ROYLEROW PERFORMANCE TRAINING PROGRAMS

Rowing Coach: Marlene Royle, OTR

In Search of Calmer Seas

(A Day with Wayne Lysobey)

By Gil Morong

The week after this year's Isles of Shoals race, I was looking to take a less challenging row on some placid, inland water.  I knew Wayne Lysobey was heading up to Burlington, VT for the Lake Champlain Challenge, a 7.5-mile tour of what some call the sixth Great Lake, on Saturday.  He is an alumnus of U. of V., and I had fond memories of running the 1995 Vermont City Marathon out of the same park in Burlington where the race was to start.  These seemed like good enough reasons to make the trip.  So we headed northward with our two Aldens looking good atop my old Volvo station wagon to go “kick some kayak butt.”  Ah, the naivety.

Friday night in Burlington was stormy and windy.  When we popped the bailers in our shells on Saturday morning, gallons of water ran out onto the car.  That would not be the last water inside our boats that day.

As we drove the few miles through town that morning, from atop the hill, the lake appeared to have calmed since last night's storm. But when we entered the park, level with the beach, we were confronted with a very different scene. Steady rollers greeted us as we approached the assembly of outrigger teams and kayakers just up the shore.  The beach presented a challenge for launching without dumping, and the white caps off shore invited the weak-at-heart to try another day. In fact, the scheduled 9 AM launch was postponed until 10AM, in hope that things would settle down a bit as the day wore on.

By 10 AM, the lake was exhibiting even higher surf than earlier.  But having driven 300 miles to row, we had to at least get the bottoms of our boats wet.  The fellows at registration were incredulous that we were thinking of sculling thorough these choppy, 2-4 foot breakers, though they did assure us that what we saw from the beach would not get much worse as we navigated the length of the course.  A few outriggers were doing a 15-mile course, but Wayne and I agreed that 7.5-mile option would suffice under these conditions.

I launched my Alden and took a few yanks on my oars, and noticed that a fair bit of the lake had joined me inside the boat. Not good.  I sat amidst the outriggers and kayaks until the race started, rowed about ¼ mile, and realized that I had far too much water inside my boat to continue any further.  I turned around and surfed back toward the shore, when a most reassuring, prolonged sucking from my bailer emptied my boat of water. Hey, my one excuse for quitting had just drained out with those gallons of water.  Anyway, Wayne was already steadily rounding the first point with the kayaks and outriggers, so I really did not have anything better to do than turn back and head out to sea.  My wife had tolerated my melancholy for a full year after my failure to make it out to the Shoals in 2000, so I certainly did not want to subject her to life with a defeated rower until next year's Champlain Challenge.

Wayne's oarsmanship and/or lack of fear had been proven last week at the Shoals with his third place finish in his first attempt at that race.  And he seemed to again be steadily working his way through the best Lake Champlain could offer.  These waves were very different from those we had faced off Kittery last week.  They were much tighter and breaking in very unpredictable intervals.  To my chagrin, I realized that this inland water had no rhythm.  When I rounded the first point and headed cross sea, I saw a “hoolied” (outrigger-speak for flipped) six-person outrigger crew being rescued by a support boat.  The water was warm, and the paddlers seemed a little miffed that I offered my assistance, so I yanked on my oars and eventually left them behind.  One down.

If there was a pattern to these cross seas it was that a set of 4-footers would be followed  by relative calm, so I took advantage every time I got a solid catch with both oars to pull with renewed vigor.  The bailer was working better in the cross seas, so I was relatively confident I could finish this tack to the next point of land, where I turned north and surfed most of the way over to the sailboat that marked half way and the turnaround point.

I think they were somewhat surprised to see me, but I shrugged, they took my picture a few times, and I turned south, dead into it.  The first set of steep 4-footers took my buttocks off the seat a few times, but again, between these waves I was able to progress away from my friends on the sailboat.  I turned west, went cross wave for an eternity, and actually began to believe I was going finish.  Hey, if I could finish, didn't I have second place in the division locked up ? I was pretty sure the plaque would not mention how far behind Wayne I would finish.

At the last turn, I spotted the finish marker and fairly surfed most of the way back.  A car ferry came uncomfortably close by, and I got a few greetings from the curious on board, but their wake was of no consequence in the tumble of those seas.  Surprisingly, I had very little water in my boat until my less-than-graceful dismount at the beach, and needless to say, I was very pleased to stand on the sand and report my successful finish to the one or two souls waiting on the beach.

Up the beach, Wayne was chatting with some kayakers he had passed.  One young competitor mentioned that he works for Concept2 came over to us to proclaim his astonishment that we could scull in these conditions. We suspect he deals more with flat river rowers than with open water folks like we find in AOSA.

I did not personally kick too many kayak behinds.  But I did reaffirm that the Alden is a terrific boat, even with me at the controls.  A week before the Isles I had talked with Debbie A. at Alden. She told me how to bend my bailer so it would stay open in all conditions. That bit of advice allowed me to finish two rather challenging rows in one week.

So my search for calmer waters goes on.  But on the drive back, we agreed that this was a much more memorable row because of the lake's conditions.  Next year, if it is a bit calmer, and it almost has to be, we may row the full 15 miles and see how we fare.  For now, as I polish my Alden and put it to rest on its slings, I know I have a boat capable of bringing me back to shore even when the outrigger canoes are out there “hoolie-ing.”

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