Surfski Knowledge Base

Bob Putnam
04/19/17 #21105

Remmler and I were in The Raven last night after the Tuesday Night Race. We have been rallying the troops to make a coordinated effort at DHC. Then we started to recollect old races and some of the idiosyncracies of the race:

Like circling Chuckanut island in any direction you choose. !! WTF!! Remmler recalled a near miss between himself and a rowing shell.

I was recollecting Mike G's. infamous short cut route around Chuckanut. And more than one finish line battle with Heather, (not this weekend though) and who BTW kicked my ass at Maui to Molokai.

And the best was Matt Nuttal from Nelson, BC who had purchased a double ski from……Morris and Deb?? A Fenn double? I believe. Matt made the 10 hr drive from Nelson to B'Ham to arrive just prior to the race start. Pretty much status quo for Matt. His partner, a surfski newb, had no idea what he was getting into. They got into the ski only to discover that Matt's buddy was a liability. Matt kicked him out and made him swim to shore. Matt started to paddle around trolling for a new partner. One is born every minute and Matt convinced Greg Hope to join him. The start of the race was imminent, but they capsized. Greg said, “F-This”, swam to shore, Matt remounted and paddled the DHC solo in a double ski. Scoring some well needed double ski points for Team Canada!

Immediately after the race they jumped into Matt's car and high tailed it, 10 hrs to the back woods of Nelson.

John Rybczyk
04/19/17 #21108

Well, for the past couple of years I've asked everyone to paddle clockwise around around the island but many remain confused. What is clockwise to a man with an iPhone? I remember the first year that I directed the race, maybe ten years ago, I got yelled at a lot. We were within a couple of minutes of starting, everyone was in the water, and a car with a pedal boat pulled up in the parking lot (it wasn't Lampi). I decided to hold the race for the guy and it took him for-effin-ever to rig that thing and get it to the start line. I think we started twenty five minutes late. Boy did I hear about that. Never again…we start on time. Also that same year I was charging $50 dollars for a double because that's what the last race director was charging. I guess that was too much because boy did I get an earful or two about that too. I remember thinking at the time, “Why are these guys with $5000 boats screaming at me about $50 bucks!?” Lesson learned. To top it all off, I didn't pay too much attention to the parking situation that day and apparently some of the paddlers parked in the spots reserved for the park rangers…and so the park rangers gave me the what-for after the race too. Yeah…lots of yelling.

Johnr

Bob Putnam

04/20/17 #21117

Joys of being a Race Director. Winds look promising for Sunday. Thanks for organizing that John!