A Week Off & Another Human-powered Watersport

I've got a week off here. We're gonna forget about the financial crisis and "who's on first" acquiring my employer. We're going to row, do some leaf peeping, and sort out a whole bunch of things that have been up in the air ...

Like the dock accoutrements for our shell and kayaks. Yes, I'm sure all those die-hard rowers would be screaming "argh" if their throats weren't constricted. Well, perhaps I exaggerate; but I did find a rowing site that banned paddlers so there's some antipathy by some in the community.

I'm actually a little confused by the term "paddler." It seems to be used by whitewater kayakers, flatwater kayakers, and canoers to describe themselves. I see the commonality between canoeing and flatwater kayaking, but not the whitewater variant. Yes, the "boat" construction and paddles are the same, but the intent of the sport is completely different. Because whitewater is so popular in our area, it's a bit annoying to need to add the "flatwater" adjective. Quietwater is another variant I've seen.

While the two sports are quite different from each other, for our purposes, they're complementary. I commented on this earlier, after we had a very pleasant kayaking experience at Sunset Beach. Also here, at the end of our CYC rowing sessions, I thought about kayaks as a video taking platform to help us study our rowing technique.

The last two straws were

1. Continued agonizing over logistics for our floating dock add-on and multi-part sling and storage mechanisms for the shell.
2. Kathleen's interest in going out on the lake in a kayak, on her own, for a workout. (A kayak, at around 40 lbs and 12 feet long, would be more manageable than an 80 lb, 24 foot long shell.)

We decided to go the US National Whitewater Center on Sunday to take their guided river tour. It was nice trip up the Catawba River and into Longs Creek. One of the guides, Mike, took pictures here. They start at #434 and go through #459 (click the little arrow buttons above the pictures to go back and forth). We are in the two blue kayaks. Kathleen is wearing her sweatshirt over her rather bulky life preserver. The trip helped narrow the field for our potential purchase. Kathleen's boat was 9 ft; mine was 10 ft. We found them harder to keep straight than the 12 footers at Sunset Beach.

After good rows on Saturday and today and paddling on Sunday, tomorrow we are heading to Hickory to the Outdoor Supply Company to look at gear. We may make an impetuous purchase and do our best to contribute to stimulating the economy. We already dropped over $400 replacing the worn out tires on our truck.

Your Other Right!

Kathleen, being raised a (Long Island) "bay girl," is always giving me grief about my directions while rowing. I'm in the bow seat, so it's my job to look back, decide which way we should be going, and give directions for how to get there. Her job is to set the stroke rate, be steady with it, and do whatever I tell her for direction.

I tell her when we need "power on the left/right" to do a gradual turn or slight course adjustment. Since we have a wider-than-racing shell, we can do "all on the left/right" where we keep the opposite blade flat on the water and pull only on one side. (I have a suspicion we'd tip ourselves over if we did this with a bonafide [REALLY narrow] racing shell.) This allows us to do a pretty sharp turn. Finally, if we're at a stand still, we can do a corkscrew turn in place with her pulling with one hand while I push with the opposite.

Since we are facing towards the back, we have to pull on the side opposite from where I want us to go. The grief comes from my mixing this up and saying "right" when I want to go towards the right. I should be saying "left." In the open water, it's no harm no foul because I realize my goof fairly quickly and we have plenty of room. In the tight confines of our cove, or when we're fast approaching a quiet fisherman, it's a different story.

On the return leg of our trip last Sunday, we're taking a long run straight with the wind in our faces - blowing at the stern of the boat. We're looking to make time back home to finish off the lawn work for liming, fertilizing, and seeding. This stretch involves threading our way between a really small island, a big one, and two points of land. Did I remember to re-iterate that we are facing AWAY from where we're going?

One other tidbit ... I'm about as limber as a decent piece of lumber. One day, in high school gym class, the coach is doing his usual job of humiliating the geek wearing glasses. We're doing some kind of stretching exercises and he keeps calling four eyes an old man because I can't stretch worth a damn. I haven't improved much and, now verging on old fartdom, it's quite a challenge to turn around 90 degrees on the swayback, get a good view of what we're about to run into, and keep up with the stroke.

Back to the story ... we're humping it on the way back with a strong wind and I'm trying to thread us between islands on the port side and land on the starboard. I'm twisting one way to get a look on one side then the other for the other side. I call out "power on the right" and we ever so slowly start trending in the direction I want. After awhile, I comment "shooie, why is it taking so long to turn right?" "Argh!!!!" is her response because she's been pulling with her right while I've been pulling with my left.

Maybe you had to be there. ;-)

Wind & Tacking with a Shell

With the long Columbus Day weekend, we rowed three times. The first two were very windy -gusts coming out of the north or northeast respectively. Monday, with only a slight breeze, was amazing in comparison.

On previous windy days, we'd already picked up the trick of rowing closer to the shore where the wind is coming from. The houses, trees, etc. help to break the wind and calm the water. On the far shore, the wind has the most room to run, pick up to full speed, and kick up the highest waves.

Our traditional starting run goes straight south from our home cove. So, we're doing pretty well with the wind in our faces. Since we row faster than the wind-blown waves are driven, we're moving into waves quite easily. Everything is hunky-dory. We just need to keep our oars higher out of the water (hands lower) on the recovery.

When we turn to go east at the south side of the water, wham-o! - full cross wind and waves bouncing us around. It doesn't take long to realize the difference. After a bit of struggling, I realize that we'd probably be better off zig-zagging across the stretch. I think sailboats "tack" into the wind to move forward. So, we tack "across" the wind to minize the turbulence. It's definitely bouncy on the zig, but it's much more manageable as long as we stay steady and even in our strokes. The zag is easier than the zig, but no picnic. Saturday was a short row since the cooler weather had us starting late and our need to get the lawn mowed before going to church.

On Sunday, I didn't pick up on the easterly component of the northeast wind. We chose to go up a twisty scenic cove. It wasn't until too late that I realized our path's orientation had us rowing straight into the wind for one of the longest stretches - where I thought we'd be protected by trees. Oh well. It was somewhat compensated once we turned around and headed home - by a big assist from mother nature.

On the way back, we had a funny "I'm gonna smack you!" moment. See the next post.

Dock Conundrum

I've been looking at three options lately for a floating dock arrangement with our dock.

1. A kit at Little River Marine to build something that lashes to our posts.
2. EZ Dock
3. AccuDock

A local boat company deals with EZ Dock but Kathleen didn't like the callback that we got after our inquiry. Bad customer service - ixnay that one.

Kim Holt, at AccuDock, has been great. He's used to working with kayakers and rowers. And he has sliding attachment assemblies that stabilize floating docks. He's been great to work with my kooky idea for an arrangement of a 30"x6' piece that would hinge at the end of another 30"x8' piece. We'd normally have the 6' piece on top of the 8' piece. When we get ready to go out, we flip the 6' piece to stick out from the end of our dock. We can then get on/off this section, with oars on one side sticking over the float, like rowers normally do.

After talking through more of this with Kathleen, we have a conundrum. My focus had been getting in/out of the shell on the water. But almost anything we do to make that easier, makes it harder to get the shell in/out of the water. Kathleen has limited ability to get her side of the boat up to her shoulder or over her head. I can address this with sling lifts and spanners, but it's still convoluted and will recall construction. And times a-wasting!