2004-07-08 Hoigaards with Devin Arenz

Devin Arenz took the bow and I got to ride the stern in his canoe they called it the “Gilly boat”.  The stern seat was higher than I liked and the boat felt tippy.  We practiced a buoy turn and when Devin leaned I nearly fell off the seat and out of the canoe.  It helped when I put my feet inside the foot straps on the foot brace, but the canoe was still tippy.  There wasn’t enough wind or waves to blame it on that.  I knew it’s the stern paddler who has the most control over the stability of the canoe so it was my fault.  I hoped we would be able to stay upright for the whole race. 

When they yelled “GO!” to start the race, Devin sprinted fast and hard.  He set a faster pace than anyone else I remembered paddling with and paddled hard too.  Halfway across Calhoun we were in the lead of all the other canoes and I began to wonder if Devin was going to keep the same pace for the entire race.  If that were the case, we were in trouble because I was having a hard time keeping in sync and putting any power on my paddle and trying to keep us upright.  Eric Canny and Jason Larsen were on our side wake like a couple of barnacles and I doubted we would be able to pull away from them.  Todd Ellison kayaked ahead of both of us into the first buoy turn.  Devin gunned it even faster to try and get on his stern wake but we didn’t quite make it on the first stern wake and had to settle for the second stern wake.  At least Devin dropped his pace to a more normal frequency and I was relieved that I would be able to keep up more easily.

Since they were on our right and we would be turning in front of them, we took the buoy a foot or two wide to leave enough room for Eric and Jason to turn without hitting their bow into our side.  Eric put in a bow rudder and made a sharper turn than we did by paddling on the same side.  Then they tried to pull ahead of us when our bow was pointed away from them.  Devin picked up the pace and we slid further up on their side wake coming within less than a foot of their canoe but not hitting it. 

Racing through the channel to Lake of the Isles with other canoes is a challenge because the wakes waves bounce off the cement walls making more complex waves.  More than one canoe has tipped in the channel in this race and I knew exactly how it felt to have the other canoes zooming past a swamped canoe and coming within inches of your head.  Devin picked up the pace again to beat them into the channel and we took the lead back.  Todd had slacked off and fell slightly behind our two canoes, but zoomed into the channel just ahead of us for the same reason we wanted to be first.  Less waves to tip you over. 

We chased his wake across Lake of the Isles.  Eric and Jason stayed on our side wake and when they drifted away a bit, I told Devin to “Go”, but we couldn’t pull away.  Jason said “We’re still on your side wake” and I said I knew, but that it was the right time to try and he agreed.  I said loudly “Do you want to go into the shallows and scrape off these barnacles?”.  Devin said there was too many weeds so we stayed deep and they stayed on us.

There were two buoys in the north end and one was further over to our right.  I asked which buoy to head for and Jason said “That’s not a buoy, that’s a bird!”  It did look exactly like a seagull so I turned us toward the buoy on the left.  Devin said, “Where are you going?” but it was too late.  We had veered too far left and Eric and Jason sprinted ahead with a wider angle coming into the buoy than we could do.   We reached it as they started their rudder turn, but they cut right next to the buoy and didn’t give us any room.  Neither of us expected them to do that and our bow hit the side of their canoe in the middle making a muffled cracking noise.  We had just started to rudder so it didn’t hurt their canoe.

Todd had stopped paddling to get a drink after he made his buoy turn and we had to paddle around him while Eric and Jason had turned inside of his kayak.  Jason asked “Should we sprint now Rick?” but they didn’t and we were able to get back onto their side wake after a prolonged struggle.  They didn’t just give it to us.  Coming through the islands towards the channel heading for Cedar Lake, Jason said “You’re slowing up and the other canoes are catching us.”  Devin took off again giving Jason exactly what he wanted, another good ride through the shallow suckwater channel.

We made a poor decision to give them the lead and try to turn inside them from behind at the buoy turn on Cedar Lake. Coming out of the turn, we couldn’t catch back on their side wake and had to settle for their stern wake.  One bad turn does not deserve another.  Eric and Jason started pulling away from us as we entered the channel and I had problems steering the canoe in the higher rolling waves they created by sprinting.  Not sure if it was my lack of conditioning or just psychological, but we had dropped several canoe lengths by the time we came out of the channel back into Lake of the Isles.  

Finally, we had an uncontested buoy turn all to ourselves and it wasn’t bad.  Not the best, but not bad either.  However, it would not be enough to make up any distance because they had done another excellent turn.  I yelled “WE’RE STILL ON THEM!” as they were still pulling away.  Becca Heath and Sarah Kueffer were heading for the buoy turn with a pack of other teams and they echoed the phrase all in good fun.  We never did catch them and finished second with a time of 61:53 to their winning time of 61:07.  Still ... a pretty red ribbon and a good workout to boot.