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by PaulG » October 30th, 2017, 9:56 pm
In addition to the HOCR, there were two open water regattas during the weekend of 21-22 October. If you saw any of the streaming video of HOCR you saw that that weekend had the best weather New England can offer in October. On 21 October the Hull Lifesaving Museum hosted the Head of the Weir starting on the Hingham-Hull line. I grew up in Hingham and is it always fun to see the restored colonial house from the 1700s and earlier, and the Greek revivals from the 1800s along Main Street. These houses were falling into disrepair in the 1970s when I last lived there.
I've competed in the Head of Weir several times now and it occurs on the Weir River estuary between Lands End in Hingham and the Hull Mass. f there is a prettier natural area closer to an urban center, I don't know where it is. After competing in these events for several years I can quickly size up the competition and estimate how I will place. This race lumps all single sliding seats and age groups together. I saw two younger guys in an Alden 18 and the FISA coastal boat in addition to Paul Pugliese, a multiple Blackburn Challenge and Essex River Race winner along with the guy who took second to my third in this year's Essex River Race. My quick estimation had me finishing...last in the class. Worse than that because I registered early I was first to start in the class and probably would have the privilege of watching people row through me. Never mind, at this stage you are always racing against your own expectations and because of the perfect conditions I wanted to have my fastest time.
I helped organize everyone in a line in their starting order and started first. The start of this race is through a twisty estuary and then it opens up into Hull Bay. I was hitting the apex of each curve perfectly and was rowing a good race. Soon the younger guys in the Alden and the FISA boat passed me but I continued to row my own race. As the river opened up, my friend from the Essex River Race passed me and I could see Paul P in the distance along with a woman in a Maas Flyweight. My goal was to not let them pass me. The calm conditions allowed me to cross Hull Bay north of Bumpkin Island with little trouble. There were no navigation errors. I just held the fastest pace I could for as long as I could while checking the compass bearing and watching out for kayaks and other multi person gigs, dories, and liveries that started earlier. I started to hear the horn for the finish line as each boat finished and tried to put on a reasonable sprint at the end. A quick 15 second check of my heart rate at the finish had me at about 158 bpm and that's within 10 beats of my max. Regardless of the finish order I knew I rowed a smart tactical race and gave it a maximum effort. You can't ask for more. My wife helped me move my boat farther up the beach to make room for more incoming boats and I had to take knee after that while be HR dropped to 100 BPM. There was nothing left. I ended up second to last but had a PR for the course and my activity tracker showed an average speed of 6.2 mph for for the 5.5 mile race. More importantly we all finished within about 10-15% of each other so it was a close race. I look forward to next year.
The next day was the Mighty Merrimack Race hosted by the Lowell Boat Shop in Amesbury, Mass. This is a much smaller race and after a quick look around at the start line it seemed like I could win this one similar to a few years ago. The race is only a few miles from my house, and despite the fatigue from the previous day, it's hard to turn down. If I ever do skip it, it will be because the race director insists on starting the small boats in one direction and the larger boats a few minutes later in the opposite direction and the courses cross. We were warned that the small boats should give way to the large boats at the cross but the whole idea is stupid. Remember the Figure 8 car racing from Islip NY on the old Wide World of Sports? That's what they are setting up. Anyone involved with safety knows that first you avoid dangerous conditions, then you mitigate, then you warn. Dumb.
I started with the small boats and rounded the first mark in first with two former Blackburn Challenge winners teamed up in a dory. Heading across the river to the second mark I made a serious navigation error and did not account enough for the strong flood tide. It swept me upriver of the second mark and I had to make almost a 90 degree correction as the dory caught up with me. Then I had to give way while they rounded the mark and I made a 180 degree turn to round the mark. By the time I got my rhythm back they were are least 50 yards ahead of me. At that time i decided that there was no way I was going to lose to two guys in a fixed seat dory even if they were the two best dorymen in New England. I put the hammer down and practiced ergometry with the flood tide and blew past them. At the third mark I had a comfortable lead and continued to row at full pressure back into the current to the end of the circular race course. I never did see the larger boats as they passed through our course. Afterwards we enjoyed victuals and grog at the boathouse and looked at the antique boats on display and the new boats they are building. I collected my winning commemorative Lowell Boat Shop glass and rowed slowly upriver with the dorymen to the launch ramp in the rising sea breeze, falling temperatures, and setting sun, and then we helped each other load our boats. After those two races the rum tasted good that night.
