Sliding scales of success
Apr. 17th, 2016 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterUsually, when I shove off the dock and head towards the starting area of a race course, I have high expectations for myself. Even for races where I might not be in the best of shape or feel all that comfortable/confident about my technical capabilities, I still head to the line with the idea that I'm about to go out and give it my best. I never really race to win - I race to test myself and use myself as my own yardstick.
On Friday evening, I took out T's Empacher for a brief adjustment and test row, and started to get excited about the race. This Empacher is a stiff, light shell, and while the Red Hudson is a pretty sturdy boat you can tell that the Empacher wants to send you down the race course at top speed and nothing less.
When I launched on Saturday morning, with the equipment adjusted to something reasonably approximating the ideal, things quickly started to feel a bit different. As the sun came up, the wind started to pick up. I first headed over to the launching area to complete my safety check in with the boat marshals, and then joined a small flotilla of other 1x rowers waiting to cross the race course over to the warmup area.
I didn't quite manage to make the crossing, however. Winds were blowing down the course, creating a strong tailwind for racers, but also creating swells that would be parallel to any boat trying to cross the course at a perpendicular angle. When your boat's gunwales are only 6 inches off the water, and you're staying balanced by keeping two 9-foot oars level with each other, this can quickly become a problem.
My self-preservation instincts kicked in hard and my subconscious directed the Empacher parallel to the course instead, pointing into the wind. Instead of crossing where I was supposed to, I rowed up past the 1000m start and then angled over towards the warmup area on the far side of the race course. Over this period, my expectations for myself during the race underwent an impressive and rapid shift. I went from aiming to see just how fast I could go and cleanly I could row, to thinking I'd be satisfied with a race where I could maybe manage some good pressure strokes here and there, to thinking maybe I'd call it good if I just managed to get myself down the course while staying in my lane, to thinking actually I would be okay if I could just manage to stay upright.
I also thought a lot about a race in Arizona a number of years back, in the 2x with C, where the water conditions got so bad that we started laughing hysterically in the middle of the race (they canceled the rest of that regatta when one of the 4+'s in the event right after us swamped). We kept ourselves going by declaring that we were just out for a nice, pleasant Sunday row, haha. And managed to keep the open side upright.
After I had been waiting for several minutes near the warmup area, too afraid to try and turn and get in any sort of warmup, just trying to keep myself from drifting into a giant yellow warmup buoy, I watched a safety launch travel over to a rower who had flipped her boat. I watched an official in another boat use a gadget to attempt to measure wind speed, and watched a bunch of boats from one of the events ahead of mine attempt in vain to do some reasonable approximation of lining up for the start of their race.
Then they canceled racing and directed us to head back to shore. It was almost worse than being directed to head down the course, because that meant trying to cross back over in a crosswind. Twice I heard water slosh hard over the bow of the Empacher, filling the foot compartment with water. Fortunately, the bow and stern compartments felt buoyant enough that even a full foot compartment wouldn't prevent me from rowing. I had to pause to keep my jacket from sloshing out, and eventually made it back over to the safety of the launching beach.
Eventually, the wind died down and the officials were able to restart the racing. They postponed our race until Sunday morning, right before T's race.
Given the time and logistics involved in rerigging T's boat to swap it between races, we decided it would be wise for me to test out P's lightweight boat as well as her open-water shell. If the water was flat, I could probably get away with racing in P's Hudson, even if the stern deck was comically low and I had to pull in to my lap. If the water was rough, the WinTech seemed up for the job, though it would make for a heavy race.
Sunday morning, once again, just as dawn started to break, the wind picked up. Nonetheless, I launched in the WinTech with ample time before the rescheduled start of the event, and rowed straight over to the regatta beach. The regatta beach was quiet, with only a small handful of rowers attending to their equipment, and no other boats preparing to launch. As I approached the shore, a referee walked down and let me know that once again racing would be postponed until at least 9 o'clock, and that he highly doubted that any of the singles races would go off.
So I turned back to P and T's dock to let them know the news, and then took the WinTech up to the 2k starting line and got in a 2k piece along the course. The conditions weren't quite as bad as they'd been the day before, but more importantly, the WinTech was made for that kind of water.
I am disappointed about not having had a chance to race, but then again, it was wonderful to get to catch up with T and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dichroic. We also managed to get in a nice consolation kayak paddle up to the upper dam, I added several more ants to the quilt, and we got to watch the racing that did happen from the comfort of the deck.
Rough seas ahead, as viewed from the WinTech.
View from the dock. This does not do justice to the whitecaps further out, because the dock is along a sheltered shore.
Our consolation kayak expedition to the upper dam on Saturday.
On Friday evening, I took out T's Empacher for a brief adjustment and test row, and started to get excited about the race. This Empacher is a stiff, light shell, and while the Red Hudson is a pretty sturdy boat you can tell that the Empacher wants to send you down the race course at top speed and nothing less.
When I launched on Saturday morning, with the equipment adjusted to something reasonably approximating the ideal, things quickly started to feel a bit different. As the sun came up, the wind started to pick up. I first headed over to the launching area to complete my safety check in with the boat marshals, and then joined a small flotilla of other 1x rowers waiting to cross the race course over to the warmup area.
I didn't quite manage to make the crossing, however. Winds were blowing down the course, creating a strong tailwind for racers, but also creating swells that would be parallel to any boat trying to cross the course at a perpendicular angle. When your boat's gunwales are only 6 inches off the water, and you're staying balanced by keeping two 9-foot oars level with each other, this can quickly become a problem.
My self-preservation instincts kicked in hard and my subconscious directed the Empacher parallel to the course instead, pointing into the wind. Instead of crossing where I was supposed to, I rowed up past the 1000m start and then angled over towards the warmup area on the far side of the race course. Over this period, my expectations for myself during the race underwent an impressive and rapid shift. I went from aiming to see just how fast I could go and cleanly I could row, to thinking I'd be satisfied with a race where I could maybe manage some good pressure strokes here and there, to thinking maybe I'd call it good if I just managed to get myself down the course while staying in my lane, to thinking actually I would be okay if I could just manage to stay upright.
I also thought a lot about a race in Arizona a number of years back, in the 2x with C, where the water conditions got so bad that we started laughing hysterically in the middle of the race (they canceled the rest of that regatta when one of the 4+'s in the event right after us swamped). We kept ourselves going by declaring that we were just out for a nice, pleasant Sunday row, haha. And managed to keep the open side upright.
After I had been waiting for several minutes near the warmup area, too afraid to try and turn and get in any sort of warmup, just trying to keep myself from drifting into a giant yellow warmup buoy, I watched a safety launch travel over to a rower who had flipped her boat. I watched an official in another boat use a gadget to attempt to measure wind speed, and watched a bunch of boats from one of the events ahead of mine attempt in vain to do some reasonable approximation of lining up for the start of their race.
Then they canceled racing and directed us to head back to shore. It was almost worse than being directed to head down the course, because that meant trying to cross back over in a crosswind. Twice I heard water slosh hard over the bow of the Empacher, filling the foot compartment with water. Fortunately, the bow and stern compartments felt buoyant enough that even a full foot compartment wouldn't prevent me from rowing. I had to pause to keep my jacket from sloshing out, and eventually made it back over to the safety of the launching beach.
Eventually, the wind died down and the officials were able to restart the racing. They postponed our race until Sunday morning, right before T's race.
Given the time and logistics involved in rerigging T's boat to swap it between races, we decided it would be wise for me to test out P's lightweight boat as well as her open-water shell. If the water was flat, I could probably get away with racing in P's Hudson, even if the stern deck was comically low and I had to pull in to my lap. If the water was rough, the WinTech seemed up for the job, though it would make for a heavy race.
Sunday morning, once again, just as dawn started to break, the wind picked up. Nonetheless, I launched in the WinTech with ample time before the rescheduled start of the event, and rowed straight over to the regatta beach. The regatta beach was quiet, with only a small handful of rowers attending to their equipment, and no other boats preparing to launch. As I approached the shore, a referee walked down and let me know that once again racing would be postponed until at least 9 o'clock, and that he highly doubted that any of the singles races would go off.
So I turned back to P and T's dock to let them know the news, and then took the WinTech up to the 2k starting line and got in a 2k piece along the course. The conditions weren't quite as bad as they'd been the day before, but more importantly, the WinTech was made for that kind of water.
I am disappointed about not having had a chance to race, but then again, it was wonderful to get to catch up with T and
dichroic. We also managed to get in a nice consolation kayak paddle up to the upper dam, I added several more ants to the quilt, and we got to watch the racing that did happen from the comfort of the deck.Rough seas ahead, as viewed from the WinTech.
View from the dock. This does not do justice to the whitecaps further out, because the dock is along a sheltered shore.
Our consolation kayak expedition to the upper dam on Saturday.
Re: Waugh!
Date: 2016-04-19 05:04 am (UTC)So effectively, you pretty much do treat it like a kayak! Good to know, though I still hope to never be in that circumstance. Thanks for educating me!