. There was nobody in the water. It must be cancelled. So we just waited for the cancellation message, but it never came and slowly one by one some kayakers attempted to get into their kayaks. The more experienced ones went first and faced into the wind and paddled against the 70km/hr wind and barely moved forward. Thankfully the race was SouthWest (downwind) and I scampered to get in when there was a 2minute warning. Another not to remember is that non kayakers dot realise how much time it takes to get ready, even when your in a massive hurry, so I think next time I will allow plenty of time myself to organise my gear to avoid the stress of being rushed at the last minute. I barely had the time to put my shoes on and paddle into some water and turn around before the gun went off. With a massive tailwind, the field screamed down the first few kilometres. Because of the low tide, then there were many sand banks visible and avoiding them was difficult. I knew the harbour reasonably well so went left to find the deeper water but with my boat at 90degreens I got blown sideways onto a sand bank before I reached the channel. So I had to portage (carry) my kayak 200m over the bank to rejoin the channel. It was during this time that I uttered some aweful words and phrases that I will repeat to no man (or woman) until I am on my deathbed. Such was the deepest low of misery that I had reached. And then to try and cheer myself up, and let out the customary scream to mother nature - "Is that all you've got!". Nobody heard my screams - and they were only 50 meteres away.
After reaching the start of the river ww were afforded some shelter but it was had work. It was an extra 4km from yesterday, and after about 2 hours of paddling I got to within 1km of the finish. It had been seom of the most miserable sporting hours in my life I admit, but it was Character Building as they say.
Upon seeing the exit I threw my paddle ashore and jumped out clumsily but I couldn't care. The kayaking was over. One of the officials looked at me and asked if I was OK. I said nothing but the look on my face must have given it away. There was a smaller matter of a 50m portage, and a 100m run through a paddock, and becuase I didnt have time at the start to put my shoes on properly, my middle toe had been bent at 90degrees for over 2 hours and now was quite painful to run on. After ignoring this and running through the mud aand rain to the handover point I threw the baton at Mark, and then fell to the ground as I tried to rip my kayak shoes off to alleviate the pain in my toes. I remember someone giving me a snide question about whether I enjoyed it. I didnt even respond cause I probably would have chewed there head off.
But I was now finished and spent another 10 minutes in the rain packing up my kayak before hopping into my car and turning the heaters on full to get me in a better mood. It helped a bit, but looking back I didnt really enjoy the day.
Mark managed to finish the bike leg despite some shocking conditions with high winds and slippery roads and hand over to Rodney again. When wew arrived in Whangamata the race organisers advised us that the ford crossings on the ran had turned into full blown rivers, and were impssible, so the last bike leg was cancelled. Instead the runners would head up to the ford (river) and then run back to whanamata for the shortened course and the finish line. It rained all the way and Rodney appeard back in good time, before clocking us in, and we called it a day.

The Mighty Waikato

I got roped into a 11km kayak race (actually it wasn't a race - its was a "Members Training Session" and you could join the club on the day for $30) late the night before, and roped my support crew into the race a short while after midnight.
Rochelle and I drove down to Mercer after getting about 5 hours of sleep after the decision had been made.
We turned up to see most people unpacking their gear, and I unloaded my kayak and then waited for the race briefing. The race briefing was pretty standard and after I joined the Sunset Multisport Club, I took a look to see most people sitting in their kayaks in the river.
Crap, so I scampered to my car, and started wildly throwing on kayak gear and barking instructions to Rochelle, then ran to the start line, with kayak under my arm. By now, everybody was in the water waiting for the race to start. Even the starter was holding the horn, looking at me, just waiting for me to get into my kayak. No sooner had he seen me dive into my kayak (and nearly fall straight out - due to the pressure of trying to do it quickly and trying to explain to my support how to help), he then blew the horn, and the "race" was under way.
Herein lies a lesson: Turn up early and allow plenty of time to get into your kayak. A last minute rush, is not good for your mental state, and could cause you to forget something.
Anyway, some 2km of kayaking later, my arms were so tired, I considered cutting them off to avoid feeling anything. I had been told by plenty of people that this would happen, and that you have to engage your stronger muscles (core & upper body) to be an endurance paddler. I appreciated the advice, but its pretty easy to tell someone to just "use perfect technique".
Your arms will give out very quickly no matter how strong you are. So I tried to figure out how to engage my core muscles and paddle using a rotational figure-of-8 style. I had mixed success, but couldn't manage to hold any decent form for more than a minute. Practice makes perfect I guess.
I got the the end of the paddle, and decided not to do the next leg as I had to get my kayak back onto my car. Its far too cruel to ask a first time support person to strap a brand new $4000 kayak on the roof by themselves, with no advice and then just tear off.
It took quite a while to pack things up (even with two people) and we had a long drive to the next transition. We had to stop to check the map a few times, but found the roads ok. When we got near to the transition, the road split into 3 roads, and the obvious road to take was blocked by a farmers truck. We guessed one of the others and 200m later came to a dead end. The stupid farmer asked us what we were doing, and when I pointed out that his truck was blocking the (public) road of an event for 50 people, he apologized and said he would move it (apparently he didn't want the bobby calves escaping - whatever!). Idiot.
By this stage, the other teams had transitioned, and we arrived about 15minutes after our team had got to transition - they were understandably rather annoyed about waiting.
I wanted to do the mountain bike, but we were now holding them up, so let the rest of the team go, and made an executive decision. We had to call it a day after being totally disorganized. So on our way home I treated my support crew to an all day breakfast at Bombay, and then headed home.

More lessons had been learned, and I'm sure more will be learned over the coming months.

A New Arrival

After a 5 week wait from ordering my boat I went and picked it up from Fergs Kayaks on the 8th of the 8th 2008 at 8 minutes into my lunch time. While most people were taking there future partners down the aisle on this auspicious day, I was vowing to spend only (I say 'only' now) the next 6 months with my new partner.



Btw, I haven't named her yet, but have a name on my mind, but open to any [serious] suggestions - send me a mail or comment.

I also hadn't sorted out a place for her to sleep at night, so like many other partners in my past, she'd have to make do with the back of the wagon on her first night, and see how things go after that.

The next day I headed off to Ironman training squad for the morning (which thanks to Tony was a nasty Bike Run repetitions). I was shattered at the end, but was desperate to get my boat on the water so headed down to lake Pupuke to cast her off on her maiden voyage.
If any of you know where the saying "To push the boat out" you would know that often the sailors were in shocking condition (i.e. drunk off there faces) before they set sail for a long voyage. Although my first voyage was going to be short (15 minutes) I probably should have waited till the next day as I was not in a great frame of mind. But I was as keen as mustard to get this kayaking business underway.

I was to (ironically) quickly learn a lesson in kayaking in the first 45minutes after arriving at the lake. I couldn't tell you how may times I walked to and from my car to the lake to get something I had forgotten or not thought about, or opened and closed my car doors/boot to pull something out, or wak back to my kayak to get my keys (again). I spent nearly 30 minutes pissing around with the foot pedals to get them in the right position, and got undressed twice in the process. If some (experienced) kayaker had been watching my preparation this must have pissed themselves laughing at my total disorganization. Still you have to do these things once, to learn how to do them better the next time.

Then there was getting into the boat. The armchair kayaker would have wet themselves looking at me in my fancy new kayak and bright orange and yellow jacket/PFD (Personal Flotation Device - aka Life Jacket), struggle to get into the boat numerous times. Although I never tipped out, there were some nervous moments. After 4 or 5 tries I managed to push out onto open water.

The kind hearted Russell from Canoe and Kayak (Sandringham) had lent me a wing paddle and I gave that a go. For those who don't know what a "wing" paddle has one edge curved like a airplane wing which forces the blade to move out from the boat (which helps with efficiency). But it has the drawback of not being great for an emergency brace or being very unstable when the blade is behind you (because it grabs the water - and tries to tip you over). See an example at The Boatshed store in Cambridge. I am told that these advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but as a beginner you have to get used to using them in the way they were designed - or there are consequences.

So after 15 minutes and being totally shattered from training and desperately wanting to fall asleep I decided to head back ashore in the knowledge that everything was working great. I would have to paddle this in anger on a different day. And I wasnt to know it then, but that day would be the very next day.

I (ironically again) quickly learn another lesson in that packing up a kayak takes just as long, and I cant tell you how much time I wasted opening/closing doors, tying/untying knots, taking clothes one/off, but as I say above; you will learn to do this faster the more you do it. I was paranoid about tying the boat down, and making it safe, as I had to go over the Auckland harbour bridge, and the wind had picked up a bit.

I made it home intact (with kayak), and made a call to Emma who had advised me of rumors that there was a Sunday paddle on the Waikato river the next day. I had no intention of going, but was returning the call out of courtesy. You know where this is going...


PS: Don't forget to mail in suggestions for her name.

My First Grade 2 - The Mohaka

Saturday was not looking like a great day for kayaking, or being outside in general, and the North Island was receiving the biggest storm in 10 years with gale force wind warnings all over the north island. Naturally I was a tad apprehensive about stepping foot onto my first grade 2 proper river, but we were reassured that the river gorge should prevent high winds from affecting us. And it mostly turned out that way.
The other good news, was that after all the rain, the river was flowing at a good level, the best all this winter, so promised some god honest white water action. And it delivered.

Below is the photo of the waterfalls, which is where we launced in from, at the base of the Mountain Valley Adventure Lodge and set off for a 4 hour amble down the river.


The main purpose of today was to get used to running some grade 2 rapids, and to learn how to read the river and pick the best line to run rapids. We also managed some sight seeing and found the highest rail viaduct in Austrailasia standing at 95meters.




Things got a bit more interesting after the 30minutes of warming up, and we started to learn about holes, buffer cliffs (nasty), upstream V's (bad), downstream V's (good), wave trains, undercuts (very bad) and my favourites: splash walls (killers). Wave trains are without a doubt the most fun, and a bumpy ride down a wave train is bound to get the heart racing for the first time. Of course we were here to learn how to maximise our downriver speed, and not have fun (although we were ordered to smile), so the guide was telling us that the best line was to go down just on the outside (or inside) of the train and try to avoid the big lumpy stuff. Easier said than done.
When it came to downstream V's, we were supposed to think of them as X's and enter the V on the left, and cross over at the intersection, and head out the right (opposite) side. Again, easier said than done.


Above we have a photo of the Mohaka, on fairly low flow, and you can see how the cliffs just slice into the river, and potentially imagine being pushed into the side of the cliff and having water come over the top of you. That would be a bluff (bad), and although not good you can actually learn INTO the cliff and push off with your hands (or paddle) and shimmy you way down. Thankfully I avoided this, but it took a bit of getting used to paddling within a meter or two of immanent danger, but realising that you were OK to do so.

In fact that seemed and recurring theme in all of kayaking, that the correct line was only a knife edge away from immanent danger.

This next photos was of one of the gnarliest rapids. Again, the flow was quite a bit higher than this (borrowed) photo. You can see a rapid (about 1/2 way through the photo) which requires approaching from "river right" then crossing the intersection (the "X") and coming out on "river left", then we have a 20m gap till we again need to be on "river left" and come around the bend, but remembering to put the power on, so that that we can take a sharp right, and "eddy out" on "river right" (which is actually the stony bank on the bottom left of this photo).

Which reminds me of some terminology - "River right" means, the right hand side if you were going DOWNstream (usually you are). Even if you were going backwards, River Right does not change.


So, I actually had a great day, and managed to stay upright (not dry tho) all day and really enjoyed my first grade 2 run.


Here is the map of the route we took, some 11km.

Grade II Mohaka - 11km

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Sausage Rolls

Today was a small step for kayakers but a giant leap for bens kayaking career.
After taking 2 sessions with russel on Eskimo rolling in the last 2 weeks, this week he was running a differnt course, but invited me to come along and practise on my own. I had left the last session with being able to comfortably right my kayak from being held at 135degree angle (mostly upside down) under the water, but totally incapable of righting it from 180 degrees (totally upside down). Most of it stemmed from not being able to get the paddle into the right position at the top of the water, and culminated into me swallowing a lot of water and thrashing my arms pointlessly.

But today was a different story. I made a significant attempt to lean as far forward as possible and watched another guy complete a roll almost effortlessly. His technique was to setup, then lift his whole paddle and arms from the water, and then rotate these exactly 90degrees. After planting the blade, it seemed like the boat just righted itself. So therein lies the lesson: Get the blade at a 90degree angle from the boat, at the surface of the water, and the rest is inevitable.

So I had a go at this, with the guy at arms length and it worked. Although I thought that he helped me so I asked him if he did, and he said that he didnt help me, but I didnt believe him. So I kindly asked him to step away, for me to have another go. I think I may have offended him slightly, but said that I just didnt believe I was doing it myself, and had to know for sure. So I tried the roll myself, and hey presto. I was up quicker than a old man on viagra.

Amazingly I tried 25 more rolls and nailed every one of them. Not even any double attempts. 1 or 2 where I had to make doubly sure the blade was on the surface, but as soon as that was confirmed it seemed almost inevitable the kayak would right itself.

Bombproof.

At least that was the goal of my going on this course, was to gain general kayaking confidence, and make my eskimo roll bombproof.

As the session went on, I started shifting my hand towards to central position, and got them to the paddling position almost right away. Then I tried to capsize whilst moving and that worked just fine. Then tried to capsize on the opposite side (left) to the righting side (right), and that that worked great aswell.

Fantastic!

I'm now not sure what I'll do in the remaining 2 sessions I've paid for learning to roll, as it seems like I may have got the gist of it, and now just need to work on the finess and fine tuning.

Wicked. I love learning things and its been great for kayaking confidence to get this working.


PS: This post had nothing to do with sausages.