Race Results: May 26 at Deep Cove
Posted by bckcrainbow on May 28, 2009
Excellent conditions for Tuesday’s Deep Cove race…the sun was shining brightly, the water was smooth and the paddlers were fast!
The evening’s race was the traditional longish race as part of the lead up to June 7th’s Round Bowen Challenge. The course had paddlers head left out of the Cove to round the lighthouse off Lone Rock Point…(Bob, any idea why they call that point Lone Rock?)…from here we headed across and farther up the channel to counterclockwise round Twin Islands then headed back down the channel to round an orange float at the south entrance to the Cove before the final dash to the start/finish line…total distance was 10.2 km.
Off the line a pack of 4 single skis formed, led by south of Seattle resident Eric Moll (V10L), fresh off his Top Gun Award winning race at Sunday’s Ski to Sea race at Bellingham. Rounding out the leading pack was Gareth (Uno), Wes (Uno) and Jim (Legend). Katja and I were in tandem ski (Mako XT) taking a more onshore line to the lighthouse. About midway to the lighthouse Jim fell off the leaders’ pace…I think he ended up turning at the lighthouse to do the short course. There is a rather large rock near the lighthouse which with the evening’s tide was covered by water…but only just enough to not have it show. We took a wide line while the singles approached tight to the pilar…the guys got a slight scare at the sight of the rock but managed to have found a deep slot near the pilar to get through rudders intact. On the crossing Wes moved up to take the lead with the others riding slip…Katja and I took a line to the right of the single skis…they were ahead of us by about 30 meters allowing us to easily keep an eye on them. As we neared the south end of Twin the guys looked to have been aiming for the gap between the 2 islands but at the last minute adjusted their course…perhaps they noticed us off to their right. Along the back side of the islands we closed the gap on the lead pack, joining the group just after rounding the top end. This didn’t last long…as we completed the loop of Twin Islands Wes took advantage of some bouncy water created by motorboat waves to put in an acceleration…this seemed to have caught Eric and Gareth off guard and Wes was now on his own in the lead. We had no response to the acceleration Eric and Gareth put in to try to catch Wes. Wes continued to stretch out his lead and stayed away to the finish. Eric and Gareth settled in to sharing the work, each taking turns setting the pace while the other rode wash. The only interesting part from here on in was watching the guys try to figure out if we had to round the orange marker before heading to the finish. Gareth and Eric looked to be prepared to head directly to the line but noticed the tandem ski was staying out in the channel taking a line directly to the orange float. At the line Gareth just barely edged out Eric in the sprint for 2nd while the tandem took 4th.
In behind…veteran TNRacer Bob managed to cleanly slice off his rudder on the rock at the Lone Rock Point lighthouse, prematurly ending his race. A whole flock of sheep in skis (and a K1) skipped the final orange marker…a few honourable racers did the full course despite the ‘follow the leader’ tactics being played out ahead of them…well done Nic (Uno), Daryl (Legend), Micky (Legend) and Ben/Eric (S2X)…and perhaps others.
NEXT RACES:
May 21 Big Chop
June 2 TNR Pre-Round Bowen Taper Race
June 7 Round Bowen Challenge (32 km)
June 9 TNR Super Hero Night
June 14 Island Iron Small Boats race (13 km)
