The Horse We Rode In On: Part II

It's official:
Team – We're Not Fishing
Whicker/Sandel
Boat # 409
Team Captain: Ed “The Italian Stallion” Cafarella

Thanks for all the team name suggestions. Ben, your suggestion of “White Men Can't Paddle” was deemed mildly inappropriate and possibly racist? Obviously, we've gone with our initial idea of “We're Not Fishing”. Just when I start to think this is a dumb name, we go for a training paddle and are reminded why this came up in the first place. “No, we didn't catch any thing. We're not fishing, we're just out for a paddle. I'm sorry, I realize this is an extremely confusing concept. No, we don't need to borrow an engine...”

Now, on to the canoe. The horse we're riding in on just happens to be a 17 ft, aluminum beast of a canoe that, coincidentally, probably weighs about as much as a horse. Buying this specific canoe was sort of a goof (more on that in a few), but we chose aluminum for a reason. The Novice Class is basically the rookie class for the Safari. Once you've finished a Safari, you're not eligible for this class. You must race with a ruderless, aluminum canoe (under 17'4”) and single blade paddles. Some times this really is a rookie class, other times it's more of a rookie to the Safari class. An experienced racer who has never done the Safari is eligible to compete in the Novice Class. Are we concerned? Not really. Our main goal is just to finish the race as quickly as we can manage. Running aluminum gives us an extra bit of confidence knowing that it's VERY difficult to seriously damage one of these boats. Trust me, we've already tried.

A couple of days after the CR100, I gave Matt a call. We were both still pretty amped up about the race and we hadn't had the chance to swap stories yet. Some where in the conversation, Matt brought up the Safari. It took me at least...5 seconds to warm up the idea. I had been thinking about it for months, but hadn't actually admitted that I'd do it. Talking to CR100 racers that had finished a Safari probably sealed it up for me. Some people seem almost speechless when trying to describe the experience. There was definitely some thing to it.

I suggested to Matt that we pick up an aluminum canoe and race in the novice class. We'd have a much better shot at finishing this way than we would solo in 14 ft kayaks. All we needed to do was find a canoe. With out a doubt, the most popular aluminum canoe for the Safari is the Alumacraft Voyager. Yes, it's aluminum, but it's also lighter and sleeker than most other aluminum canoes. We knew this...but we were impatient. Used Voyagers sell quickly. Used, race ready Voyagers sell even faster. It was October, we wanted to get a canoe, rig it out, and get on the water before winter. We went with the first aluminum canoe that we could find. It wasn't a Voyager and it wasn't race ready, but it was in good condition.

As soon as we brought the canoe back, I ripped every thing out (bench seats, bulkheads, bracing) and cleaned it up. We had some questions about how to rig the canoe, so Roy, a local canoe racer, told us to bring the boat by his place. After showing us his Voyager and explaining why our canoe was not as good (haha) Roy got us started on rigging. We riveted in some clips for the sliding seats, then headed out to the bayou for a paddling clinic.

Let me set some thing straight here: Roy is in his 60's, he's in excellent shape, and he paddles like a machine. He won the Safari more than once in a C2 (18'6” tandem racing canoe), in the late 70's and early 80's. We hauled Roy's two Voyagers to the bayou to paddle with his partner Dan, so they could work with us separately. I knew we were in for an ass kickin.

I was already designated as the stern paddler, being about 70 lbs lighter than Matt. A stern heavy boat is easy control, but slow. You don't want to be stern heavy in a race, so the little guy gets stuffed in the stern. The stern paddler sits in the back and because you have a better view of the canoe's direction from here, the stern paddler is generally in charge of steering and calling “huts” to change paddling sides. In marathon canoe racing, you paddle on opposite sides of the canoe. The canoe tends to slowly turn away from the stern paddler, so you call ”hut” to change sides and keep the canoe pointed straight. There's much more to it than this, but that's the gist of it.

Being that I'd never been in a canoe before, Roy pretty much told me that I'd be terrible at steering on the first try. He was right. We took off fast right from the beginning and it was all I could do to just try to keep up with his pace, much less call “hut” at the right time. It took me a while to get a feel for what I was suppose to be doing. After a short run, we switched up canoes, putting me and Matt in the same boat. This did NOT work. Because of our weight difference and my inexperience at steering, the boat was uncontrollable. A bow heavy boat just keeps plowing along what ever line it's on. Roy told us this would be a major problem and it still is, though we've gotten better at dealing with it since then.

We got our ass kicked that day, but I had fun. Up until then, I'd never had that kind of work out while paddling. Me and Matt agreed that we needed to get our boat ready quickly so we could start practicing right away. Too bad it never happened. A few high priority type of set backs put us off our schedule and we didn't finish the rigging until January, with the help of my dad of course. This was only the minimum rigging needed to paddle the boat: structural bracing, sliding racing seats, foot rests, etc. We still have several smaller points to work on and much of it is not likely to get finished until my semester is over.

Next time, training. We've had a few entertaining moments so far and we're really just getting into the meat of it. We have a long, windy bay paddle coming up this weekend and many more 8-10 hour paddles after that. Oh, and a little 85 mile San Marcos run we're planning for mid May.