Texas Water Safari -The First 100km

Have you ever wondered what the Texas Water Safari was like? The next few installments of the blog will breakdown the race, providing you an opportunity ro understand the race better and what the participants go through.

On Saturday June 12th at 8:50am, over 100 boats will put into the water at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos Texas and pull into their starting positions. For the next 10 minutes, the armada of canoes and kayaks will gently bob in Spring Lake. The temperature will already be in the mid 20C (75F) range and the humidity will be rolling in.

At 9:00am, a single gunshot will send over 250 paddlers thrashing across the lake, crashing into each other and jostling for position en route to Joe's Crab Shack Dam a mere 400m (1/4 mi) away. Once the boats have traversed the little lake, the paddlers will jump out into the mud and water and start a downhill running portage through dense bush, roots, sharp rocks and other racers. Hazardous rocks threaten to twist ankles, tear flesh and damage boats en route to the mouth of the San Marcos River, a river that will take them to the Guadalupe River, out into the Gulf of Mexico and onto Seadrift 421km (262 mi) away, and that is just the first kilometre of the race.

Over the next 3.5km (2.2mi) there are two more dams and 3 portages (2 mandatory). The Rio Vista Dam, a mere 1.2km (0.75 mi) from the race's beginning provides a opportunity to run the small spillway if you don't feel like portaging, however, many boats that attempt are thwarted in their effort and end up capsized with their paddlers scrambling to catch their boat and gear as it floats down the river and then upright it so the can continue as the spillway descends into a 4ft (1.3m) standing wave

In fact, this section of the river is often considered the most difficult part of the race. Aside from the 7 portages, 4 low clearance bridges and 2 rapids, this section contains what is locally known as the "Gnarly 40". Forty miles (64km) of tight, tree clogged and log jammed river channel between Staples Dam and Palmetto State Park. In years of high water, log jams can be nearly a mile long, being unable to paddle them the racers have to traverse across the log jam with their canoe and gear, being careful not to breakthrough or have their boats swept underneath. These "logjam portages" often take more than one trip eating up valuable time. These trees are also prime habitat for black widows and cottonmouth snakes, both highly venomous.

This section also contains the Cottonseed Rapids, a long stretch of rocks and white water with a narrow chute exit which is a favourite spot for many spectators. Many boats that attempt to run this section are swept into rocks, paddlers are tossed from boats, canoes and kayaks capsize and fill with water and gear is swept downstream, if lucky the boats sustain no damage and the paddlers can meet up with their boats and gather their gear further down. Those that are not lucky can find their boats pinned or even rupture their hulls which can either end their race a mere 16km into the race or spend critical time repairing the damage which can be moderate or severe taking up to an hour to repair. Boats pinned to rocks by the force of the water often find themselves in the way of boats shooting the rapids and can cause significant collisions.

If that wasn't enough, the portage at the Ottine Dam is considered one of the hardest by many racers in this race. Due to the strong current of the dam, you must pull over well above it or face the chance of being swept over, you then must pull the boat out of the water and up a steep slick river bank and down a slippery clay slope covered in dense trees, prime location for poison ivy, fire ants, and venomous snakes and spiders, a bite from either can prove fatal to a human in an exhausted and stressed state. Not to mention prime real estate to drop a canoe or injure oneself.

To top it off, racers have to finish this section by 10AM Sunday, a mere 25 hours after the race starts.

This is the first 100km of the Texas Water Safari, "The World's Toughest Boat Race". Stay tuned for the second 100km.

100 Kilometres Of The Beautiful And Weir-d Bow River

This was a big weekend for Team Chinook, it marked the two week countdown to the inagural South Dakota Kayak Challenge and four weeks to the Texas Water Safari. It was also the second 100km (61 mile) trial run for Team Chinook and the first in temperatures exceeding 20C. It was also our first practice run where anybody with internet access could track our progress virtually live through our SPOT unit, as we paddled the world famous Bow River from Bowness Park in Calgary to Carseland Alberta.

Being mid-May, the water level in the Bow is still relatively low, as such the flow volume is low and the speed is slower than normal. This section of the Bow offers relatively little in the realm of dangers for paddlers and is very straigh forward, there are a few class 1+ rapids and numerous ripples. The only real dangers are the two weirs that are along the way, on in downtown Clagary and one just to the east as you enter Carseland. Each providing a mandatory portage due to their trecherous hydraulics. I've heard and read before that the weir in Calgary is responsible for a number of deaths, one of them not to long ago. As you approach both weirs, signs warn you of the danger ahead and a string of bouys delineates the safe zone from the danger zone.

The weirs were created for aeration and diversion of water to irrigation channels and produce an amazing hydaulic cycle that if you get caught it, it would be impossible to get out of. It also provides a habitat for pelicans as they wait in the wake of the water looking for fish that get swept over. Due to the construction of Harvie Passage in Calgary and the removal of the Weir, we ended up having an 800m portage, although I must admit that it was an easy one, along the Bow River Bike Path. We did run into an older gentleman who was familiar with the Texas Water Safari through readings and wished us luck.

Below the construction, the water level dropped dramatically not even allowing us to get the entire blade of the paddle into the water, after a few hundred metres the water deepened, then would shallow out again. This pretty much was the course for the rest of the urban paddle. As we approached south Calgary we finally found life in the river, people were out at the dog park and the fly fishers were out in full force. We managed to see some impressive trout being reeled in, one was easily in the range of 24 inches, which to me is a big fish.

Over the next 30km (18 miles) we passed easily two dozen fishing boats and easily twice as many fly fishermen/women than we did boats. It was our first time having to share the river with watercraft or person this year, and from our numerous and brief conversations, it was many of these people's first times out as well. Its amazing what happens once the temp hits the mid teens.

After running a few class 1+ we were greeted by a big white warning sign telling us to stay to the left channel to avoid the weir in Carseland and prepare for a mandatory portage. At this point our average speed fell from 10kph even to about 3 as we had to exit the boat numerous times to ferry it through shallows, rock gardens and wet gravel bars. Thankfully after 40 minutes we were at the portage and the end of our route. Total time was 9 hours and 32 minutes and total distance was 101km (61 miles) for an average moving speed of 9.9kph (6.1 mph), providing a food warm up to next weekends timed 360km (225 mi) practice run.

A Game Of Inches And Ounces

If you wanted to win or even be competitive in the Boston Marathon, would you wear a 25lb (11kg) backpack and 3lb (1.5kg) hiking boots? My guess is that you probably wouldn't, you'd probably opt for light shorts, light comfortable runners that provide contorsional support and maybe a ball cap to keep the sun off your head. As a runner, you'd try to be as light and efficient as possible. Ultramarathon canoe racers and runners actually have that in common.

Outside of technique and physical endurance, canoe racing over extremely long distances is a game of inches and ounces, a race where when you look at the physics, you can reap major benefits from minor sacrifices.

A MATTER OF INCHES

All other dimensions equal and paddling being equal, which canoe do you think will be faster, a canoe with a 17' waterline or a canoe with a 16' waterline?

The fact is, what many people (recreational canoeists included) don't realise, is that if you have a canoe with a longer waterline, you will actually have a faster theoretical maximum speed compared to a canoe with a shorter waterline. Let's look at a boat with a 17' waterline (Canoe A) and a canoe with a 16' waterline (Canoe B).

Without actually deriving the formula, the equation to determine the theoretical maximum speed of a canoe/kayak in miles per hour (mph) is 1.55 x SQRT(wl) where wl is the waterline length in feet.

Boat A: 1.55 x SQRT(17) = 6.4 mph (10.29kph)

Boat B: 1.55 x SQRT(16) = 6.2mph (9.97kph)

This may not sound like a lot, a mere 0.2mph (0.32kph), but over 1 hour, that amounts to a distance of 350 yd (320m) or almost a 2 minute lead. In typical marathon races that take 5 to 6 hours to complete, that distance can increase to 1mi (1.6km) and be a time of 10 -15 minutes. In an ultramarathon race such as the Texas Water Safari, over a time of 80 hours, the difference in distance can be 16 miles (25.6km) and a difference between boats of almost 2.5 hours. This scenario is of course under optimum conditions with a zero-sum flow and not accounting for fatigue.

However, races are never under optimum conditions and fatigue is something that everybody has to deal with as well as the fact that with each stroke, the canoe is pulled/pushed forward, but unfortunately the power from each stroke is applied off-centre at an angle to the centreline as such, the canoe will not track perfectly straight as energy is lost and distance is gained as the canoe angles off centre. So what can you do to minimize lost energy?

A MATTER OF OUNCES

Without changing to a canoe with a minimal rocker or keeping synchronized and equal power strokes, you can mitigate energy loss and thus increase endurance by shedding weight, and the weight doesn't have to be much.

If you opted for a carbon fibre paddle that weighed a mere 6 ounces over a wooden paddle weighing 18 ounces, you would find yourself lifting 12 ounces less per stroke. But these 12 ounces equate to 2,025lbs (919kg) less per hour. Over a typical 5 hour race you would be lifting 10,125lb (4,595kg) less. In the Texas Water Safari, a boat finishing in 80 hours would lift an astonishing 810,000 lbs (367,600kg) less.

One of the better ways though, is to actually have the racer lose weight. If a paddler gearing up for a race can lose a mere 5lbs, over the course of 1 hour and holding 45 strokes per minutes, the paddler will be pulling 13,500lb (6,124kg) per hour. Over a 5 hour race that's 67,500lbs (30,620kg) and a boat finishing the Texas Water Safari in 80 hours would be pulling 1,080,000lbs (489,900kg) less through the water. That's over 1 million pounds.

This weight savings also comes into play when portaging, lifting the boat over log jams and of course minimizing friction. As more weight is placed into a boat, it sits lower in the water causing greater displacement of water and greater friction, meaning more force (and energy) is needed to move the boat. If you want, you can calculate the force needed to move a boat of different weights by using the following equation. Rf = 0.97 x Cf x Sw x V^2 where Rf is Resistance in lbs, Cf is the friction co-efficient, Sw is the wetted surface, V is the velocity is feet per second and 0.97 is the fresh water constant.

This weight reduction can be added to almost any aspect of gear you can think of taking, from sleeping pads, to pfd`s, to food. And don`t worry, we`re keeping all this in mind as we prepare for Texas.