On-line Video Site

I just learned of the site vimeo.com. High quality video gets posted on there, not like the fuzzy stuff on YouTube. It takes a while to load but there is some great outrigger footage on there.

Molokai Crossing

The race is done and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. This may be as much from getting on a plane and flying all night as from the race, but I’m sure some is from the race. The bruises anyway! It was a fun time! My team mates were great. It was a real thrill to paddle with them, especially Mindy. Before the race, we had one real practice and one back and forth in a little bay paddle trying different combinations and seat orders. So, as expected, we got better and better throughout the race. We didn’t have a great start but then we got a really good groove and reeled in NAC Lanikila and Outrigger Canoe Club. That was fun. Then, we chose and different line then those two crews and we never saw them again. It’s a funny race in that for hours two to five it’s not uncommon to see no one. It’s like racing ghosts. Then, at the end of the race when you’re running along Waikiki, boats emerge from nowhere. The route we chose is usually the more common route, but not yesterday. It depends on the tide and wind condition which way is the fastest to go. The route we took goes in close to Oahu and then runs down the shore. Typical is that you have to paddle through so really messy, yucky, water but then you get to surf all the way down once you get alongside Oahu. Well, the yucky water was there, but we didn’t exactly fly down the next section – it was a little messier than we expected it to be. Unfortunately, the two teams that we had got up to earlier in the race and then diverted from both beat us handily by the finish line – whether that’s route choice or crew strength is hard to know. We ended up 9th. Our team name was Team Facebook as that's how Mindy touched base with most of the team. Full results can be found at:

http://www.ocpaddler.com/forum/2009/na_wahine_updates_results.
Just scroll down through all the chat and one entry is results.

Gotta go join facebook...maybe

Back for a week and I'm off again! DBing in the UK and Na Wahine O Ke Kai

I think I'm doing something right! I was home from Europe for a week when I got on a plane and went to Hawaii, which is where I am now!!

After racing in Prague I went to Italy for a while and then the UK to see family and my good friends Cam and Siobhan. Misplaced Calgarians, these two have been instrumental in developing outrigger paddling in the UK. Cam is coach, steers, paddler, manager, and everyone’s go to guy in his club on the Thames in London. His outrigger paddlers decided they would enter a dragon boat regatta a couple hours outside of London in Kent. Some had paddled dragon boat, some not, but all approached it with a healthy dose of respect, especially after Cam made the gang do an OC-6 workout of 4 min pieces all on one side to prepare for the races! Ha!

The regatta was a corporate fundraising regatta. There was 60 teams of 16-20 who had never, or barely, paddled before and where pitted against each other throughout the day for 250 m races. The reason the outrigger paddlers decided to do the race was that the organizer put out a plea for “elite teams”, as they call teams who know what they are doing, as the Chinese were going to bring some teams and they needed some competition. Unfortunately, the Chinese organizer got sick and they didn’t come, but seven elite teams came to duke it out. Well, coming from Prague and the Canadian way of doing regattas to here was an adjustment!! First, crews had to bring their own dragon boat!! The corporate races had a fleet from the organizers but they were not available for the elite teams. As outrigger paddlers, we did not have a boat, so a club called the BA Dragons generously let us use theirs. Second, the crew could be 16-20 paddlers of any sex. Teams raced each other regardless of crew make-up. The only part for me that could have gotten really frustrating, but no one seemed to care, was that there was no race schedule or draw. The organizer would, come over and tell us to go out after the next race and race so-and-so and off we’d go. So, if you got hungry or needed to momentarily leave for another pressing reason, you felt you may risk missing your race! So we raced some races and then got a berth in the final, which was basically everyone jammed into a course that only really fit 3 boats. As we didn’t have a boat, The BA Dragons let us use theirs instead of racing themselves because they figured we’d do better. Who does that!! So amazing! Not surprisingly, there was a collision in the final which added to the uniqueness oif the event as the race organizers ended up using some Einsteinian equation to calculate who placed where. We placed 3rd. Not bad for a bunch of OC paddlers! They gave out 16 medals.

Which brings me to Hawaii where I am racing Na Wahine O Ke Kai on Sunday. This is an outrigger canoe race across the Kaiwi Channel from the island of Molokai to Oahu. I met some of my team mates yesterday! The team has been put together by steering legend Mindy Clark from California. The paddlers on the crew are from Australia, Hawaii, California and Canada. A very accomplished group of individuals and an honour to be part of. We’ll see how it comes together!