June 19, 2006

North Tahoe Rowing Regatta

This entry is long, so in case you're in a hurry:
Regatta report, short version, just to spoil the surprise:
Old Salt and Dr. Bosun won - they were the mixed double on the short course, but they set a course record.
I won(!!!) - first of three in the Women's Maas Aeros on the short course.
Rudder came in fourth, out of a very competitive field of about 13, in the Maas 24 in the long course.

Long discursive version:
Lake Tahoe is a gorgeous, gorgeous place to row. For once, Rudder and I didn't have to drive; Old Salt, his wife the Artist, and Dr. Bosun not only drove the van, not only loaded it without our help (of course we offered, but they said they didn't need us) but actually loaned us the boats. Rudder rowed Old Salt's Maas 24 and I rowed his Maas Aero. Old Salt and Dr. Bosun rowed the double. Rudder and I got in to our hotel at King's Beach late Thursday night; looking out the window, I saw our room faced the hotel parking lot. It wasn't until the next morning I saw that what we actually had was a view of that beautiful lake. We met the other two there to get our boats off the van and went out for a morning row to get used to the boats. I had only rowed the Aero once before, in about 1999, but it's a really nice boat to row, friendly and eager to please, as long as you're not in a hurry. It's made for open water rowing, so is more stable and less speedy than flatwater boats like my Hudson single. We just did a short row that morning, out to the point that was the first turning point for the short course I'd be racing.
After that, we went to the coffeeshop next door to pick up breakfast. While there, a book jumped into my arms and said, "Can I come home with you? Pleeease?" I own and like a bunch of Will Shetterly's books, but had been a little reluctant to try Dogland because it's different from the others - not fantasy, mostly. But there it was in a large-format softcover with a $1 tag on it, sitting under a sign that said something about a book swap. I think the cashier was a little startled when I wanted to pay for it, but I only had two other books with me and I didn't want to leave either in its place. As it turns out, though, if I had bought a copy for full price it would have been well worth it.

Rudder and I were supposed to meet up with the others at their campsite for dinner, so we decided to spend the afternoon being tourists. We drove all the way around the lake, stopping at the scenic points to clamber over rocks and take photos. Lots of photos - I'll post the best to Flickr, once I've downloaded them. We finished at the campsite near Tahoe City, where Dr. Bosun cooked up a big spaghetti dinner for all of us (now including two of the Old Salt's and the Artist's grown children and the girlfriend of one). By the time none of us could eat any more and the Old Salt was trying to alienate nearby campers by playing us David Allen Coe songs on the van's stereo, it was time for us to head back to the hotel and get some sleep.

Race day had weather just as perfect as the day before (and the day after). It was extremely convenient having the race staged out of our hotel; the boats were stored on and launched from the beack about two minutes' walk from our room, so we could even go back and use the bathroom after the race meeting. They launched the racers ont he long course first, in several waves: first the doubles, then the men's faster Maas 24s (Rudder's race), the Men's Aeros, then all the women. Next they launched the short course: first the double (Old Salt and Dr. Bosun) and the flatwater racing shells, then all the women (including me) then all the men. The race categories were by boat design, so while all the women launched together, I was only competing against those in Aero like mine.

One woman shot ahead from the beginning; I knew she was in a 24. Another was a little ahead but pulled away from the rest of us slowly; I hoped she was in one also. Another dropped behind the rest of us and the remaining woman and I stayed close all the way down the course. The first buoy was visible from the starting point, so the first leg was easier to steer, though my turn wasn't as good as it could have been. I couldn't see the next buoy from the first turn at all, and it was out in the middle of the lake, not near any any landmark I could sight on. This being open water racing, I had both a compass and a GPS, but the latter didn't work at all - it neverswitched from the starting waypoint to the first turn, let alone any later turns. The compass was only semi-useful; it's a hiking one, where you're supposed to turn the bezel to match the needle's north, which of course I couldn't do while rowing. The compass was taped to the boat, so of course the bezel turned when I did. It was a little bit of help, because I could at least estimate where my course was, for instance by knowing that an 89-degree course would be roughly at right angles to the needle. That's not precise enough to help in a race, so most I steered by watching other people until I was finally close enough to spot the buoy. That would have worked better if I'd known which other racers knew where they were going. I was a bit faster than the woman close to me, but she steered a better course, so she'd pull up to me than I'd catch up once I sighted the course. (At the time, though, I had no way of knowing if she was on or off course.) I finished only three seconds ahead of her, still not sure if she was in my category.

Since the long course took much longer to row, and since my boat was so stable, I decided to risk the camera. I paddled into shore, and got it from the Old Salt's daughter, who had most intelligently figured out which backpack was ours, gotten the camera out figured out our camera, and taken pictures of the double and of me coming into shore. (All of which I'd have asked her to do, but she wasn't there yet when we launched for the race.) I slung it over my neck and shoulder and rowed back out to the finish to take pictures of Rudder finishing.

After the race there was a wonderful lunch for the competitors and spectators. Once we were all too full to eat any more (which takes some doing for rowers right after a race) they announced the winners. They gave out water bottles instead of medals. (I'd have liked a medal - it's hard to hang a bottle on your wall.) For each event, they gave out awards to both the winner in raw time and to the winner after adjusting the time for age handicaps. Rudder was fourth in his race, but his was very competitive. Most of the people who beat him were ones he knew, some of the fastest rowers from along the California coast whom he's always pitted against at our bigger regattas. Old Salt and Dr. Bosun won, of course, being the only boat in their event, but they also set a record for the course. My jaw dropped when I was told I'd set the initial course record for my category, mostly in surprise - I knew that others had raced in that category in the past, so couldn't figure out why there wasn't an existing record for me to break or (more likely) not. It also puzzled me that I'd won with a time 13 full minutes slower than Dr. Bosun's winning time fromt he previous year. She'd been in a faster boat, but not that much faster - 13 minutes over 7000 meters is a whole lot. I won my race, but the woman I'd finished just ahead of won with the handicaps, so we both got bottles. What made me even happier was that I'd beat most of the men in the Aeros, along with a couple of people, both male and female, in the faster boats.

For the rest of the day, Rudder and I stayed in the room and did our best impressions of vegetation. Eventually we went out, had some excellent pizza two doors down from the hotel (this really was the most convenient set-up), then walked along the beach and watched hang gliders land. Coming back to the hotel we went and looked again at the race times, now posted, and found they'd been corrected. Apparently they'd used the same start time for all waves to launch on the short course. It didn't affect the results of each race, but all of our times were significantly faster. So that made it more sensible; I did still beat a couple of the men in the Aeros and even one guy in the faster boat, but not more than half of them. I pointed out to the organizer that, since the results from last year she'd posted for comparison did include someone in my category who had rowed the race faster, so I really didn't set a record. Apparently she'd just missed it, not surprising in the flurry of race planning. She also commented that the buoys might not have been placed quite correctly this year, so between that and the six minutes that the adjustment shaved off my time, it was all a lot more reasonable compared to last year's times. And of course, I still won my race!

The Old Salt kindly left the boats by the hotel for an extra day so that Rudder and I could take one more row on Tahoe on Sunday morning. We joined a whole flotilla of rowers setting out and went past the point where my race course had turned, over into Crystal Bay. We were going to row to a beach we'd spotted (possibly Sand Harbor, not sure), but that bay is deceptively large, and by the time we were finally starting to get somewhere close to the beach, my hands and bladder were all saying maybe it was time to turn around. (Also, when you're rowing across the middle of a bay, the scenery doesn't change the way it does when you're closer to shore and rowing around a point.) When we got back to shore, we found the Old Salt and Dr. Bosun had stopped by. (This is getting annoying. One of these days I may just give up and use first names.) We were very glad to see them, because the original plan had been for them to come by in the afternoon, after we'd left, and load up. This way we got to help.

After eating and showering, we had to check out of the hotel, but we still had an hour or so to kill. We used it up walking around Truckee's small but nice old downtown area, which provided the final surreal moment of the trip when I spotted the sign for Jimmy Bean Wool. I hadn't even known they had a brick-and-mortar store, but they have a big web store and are often one of the first to come up when I search online for a yarn. Apparently they have two stores; the other is in Reno. Of course, we went in. I restricted myself to a couple of skeins of sock yarn, because I had to be able to fit anything I'd bought in my backpack. We also visited a few galleries and an old-fashioned soda fountain who'd apparently never heard of chocolate soda before (at least, not without ice cream). The excursion used up just about the amount of time we needed to use before heading off to the airport, the trip back was smooth and we got home early enough to go out for Cajun food and get to bed almost on time. (It would have been in plenty of time if somebody hadn't refused to take the standard post-race day off from rowing practice this morning. Husbands. Humph.)

So yeah, beautiful place, good company, well-organized regatta, time to sightsee. Good weekend. And did I mention I won?????

Posted by dichroic at June 19, 2006 03:19 PM
Comments

YAY!!!! Well done! I wish you got a medal too. ~LA

Posted by: LA at June 19, 2006 05:57 PM

*smile* Congrats on the win!

Posted by: Melissa at June 19, 2006 08:22 PM

Congratulations! Yup, I read through the entire thing - even though I probably didn't get everything, it was still really interesting to read :-) And I love the photos.

Posted by: Maria at June 20, 2006 12:25 AM

Mazel tov!

Posted by: l'empress at June 20, 2006 07:35 AM

Congrats on the win and the sock yarn. I did not know they had a brick & mortar store either.

Love the jewelry btw.

Posted by: Sarah HB at June 22, 2006 12:13 PM
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