maine state fw championship

[johnalsop]

Hello folks: well i am a wreck after a long week in homicide trial and must confess i have done very little to organize sunday's race, but hope that all will come who can. entry fee will be two dollars per paddler. awards will be certificates suitable for framing. dont look for t shirts but a good time will be had by all. lets hope for good weather. the course is in great shape. I will time the event unless i get a volunteer. if i do, i will race! Classes: oc2 mixed, men. oc1 racing, open rec, open kayak. other available on demand. cheers ja

[johnalsop]

OK! Trial is over till thursday so heres the deal. The evrgreen camprground will serve as our registration and launch area. please follow signs, drive slowly and do not disturb the patrons. they have an excellent buffet breakfast that starts a 8 for the non racers. i'll told 'em we would be cleared outta ther by 11 or so. plan to drop cars off before the race at the finish down on the dump road in north anson. we will have awards down there immediately after the race. there are two awards for each class. champion and runner up! the river is high. plan on class 1.5 white water in spots and some boat grabbing eddies. if anybody out there (is there anybody out there?) wants to serve as timer and race official call me here at 4748048. cheers JA

[johnalsop]

Maine Flatwater Championship results are in!

Lee martin and John Mathieu are champs eking out narrow victory over Runnersup Chip Loring and Jeff Owen who virtually tied with Mixed Champs Barry and Lori Dana, (of the two boats which was ahead at the finish was obscured by the lack of a finish line and the pouring rain) Bill Anderson and Ian Wilson took third mens and 4th went to Claude Boucher and Bertier Rodrigue, our friends from St Georges PQ. The OC1 division was duel between Brian Galipeau, Mark Ranco and yours truly. I eked out a win over Brian, a young and strong paddler with good future ahaed of him. we had one kayak entrant, Dan Baumert ,who as many have before, succumbed to the maze like confusion of the course and ended up a bit lost downriver. But we managed to find him in time to give him his award as Champion of the open kayak class. we had a total of 9 boats. gross receipts were 26 dollars. I spent 6 bucks on doughnuts. I will send the balance to Bob. The Evergreen Campground owners kindly waived any fee for use of campsite #2, our registration and put in site. The river was up a couple of feet which obscured some of the tricky shallow areas and made for record times, (none of which were recorded) Thanks go to Don Westcott, our volunteer starter and finish line person.

It is always depressing to see such a low turnout at a race, especially at the state championship that has been on the schedule since march, ( and only cost 2 dollars to enter) but given the lack of time and energy that I was able to put into organising, and the complete downpour in which we all finished and took out, the low numbers were perhaps a blessing. And I think we all had a good time. It was a good group of paddling diehards. Cheers JA

[paddlechic]

Congrats to all who made it to the race, I had been looking forward to it, but at last minute, was unable to pull it off financially, missed the Dead race as well. John you gave it your best shot and should be happy and until you know how we can buy cheaper gas to get to these races, you may find the numbers will continue to be down. I drive a 4-cyl Honda and it would still have cost me close to $50 in gas to get there.

[Ray Wirth]

I'll add my congrats as well. I'd also echo Paddlechic's comment that the fact that I was not there was not due to disinterest. Hopefully the numbers at races will start coming back up. In the meantime, let's all keep promoting the sport, keep paddling, and keep smiling.

[John Mathieu]

We should not beat ourselves up over a poor showing in some of the weekend races because there were other races that faired very well. In total, there were 8 different races on the northeast last weekend. The sport is not dead and I feel is far from dying.

The Liberty Cup in New York City had 222 paddlers some from Hawaii and Europe. This was my first time in 10 years I was not able to attend this race but was happy to see these numbers in the results. There was also a surfski/kayak race on Lake Ontario that had 36 or so boats. This race was won by Olympic Champion Greg Barton. Then there was another flatwater pro race, the A. Basset Race in NY state. Then in Massachusetts, there was a white water race. Another race white water race was held in Maine on the Lower Dead which, I was told only had 15 or so canoes. The flat water state championship race in Maine was able to attract just a dozen paddlers and the outrigger race in Maine had just 11 paddlers. On top of all of this, there was yet another local Maine race in the Sugarloaf area which probably had small numbers.

What does this all mean? Race organizers will have to be more strategic in scheduling and athletes will end up being more selective on which races they decide to go to. Canoe racing will always be a fringe sport. Unlike in places like South Africa and Hawaii where TV coverage of races will be aired on the evening news, the northeast will need to grow the sport organically. Eight races during one weekend can dilute participation but it does show there are paddlers out there who apprecicate a good, classic event. Consider over 200 canoes finished the 70 mile Clinton on a very low water year. This is amazing to me. So despite a poor showing in the four Maine races, the sport will continue to exist because of the classic races. Canoeing is far from following the path that windsurfing took 10 years ago. We just have to stop making it too complicated with too many races and too many classes. No need to blame it on the gas or weather. The problem is us but we will figure it out.

j-