September 21, 2002
The Budd Inlet Race, sponsored by the Sound Rowers and Evergreen Rowing, starts at the Olympia, WA, Swantown Marina and heads north. After some distance the course crosses the channel to the east side and heads back to the marina.
A couple of years ago the conditions had winds of up to 30 knots and waves of up to 3 feet.
This year there was nearly no wind, no waves to speak of other than the occasional pleasure boat wake, the tide was changing from an ebb to a flood, and the temperatures were in the upper 60's/low 70's.
In other words, perfect conditions.
I took Lilac and my Escapade down to Olympia. Rand Milam, who had never before been in a pedal boat but has a lot of recumbent biking experience, took Lilac. I pedaled the Escapade, and planned to take photos during the event as well as monitor my heart rate.
We were joined by Vince McGowan, who pedaled one of Rusty Lane's Cadence's from the Percival Landing rental site over to the marina for the race.
We started shortly after 10 AM. Soon almost everyone else was far off in the distance, with me, an OC-1, a two man canoe and a kayak or two for company.
An 8 person shell purposely started later, to get the thrill of passing people. A 4 person shell did the same. At least it let me get a chance to see them go by and get their photos!
The OC-1 stayed with me around first turn as well as the second. During this time my heart rate was in the 130's.
After turning past the sailboat/second marker, I took a very short break to put up my bimini top whereupon the OC-1 continued on. Despite pedaling with my heart rate now in the 140's to 150's for the remainder of the race, I was unable to catch up with him.
Still, dripping with sweat, I managed to cross the finish line in 1 hour, 43 minutes. This is just 2 minutes slower than my record, set the previous year in a WaveWalker - a faster boat than my Escapade.
Rand Milam set a new course record for pedal boats, finishing the course in 1 hour, 14 minutes, 4 seconds. Vince McGowan finished in 1 hour, 17 minutes, 26 seconds - an excellent result!
The fastest single person boat across the line was a racing shell, with the time of 54 minutes, 35 seconds. This was 1 second behind a double men's shell!
The 8 person shell took 59 minutes, 49 seconds.
Afterwards, the salmon BBQ, salad, and corn on the cob were very quickly consumed by everyone present.
Sigh....this breaks my two year first place winning streak, too. :-)
Pictures can be found at this link.