Monterey Bay Crossing 2014 Challenge

Patrice and I finished yesterday's race in 4 hours, 13 minutes -- worth a second-place finish. My Maas 2X "Tetra" performed flawlessly. Both of us really like that boat. Both of us really like that race. I am glad I did it in my double. If Patrice was unavailable I would have done it in my Bay 21. Given the conditions, the double made it much less difficult. But it was tremendously difficult nonetheless. We knew it was going to be rough and it WAS. Wind, swell and wave forecasts were spot on. We had 10-15 knot winds from the WNW and about 8-11 foot swells with short period. Whitecaps were everywhere, but well below 1% of the waves were whitecapped. The direction of the weather made the biggest challenge. The swell, wind and waves were mostly beam-on; perhaps a bit following -- definitely not a headwind. In a relatively narrow boat like the Maas 2X the conditions meant we were constantly fighting a snappy roll, big yawing motions and sudden violent cross-direction translations as powerful, relentless swells sent us sideways. Our start was staggered. I think all competitors departed Santa Cruz between 6 AM and 7 AM as planned. As we left Santa Cruz harbor, my GPS showed our average speed as 7.4 mph. But it started tapering off soon. Throughout the middle third or so of the race it was indicating 6.4 mph. By the finish line I think it said 6.2 mph. By the time we hit the beach and staggered out of the water it was 6.1 mph. By another method, our 4:13 time and my 26.6 miles indicated on GPS means 6.31 mph. IMHO that's not bad, considering the chaotic state of the water. Our stroke rate was between 25 1/2 and 30 1/2, depending on conditions. When I could feel stable for a few strokes, I'd lengthen out and drop the stroke rate. Keeping the power about the same means that the rate will go up when shortening the stroke length in unstable segments. Patrice is really good at matching me and I was constantly changing stroke rate up a little, down a little up a lot down a lot. He always stayed in synch. Sometimes (okay many times) we'd roll violently and I couldn't get one of my oars out of the water for the stroke recovery. I would miss a beat. In a single nobody cares. In a double there's lots of bad things that can happen if the bow isn't following the stroke's motions. Within a half mile of the Santa Cruz harbor, while it was still dark, I could feel the waves coming from our starboard beam. I thought there was a good chance that they would become close to quartering aft by the time we got farther offshore and in to the prevailing seas. I was wrong. They stay beam on the whole way. The swells grew as we left the slight protection of the Santa Cruz headlands west of town. Then the swells, the wind and the wind waves continued to grow. I estimate they did not decrease until less than a mile or so from the finish. There was one quad in the event. It did not finish. It's an open "heavy" quad. Although it has suction bailers and a hand pump the team could not keep their water evacuation efforts up with the rate that water was coming in over the side. Their skipper decided to put in at Moss Landing. That's still a pretty long row for the quad -- probably about 18 miles! The last bit was directly down-swell so the four rowers and coxswain did a bit of surfing. I think they all agreed they enjoyed that! No such surfing fun for us! Patrice and I had some other kinds of fun. We saw some whales. The sun peaked through the mid-level overcast a few times and reminded me that the view from the middle of Monterey Bay is precious. I gradually learned a few tricks to row in those conditions. I learned how crazy it can get to row inside of a whitecap. Several--er no, wait, Many times. In a beam sea, the whitecaps are coming from the side. Yesterday's whitecaps were moving fast. I am guessing (and it was really hard to tease out the speed of the local wind waves from the swells anyway) they were moving at 15 mph or faster. Rowing in a whitecap usually starts with a warning sound a few milliseconds before you're inside. It's sort of sucking sound like a giant getting to the bottom of his frappacinno with his straw. That's the sound of the top of the wave falling over the front of the rest of the wave. The warning's too late to allow the sculler to do much (other than panic, maybe). And, anyway, one can't really maneuver quickly enough to change what is about to happen. There's a rolling motion of the boat, first quickly to port then a longer duration to starboard. At the same time there's a huge lateral translation to port and vertical lift and then sudden drop back down. White foam erupts all around you and , in many cases, came up to our armpits. It's a weird feeling because it's not as dense as water but it visually appears like your going under water. In the worst ones the entire boat disappears from sight. The result is a completely swamped cockpit -- water up to the gunnels. The sudden extra mass drops the boat speed and drops the boat much lower in the water. Inconveniently, that allows much smaller waves to continue to refill the cockpit despite the bailers and sloshing that would normally empty this type of boat quickly. Now we have to row with the seats underwater until it clears out. In these conditions it takes a few minutes each time to get the water level inside the cockpit down to ankle depth. The water in Monterey Bay is unusually warm right now, 60 degrees F and above, it seems. So the swampings could have come with much more discomfort! I had a tough time getting my oars to do anything useful inside of a whitecap. The blades could be both above the water doing 'air strokes' even while the hull was under the foam. Or, in the transitions, one side's oar could be very deeply buried and failing to generate much thrust while the other side washes out. We had this "rowing inside a whitecap" experience at least a dozen times. To a partial extent: several dozen additional times. The Monterey Bay Crossing is extreme even on a nice day. In nasty conditions it's extreme _and_ extremely challenging. I estimate we took about 7000 strokes or so. Patrice and I stopped to drink four times. Less than a minute each time. I am gratified to see how well all the competitors handled it. The event was clear proof of the skill of each and every one of us. If there were inexperienced open water rowers out there in those conditions it probably would have led to multiple capsizes and a failure to finish. Quote from one of the competitors, "it was like rowing under the Golden Gate Bridge for 5 hours". That made me chuckle, since I know how rough it can get under GGB. We didn't have enough escort boats to cover every boat. Personally, I think that escort boats are important for first-timers and singles but doubles have some advantages and experienced rough water scullers in doubles are probably okay without an escort. We didn't have an escort. Well, we started out without an escort. Then, about half way across, one approached us from behind and escorted us nearly to the finish. From the Channel 68 chatter (I had my VHF taped to the rigger and turned on) it seemed that he lost us. It may sound hard to believe that a power boat could fail to keep track of a rowing scull. But the waves were high and steep -- "line of sight" disappears when the separation gets more than a couple wavelengths. It felt good to have him there, though. He even pulled close for a bit of conversation a few times. That didn't work so well since it was hard to hear and be heard, even if we were shouting. Worse yet, it was so rough that I really had to concentrate on every single stroke and I couldn't really put a complete sentence together. (Or, for that matter, process a complete sentence that I might have heard!) It had to be rough on the escort boat skippers and crews, too. They got battered around. If anyone was susceptible to seasickness that was NOT a day to be out there. Our course suffered a bit. We were blown to the east as one might expect. It was challenging because these handheld (Patrice and I each had one mounted to our riggers, easily read at a glance) GPS instruments are acting fast enough to notice the directional changes from large waves. So the GPS pointer for indicating the direction of the goal is swinging around constantly. If you glance at it at any specific moment it could be completely accurate but not telling you what you want to know. Staring at it to get a visual average is frustrating, too. A magnetic compass can help, if it's well-damped. We probably rowed a half mile farther than we needed to row. But the conditions were the main reason, not our lack of navigation skill.

Petaluma River Rowing Marathon

On Sunday, August 31st, the North Bay Rowing Club in Petaluma held it's annual Petaluma River Marathon. The event was well-attended. The weather was excellent. The course is beautiful. For the marathoners, including me, the course is also : long! Afterwards, my GPS indicated 25.5 miles and average speed of 6.8 miles per hour. I think i can cruise for extended periods in my Bay 21 at about 6.3 miles per hour. There was an outgoing tide which seemed to be about 1 mph since my average speed at the turn was 7.3 miles per hour. I knew it would drop thereafter as we fought our way back upstream against the ebbing tide. Thankfully the tidal flow was decreasing and slowing so the return trip had less of a 'headwind' than the outgoing first leg had 'boost'. So that's 3 hours, 44 minutes of rowing. That's a lot! I used my Dreher "Aero" oars. They're fantastic on flat water -- giving less aerodynamic resistance on the recovery and better hydrodynamic efficiency during the stroke (almost cheating, i like to say) but i find them pretty challenging to use on rough water. The main challenge i have is placing them at the right depth. Conventional sculls help you find the right depth because the shaft gives the sculler feedback when it hits the water. The Aero sculls has so little resistance that the depth of the blade when they hit the water is hard to detect. I tend to go too deep. After a few hundred strokes, though, i was finally feeling the 'pull-through' height and, therefore, blade depth that worked best (most efficiently). At about 26 strokes per minute i calculate i took about 5850 strokes. Well done! to all the participants and competitors. Can't wait until next year!

Great Cross Sound Race

The Great Cross Sound Race was held on August 23rd, 2014. Alki Beach in West Seattle is home to the start and finish of this 7 mile race. I drove my Bay 21 up, cartopping (actually truck-topping) it up to Seattle from Santa Cruz. The first question most people ask is "how long does it take to drive to Seattle". Actually, unasked or maybe under their breath, most people are asking "are you crazy?". The answer is yes. Er, i mean, 13.5 hours. But i did that 13.5 hour drive once several years ago and don't intend to ever do it again. It is simply too mind-numbing. I planned two days to drive up there and two days to drive back. That's a more stress-free plan and allows one to take in a lot more beauty. I drove up I-5 on the way to Seattle and drove back via I-5 and also the Oregon coast. That weekend's weather was fantastic. Race day had beautiful weather and excellent water conditions. In the 21 foot class there were no Maas Aeros or Vancouvers -- only Bay 21s. There were four of us. I came in second at 59 minutes, 44 seconds. That means more than 7 miles per hour average. Tyler Peterson, president of Bay Shells Rowing, took first place. Go to Sound Rowers web site for hundreds of excellent photos of the event, the boats and the people.