22nd Annual New England Canoe-O Champs
June 27, 2010
Event Director: Aims Coney
What a great day for canoe-o! 41 people and 5 spectators made the trek to Crow Island in the Assabet River in Stow. This section of the Assabet is celebrated for its nooks and crannies, bays, narrows, and fabulous scenery, plus multiple portage options along Track Rd,, the future route of the Assabet River Rail Trail. Several shoreline landowners generously agreed to allow control flags to be hung on their land and the courses were far more interesting as a result.
Andy Hall and his flat-water racing partner Kris Archibald were the favorites coming into the day on the Championship course. Last year paddling a solo canoe Andy blew away all the tandems and this year he and Kris were way out front, almost 24 minutes ahead of the next boat. 2nd place as nabbed by a strong new team of Shawn Burke and Jamie Doucett. A conundrum for everyone on the Championship course was the Mountain Top control, number 4 of 14. It forced teams to either split up and meet at later point, such as control 5, or for one teammate to linger on the shore while the other went for the control. Since the slowest part of canoe-o can be moving the boat, the teams with a successful split and go had a serious advantage. Perennial favorites Seth and Steve Miller were undone by that control however, losing over 25 minutes with Seth and Steve struggled to meet up again after splitting. A mixed team of Andy and Lisa Mykyta, paddling a race boat for the first time, did very well, capturing the mixed championship, edging Vanessa Wood and Keith Durand by four seconds. Solo honors went to J-J Cote, who had to deal with the Mountain Top control all by himself.
The medium course wasn’t much shorter than the Championship but didn’t have the Mountain Top and didn’t have the 3K portage used by Andy and Kris, J-J and others to jump way upstream to Rock Bottom, but was still pretty tough. Pia and Mark Webb took overall first place and the mixed New England Championship paddling a heavy 1980 Old Town Tripper. Terry Myers Coney, in a 27 pound 1983 Wabash Valley Meadows Special racer was first solo female, and Karl F Stephens grabbed the Men’s championship, paddling and dragging his ultra heavy plastic kayak.
For those who didn’t care to carry (or drag) their boat we had, new this year, a Clunker course where no portaging was required. This was originally intended just for embarrassingly heavy or slow craft, but it proved more popular than any other course and several folks with nicer boats also entered.
I’d like to thank some special volunteers- Lisa and Andy Mykyta registration, Savitri Kahlsa starter, Sam Levitin finish, Scott and Phillip Turner, finish, and J-J Cote control pickup, including the Mountain Top.
And, many thanks to Jeff Leiserson and Jim Paschetto who allowed me to need the venue secret until the last minute then added the details to the weekly club email and the website.
Finally, we owe great thanks to landowners Don Rising, Linda Cornell, Curt Taska, Bob Collings, and especially Rob Albright, owner of Crow Island, without whom this would have been a very boring meet.
View the course map in the NEOC RouteGadget archive.
Team | # in boat | Class | Boat | Elapsed Time | |
Championship- 8.7K SL, 14 controls, 1 mandatory portage, 160M Climb | |||||
Andy Hall &Kris Archibald | 2 | Male Team | Canoe | 1:17:44 | NE Champ! |
Shawn Burke & Jamie Doucett | 2 | Male Team | Canoe | 1:41:26 | |
Ian Smith & Brandon Shields | 2 | Male Team | Canoe | 1:54:33 | |
Lisa & Andy Mykyta | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 1:57:43 | NE Champ! |
Vanessa Wood & Keith Durand | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 1:57:49 | |
J-J Cote' | 1 | Male Solo | Canoe | 2:09:53 | NE Champ! |
Steven & Seth Miller | 2 | Male Team | Canoe | 2:26:42 | |
Helen Demakes & Gary Gallagher | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 2:34:00 | |
Nicholas Morton | 1 | Male Solo | Kayak | 2:39:09 | |
Medium- 6.8K SL, 10 controls, 1 mandatory portage, 15M Climb | |||||
Mark & Pia Webb | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 1:29:20 | NE Champ! |
Lex & Pete Bundschuh | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 1:47:05 | |
Terry Myers Coney | 1 | Female Solo | Canoe | 2:08:08 | NE Champ! |
Savitri Khalsa | 1 | Female Solo | Canoe | 2:25:57 | |
John & Nea Savoca | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 2:28:42 | |
Karl F Stephens | 1 | Male Solo | Kayak | 2:33:46 | NE Champ! |
Paul & Aaron Bourget | 2 | Male Team | Canoe | DNF | |
Clunker- 5.3K SL, 6 controls, no mandatory portages, 6 M Climb | |||||
Jeffrey Tingle | 1 | Male Solo | Kayak | 1:04:50 | NE Champ! |
Scott & Phil Turner | 2 | Male Team | Canoe | 1:07:43 | NE Champ! |
Sam Levitin | 1 | Male Solo | Canoe | 1:12:27 | |
Kelly Guarino | 1 | Female Solo | Kayak | 1:12:33 | NE Champ! |
Andy McIlvane & Patty Moran | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 1:13:34 | NE Champ! |
Don Hall | 1 | Male Solo | Kayak | 1:14:52 | |
Carolyn Lister | 1 | Female Solo | Kayak | 1:50:40 | |
Bruce & Judy Wester | 2 | Mixed | Canoe | 1:52:05 | |
Mark & Diane Whitehead | 1 | Mixed | 2 x Kayaks | DNF-meet director error | |
Short- 1.9K SL, 5 controls, no mandatory portage, 2M Climb | |||||
Jonathan Rose | 1 | Male Solo | Kayak | 0:22:27 | NE Champ! |
Connor Tingle | 1 | Male Solo | Kayak | 0:30:17 | |
Mark & Diane Whitehead | 1 | Mixed | 2 x Kayaks | 0:35:38 | NE Champ! |
Spencer Tingle | 1 | Male Solo | Kayak | Medical withdrawal | |
People | 43 | ||||
Boats | 29 |