2004-07-22 Hoigaards with Becca Heath

We practiced our buoy turns and turned sideways to the waves in the same direction we would have to on the far side of Calhoun.   We were using a damaged racing canoe that had been repaired unevenly so it always tried to veer to the left because it was the only one I had available.  The owner of this canoe had traded me for a couple weeks so we could decide if we were going to make a permanent trade.  Since I couldn’t get my long legs to fit in the moving footbrace in the stern and since the other guy decided he didn’t want my woodstrip racing canoe, we were going to trade back next time we met.  Meanwhile, it was going to be an interesting race.  As we waited in line for the start, Becca said she was better at riding stern wakes than side wakes.  Unfortunately, it’s easier to get dropped by the leading canoe if you’re on their stern wake than if you’re on their side wake, but I didn’t have time to tell her that.

The mass start of forty or so canoes was a bit confused since we weren’t quite sure if there was a signal to go or not.  Once enough people started going, everyone else had to take off too.  We sprinted out ahead of the rest of the canoes with Ryan Peterson and Sarah Kueffer.  The canoe was zigzagging too much as we tried in vain to figure out how to counteract it’s tendency to pull to the left.  We were only able to stay on their side wake half way across Calhoun before dropping back to their stern wake.  As we fell back to their 2^nd stern wave, Steve and Bonnie Peterson came up alongside us.  Being Ryan’s parents, they didn’t want to let him get away, but I didn’t really think they had a chance to beat them since Ryan and Sarah had pulled ahead at the start and it was only an hour long race. 

We turned the buoy on the far side of Calhoun with Steve and Bonnie on our outside.  We struggled to keep our canoe from veering into theirs and I finally had to do a bow rudder which allowed them to pull ahead.  Worse yet, we weren’t able to hang onto their first stern wake and had to settle for the 2^nd wave back.  Eventually, we figured out that leaning the canoe to the left side helped counteract the constant leftward tendency of the canoe.

As we turned at the buoy on the north end of Lake of the Isles, I found out there was another team hanging onto our stern wake.   The two teams ahead of us were slowly increasing their lead and it was apparent that we weren’t going to catch back up to them.  Our race was for 3^rd place with the team on our stern wake.

The team behind made several attempts to pass us, but we were able to keep just ahead of them each time.  Every buoy turn was a challenge as they tried to pull alongside, but we just clipped the buoy each time and Becca did a great job handling the stern around the turns while I held the crossbow rudder.  We gained a canoe length on them by sprinting through the shallow channel from Cedar Lake back to Lake of the Isles, but they caught back up as I repeatedly had to clean weeds off our bow and as our canoe constantly veered to the left.  “Do you have anything left for the end?” Becca asked and I flat out lied when I said “Yeah, I’ve been saving myself!” loud enough for the team behind to hear.

Back into Calhoun we came with them hot on our tail wake.  The wind was picking up and we got to surf every now and then on the final stretch.  At least four times, they tried to pull up and pass us, but each time, Becca steered our canoe wide in front of them so they had to go further to get around.  She yelled “Trust me Rick” and I knew what she was doing.  She had learned this skullduggery lesson in a very frustrating Hoigaards race trying to pass Ann Manns who didn’t let it happen.  Now it was her turn to use it on someone else.  I was glad Becca wasn’t wearing spurs because she would have used them on me.  “Reach!”, I kept reminding myself because it’s easy to shorten your stroke and give up power in the desperate tired sprints to the finish.

The finish line buoy was just a canoe length away and the team behind us was still breathing down Becca’s neck as a series of bigger windblown waves caught us from behind.  I planted a rudder in the trough of the first wave to keep us from spinning left as our bow passed the finish line.  We had done it.  Our time was 66:50 and Steve and Bonnie had beaten Ryan and Sarah with a winning time of 64:22.  We collected a well earned white ribbon for our efforts.  Thanks for the great race Becca!