Big Chop #1 - Bad Start, Good Race

Another start to the Big Chop Race series. It is always good to see people that you haven't seen since last year. A lot of the racers don't race Tuesday nights and vice a versa. Too bad because both nights are very good racing.

After registering for this years racing I went to set up my ski with my new number and get ready to go do a warm up paddle. After four races in Deep Cove the ski is pretty much set up the way I like it, just a little adjustment in the rudder position is all it took.

Off to the water to check the course. I paddling out past the first point to get a look at the first turn flag, and to see how close it was to the shore. As I came up to it, I noticed that it was, humm, shall we say, a little closer to shore than I would like to see. This means a fast start was going to be the order of the day, so I don't get caught in the funnel of boat traffic trying to get around the marker.

I saw that everyone who went out before me, was coming back, so I checked my watch, and it was time to head back to the start line. As I approached the dock, Ryan was standing on the end, telling every what tonight's course would be. It would be around the point to the first turn marker, a 90 degree right hand turn, straight over to the Red buoy, left hand turn, straight to Kits Beach and the marker there, right hand turn, then around the sand barge, and then back to the red buoy. For the Little Chop that would be it. Straight to the finish line from the red buoy, but for the Big Chop, we had to do another lap of the course before heading in.

Now it was time to turn around and get ready for the start, this is where things started to go wrong. I was chatting with Sean, about starts and lining up and not paying attention to my own lining up. I wanted to get beside Graham and Jonathan so I could ride their wash, but there was two boats between me and them. By the time I could back up and start heading over there, Ryan was starting the race. So I had to stop there, about 5 meters back, and get set. Then, just as Ryan says “racers ready” , I leaned forward to turn on my GPS, I noticed that I had not reset it from the run earlier. OH NO. So I go for the reset button, and I hear “GO”. As I am waiting for the GPS to reset, everyone is taking off. The GPS reads resetting in Three, Two, One. Let me tell you, that was the longest three seconds in my life. Once my GPS was reset, I pushed start , and looked up to see that I was in dead last.

Time to get moving, so I hammered to catch up. I managed to find a clear lane right up the middle, so that is where I went. The group made good wave to ride up on. It wasn't long before I was in the middle of the pack. With the first turn coming fast, I saw that I was in between two sets of outriggers. Two to the left of me and two to the right. I knew there was not enough room for all five of us to go around the turn together, and since I was in a ski, I figured out pretty quickly that I would be the loser in this battle.

So A really cranked up the pace to get in front of the group. I made it to the turn first, and headed off to the red buoy. As I was rounding the buoy, I could see that Jeff and Shame had already made a good gap between them and the next group. There was still a lot of boats between me and them, not like I am going to catch them, but that won't stop me from trying. From here I just started to pick one boat at a time. I would look for their side wake, catch it, and move up, and use the momentum to jump to the next wake. This was working well, as I started to catch up to the third group.

By now we had reached the turn at Kits Beach, and I was right on Sean's tail. He in turn was trying to ride the wake of Mel and Leonora in their OC2, and Marshall and Gary in their double kayak. So here we were, Mel / Leonora in front, me on their right side wake, Sean on their left side wake, and Gary / Marshall on Sean's left side wake. We maintained this position for a little while, and then Sean started to slip back. As we approuched the turn at the sand barge, we noticed that the barge was attached to a tug and moving. One of the course boats was there, and we used that as a turn marker instead of the barge.

Now it was a straight shot back to the red buoy and the end of the first lap for the people doing the big chop. During this leg, I was content in sitting on Mel and Leonore's wash, and rest up a bit. I could hear someone behind me having trouble staying on the wash, because they were saying to stay with it. Somewhere about half way to the red buoy I decided to move up, and do my share of the pulling. So I pulled out to the left and started to move up. That's when Mel said ”that's it Darrell time for you to do some work ”well in my enthusiasm to get to the front, I had cranked it to about 12.5 on the GPS, shot by Mel and Leonore, and got a big jump on them. I was having fun, and by the time I had figured out that I had gone so far past them, I just decided to keep going.

I mean, I felt good, no cramps or stitches, and wasn't too tired, so it was time to push myself, and try to bridge the gap to the second group. Which was going to be a huge undertaking because they were at least 400 to 500 meters in front of me. So the entire next lap, that is what I did. Stuck in no man's land, trying to keep the boat past the 11 kph mark. Every time I looked up during this last lap, I could see that I was getting closer to them, (my head was down and grinding as hard as I could) but I knew I was going to run out of time and race course before I caught them.

As I was coming into the finial stretch of the course, I had caught a couple of guys in a canoe, who were doing the Little Chop, and they asked if I wanted to race. I thought sure why not. So the race was on. They started to increase their stroke rate, and I stayed with them. As we were getting closer to the finish, I decided to have some fun, and told them that its was time to start racing. They thought I was kidding because I think they were going all out as it was. So I just cranked it as hard as I could, and managed to just squeak past 13 kph, just before I died going over the finish line.

After the race, we all headed up to the race tent and the barbecue for smokies, chips, fruit, and drinks. Brain and Ryan sure know how to put on a race. Ryan announced all the race winners for the night, and thanked everyone for coming. Then they gave away a large amount of draw prizes. I just missed winning some Ryder glasses by one number.

I can't wait for the next race in two weeks (May 15th) It is suppose to be longer than tonight's. If you would like to know how the racing was at the front, just go to SurfskiBC's blog,and read Jeff's write up.

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