The weekend after Labor has always
been one of canoe racing in the Davis household, and for the last few years
that has meant a trip to California. Why
California? For the Catalina Crossing,
of course! The Catalina race is a nine
man team, six person outrigger canoe race between Newport Beach and Catalina
Island, roughly 30 miles. The ladies
paddle out to the island on Saturday, and the men paddle back to the mainland
on Sunday. After a bit of trial and error,
Mike and I have decided this race is the most logistically possible outrigger
race, plus the course is friendly to marathoners with relatively calm seas both
ways.
(Catalina Harbor)
This year we were both excited
about our teams- a good mix of experience and energy. We race under a club from
San Francisco- Hui Wa’a. Racing under an
established club comes with many, many perks.
First, we have an excellent coach in Hui Wa’a’s Mike Martinez. He has guided over 25 crossings, and talks us
all down from our fears of sharks, or the ocean in general. He is the calm and steady in a race full of
surprises. He decides what the teams
should be, when we should switch our paddlers and how to put our absolute best
effort in for the final kick. Hui also
provides a nice unlimited (read fast) outrigger for us to race, with foot
braces AND covers. This is not a given, so we feel quite lucky. Only one boat is needed for our two teams
because we don’t race at the same time which is a huge bonus for logistics.
Along with the canoe, Coach Mike
lines up a support boat and driver, and ours is Russell. Russell is the savior. When I jump into the water after a shift in
the boat, Russell is an arm’s length away as soon as I come to the
surface. He drives his boat like a
master, and keeps our canoe online with the currents and GPS, while keeping all
of the racers safe, even in rough conditions.
Finally, Hui Wa’a gives us the key to a successful Catalina Crossing,
our steersmen. The steersman typically race “iron” and stay in the whole race,
while all other members switch in and out for different legs.
For the women, we have Margaret
Caudle. She is a San Francisco bay
native, and manages both teams on and off the water. She makes sure we have a place to stay, a
spot at our favorite Mexican restaurant after a hard day of racing, and can
seriously steer the canoe. She has a
sixth sense for where we should be heading, even when all I can see is open ocean. If I am ever unsure of what to do, or where
to be, I just stand next to Margaret.
The men have the yin to Margaret’s
yang in Mike Ng. Mike has a huge amount
of outrigger experience, and is probably the coolest person I have ever
met. Doubt me? Well, he is the guy surfing on the bottle of
Old Spice- that’s the level of cool we are talking about. This guy can feel the waves, and read the
ocean. For the women, Mike is the one that really brings us together as a team-
working on water changes, timing, pushing to pass that final boat, etc., he is
the little voice in our heads telling us how to race.
The rest of the teams are a rag tag
bunch of marathon paddlers from all over North America. Amy Solak (MI), Deb Bauer (WA), Kathy
Palzewic-Jensen (MI), Roxanne Barton (MI), Emma Ellsworth (MA), Gloria Wesley
(MA), Edith MacHattie (SK), and I are the women’s crew. Mike calls us “Rocky”- we look pretty good
until you put us next to Ivan Drago (the Cali teams), then we look undertrained
and undersized. However, looks can be
deceiving, and I know that our team is a scrappy one. This year, the men’s team is what I consider
to be a team of giants- Mike Davis (MI), Trevor Robinson (SK), Nick Walton
(MI), Christophe Proulx (QC), Weston Willoughby (MI), Logan Mynar (TX), Kyle
Mynar (TX), and Rich Lauth (MI). Mike Martinez was so happy to see all of the
tall, lanky paddlers with long arms that we were able to assemble, hoping to
improve on last year’s finish and crack the top ten.
Saturday morning, the day of the
women’s race arrives, and there is a nervous energy throughout the team. Our women’s team is good at paddling, but not
at water changes. What is a water
change? The three “extra” paddlers jump
into the water, the canoe paddles up, and three paddlers jump out while
simultaneously the three extras climb into the canoe. Good men’s teams can make a change in two
strokes… our team was lucky to get all of the ladies in the canoe in less than
a minute. Coach Mike and Mike Ng decided
we could paddle 30-35 minutes between changes (so most of us paddled an hour
straight), which would really minimize the number of changes in the race. We also approached our changes with a new
strategy. Instead of trying to maintain
boat speed with three ladies paddling and three ladies struggling to get in, we
would plan on stowing our paddles and pull the women out of the water if needed
and then do a “race start” after everyone was in the boat. We noticed in practice that this made our
change outs significantly faster.
I made the starting line up in seat
5, or “second stern.” I help Margaret with any last minute steering from boat
wakes or choppy water that will grab the ama (the outrigger) and make us
unstable. This is a long shift, because paddlers aren’t allowed to change for
the first 30 minutes of the race, and we went longer to hopefully gain on the
other changing teams. We had a great
start off of the line, but quickly fell back to 11th or 12th place. Soon the support boats were zooming in close
as other teams made the first change.
This caused quite a bit of turbulence, but after 10 more minutes we were
chugging along and finding our rhythm.
Coach Mike called for the first change, so I prepared to jump out. The first time jumping in the water is always
a bit nerve racking, but when Margaret called for us to stow our paddles and
jump, I didn’t hesitate. As soon as I
popped up I saw the support boat and climbed on- just in case there were any
sharks in the area. I looked to the
canoe, and all of the girls were paddling!
This was a great water change for us.
For the next half hour I refueled with water, Gatorade, cookies, peanut
butter sandwiches, and fruit, waiting to be called for the change.
Coach Mike calls for another
switch, and I am up. I jump off the side
of the support boat, and line up with the other two women, so Margaret will
have an easy time steering towards us.
As the boat nears everyone stashes their paddles, and we reach for our
marks- these little yellow dots showing us where the cockpits are. I make one big push and I am in with no
problems, what a relief. We all grab our
paddles and start up, another good change.
This time I am in seat 2 or “second bow”. The most important job in this seat is to
follow seat 1 perfectly, which is tricky because I can’t actually see their
stroke. Once I start feeling
comfortable, another change is called and a new person hops into the bow, and
the matching process begins again. As a
team, we really start to find our rhythm with Mike Ng walking us through our
pushes and switches to maximize our glide.
We have put distance on the teams behind us, and are paddling mostly
alone in 6th place. Cool Mike
warns us to not let up as the next team back always makes a big push the last
hour.
(smooth, fast conditions!)
One more rest, and my final shift
is back to seat 5. I can feel the
fatigue of the race setting in and I just want to put my arms down, but knowing
that we are close to the end I push through.
My number gets called again and I am out for the finish, but at this
point it is a relief. A mixed team that
caught us after starting ten minutes back was battling to pass us in the last
ten minutes, and our team wasn’t giving up.
Cool Mike kept reminding us to have efficient switches and keep pushing,
we could hold them off! As we near the
finish, the mixed team loses control and hits our ama, a dangerous situation
especially with the men using our boat the next day. Our team quickly backs up and takes off
again, just barely edging out the mixed team for an exciting finish! We held on
to 6th place.
After the race, all of the women
clean up, get together, and go out for a fun evening on the island. Margaret lets me know that I will be riding
the support boat for the men- filling the position of “Cool Mike.” I had never been asked to do this before, and
was ecstatic.
Sunday Morning the water looks calm
as I climb onto the support boat. Coach
Mike, Russell, and Kathy are there, as well as the three guys who are out for
the start. We watch the race take off
from a distance, hoping that our team is in the top 10. After 20 minutes, we spot them in 8th
place, behind the Tahitian master’s team!
At 30 minutes we zoom over to them with encouraging words, preparing for
the first change. The conditions have
turned choppy. Cool Mike isn’t happy
with how the ama is riding as the wind waves are from the left side, causing it
to bounce off of the water. The guys
going in on the change are warned to keep weight on the ama side when they get
in to keep the boat stable. The change
is called, and the men get right in with no need to stop. They look like pros, even though some of them
have never done it before. As we load
the swimming guys onto the boat, our elation turns to despair as we watch our
team huli- outrigger for tip over.
The first thing to do when the
canoe capsizes is to count people, then grab the paddles and bailers. That is done quickly, and the Mikes begin
coaching on how to right the boat. Once
the ama is flipped back over the six guys jump back in and are off- they lost
six spots and are now 14th.
Nick is in seat 3 and begins bailing water to aid the mechanical pump. The plan was to have a change every 13-15
minutes for the men’s team, but we are gun shy with the choppy conditions. After another 30 minutes I finally convince
Coach Mike to call a change and my Mike, and Rich climb on to the boat. Not realizing they were going to be in for an
hour or more, they were spent. We rushed
to get them refueled and started calling short changes again. With these shorter pieces our teams seemed to
be revived, and we climbed up to 10-12th place. It was hard to tell exactly where we were as
all the teams were spread over a mile across the ocean. We would know where we were when we hit the
canal for the last three miles of the race.
Mike and Rich go in for their last change
knowing that they wouldn’t be paddling the canal due to their long shift in the
first few hours that left them drained.
The whole team pushes hard as they near the entrance, trying to pass any
last teams that they could. With
everyone pushing, they secure 10th place. The finishing team goes in and digs deep for
the final 25 minutes. Once we are in the
canal our team is confident in the flat water, and they do gain on the two
canoes in front of them, but are unable to make the pass. The finish horn blows and the team is happy
with the 10th place finish, but ready to go back for next year and
show their true potential.
(Hui Wa'a Men 2017)
After the race both teams meet up
to load the canoe for its journey north, and then head to the awards party to
celebrate. The party is on the beach
with live ukulele music, a cookout, beer tent, and vendors selling all sorts of
paddler goodies. I can definitely tell
that I am not in Michigan anymore, and soak up the atmosphere. Everyone leaves with a smile, a trucker hat,
and a sun tan. It always feels like the
end comes too soon as we load into cars and head for the airport, promising to
see each other next year.
