Lake Sammamish Race
March 12, 2005

This was the second Sound Rowers race of the season, and my first as the race director. You read that correctly - I was the race director!

This all started at the Sound Rowers annual meeting back in December, 2004. The previous Lake Sammamish director decided to no longer be the director. No one else stepped forward to fill his shoes. After a long pause I posed the question "Would the new race director be permitted to change the course?". The answer was "Certainly!". With this I decided to give it a try.

First, I decided to check if it would be possible to start the race at an alternate location. Idylwood Park at the north end of the lake was a possibility. Unfortunately, however, the parking lots were distant from the shore, the City of Redmond wanted to charge a lot of money for the privilege of using the otherwise vacant park, and I'd have to rent some Port-a-potties as the water was shut off at this time of year. One positive factor was the availability of picnic tables, beaches for launching and wide open grassy areas for staging boats.

Lake Sammamish State Park, on the other hand, charged $5 per car for parking. It has a large parking lot near the many boat ramps and docks, but there is nearly always quite a bit of traffic from fishermen, personal watercraft and even water skiers at this time of year. While the rest rooms are open and operational there are really no provisions for picnicking.

Lacking a better alternative I decided to keep the start of the race at the state park.

The rangers at the park were very helpful. They gave me the forms for the special event permit and mentioned who else should be contacted in order to put on the race. All I had to do was provide them with a certificate of insurance and a check for the permit fee and I was in business!

After working out the problem of getting proper insurance for the club, which is a story in itself, all the agency required legalities were taken care of. However, it had been recommended by several folks in the annual meeting that each race director should have a safety plan for their event. In addition, the club's new insurer had some basic requirements, so I thought it would be in everyone's best interests to come up with a safety plan for this event.

The first place I looked was the Sound Rowers race directors' web page. Uh-huh. This page was looking pretty sparse when I first looked at it. All it had was the inventory list, results form and a basic entry/release form.

After performing a moderately extensive web search I was able to find examples of safety plans used by a number of rowing clubs in the U.K. Surprisingly enough, there were very few safety plans posted on the Internet from organizations in the USA.

Taking what looked to be the best features of these plans I combined them into the Lake Sammamish Safety Plan. I added the insurer's safety guidelines and waiver, added an incident report form, and tweaked the race registration form to be specific to the Lake Sammamish race. Whew!

map of the course

Accompanied by a friend I took a pedal cruise on the lake to make sure that the coordinates that I had chosen on a map for placement of the buoys to mark the turns were properly situated. As luck would have it the northern turn buoy, which was to be placed near the tip of a tiny peninsula (Weber Point), already had a No Wake buoy close to the correct coordinates. The west buoy was to be placed next to another No Wake buoy at Vasa Park near the southwest corner of the lake, and the eastern buoy would be placed just off the eastern shore near yet another No Wake buoy.

This would be pretty easy to replicate in the future even without the use of a GPS receiver.

The day before the race another friend and I took his speedboat out on the lake to place the buoys. It seemed to both of us that placing them the day before the event would help reduce the stress levels on race day. Besides, it was sunny and reasonably warm, with temperatures in the mid 60's - a perfect day to be out on the water!

On race day, however, the sky was a threatening dark gray. It was fairly chilly, too, with temperatures in the 40's. The forecast was for a sunny day much like yesterday, but it certainly didn't look like it would get that way any time soon!

Upon reaching the park at 8 AM I met with one of the extremely helpful park rangers, Heath Yates, who provided me with group discount parking vouchers. The vouchers reduced the cost of parking in Washington State Parks from $5 to $4. Every little bit helps!

Registration area

I was able to find an empty parking spot directly adjacent to the planned registration area. This was most fortunate, as there appeared to be at least 20 other vehicles and trailers already parked in the lot for some sort of fishing derby. I unloaded everything and started setting up the registration area.

Paul Rollinger had arrived sometime earlier and had already set up signs directing people to the park entrance. He had also dropped off a variety of folding tables and other paraphernalia to assist with the race. Meanwhile, he was setting up his outboard motor driven inflatable rubber raft in order to be on the water as a fourth safety boat.

Parking person

Sue Dandridge arrived and I assigned her the task of flagging down the racers as they arrived and handing them parking vouchers.

After getting the tables assembled the registration materials were set on them, held down in the breeze with rolls of duct tape. Registration was open!

Registration area

Sound Rowers president Marty Myers and I handled the registration. Later on Martine, the wife of one of the racers, took over for me so I could better set up the food and drink on a nearby stone wall. Deb Natelson, in addition to preparing for the race, set up a coffee and tea table using supplies she donated from her ecclectic Renton coffee shop Jet City Espresso. Things were shaping up!

Parking spot for an 8

The 8 person rowing shell from Sammamish Rowing arrived from their warm up trip starting at the other end of the lake. Unfortunately, with the lack of rain this winter the docks were sticking too high out of the water for the boat to pull alongside. It was quite difficult for them to disembark along the shore with the presence of all the bushes there, too. Maybe next year we get arrange for either more rain or a low floating dock!

Things continued at a somewhat hectic pace. I assisted in registrations to make sure that low boat numbers were given to the long racers, and high numbers were given to the short racers. This was to make it easier to identify who was in which race when they crossed the finish line. We only had a couple of mix ups, all but one of which were quickly corrected.

Registration area

I also tried to make sure we kept track of which racers were Sound Rowers members, Sammamish Rowing Association members or Masters Rowing Association members, and which were just not members of any of these organizations. The Sound Rowers insurance carrier covers Sound Rowers and MRA member racers. I was offering a discount to the Sound Rowers rates for Sammamish Rowing Association members in recognition of their contribution of safety boats and volunteers, but would have to make up the difference in the cost of insuring them. Non-members were charged the individual insurance fee plus the basic $7 race fee, resulting in a race cost of $15 per person.

While this was somewhat more than the $10 per person price of last year's race I figured that the fact that lunch was included would help ease their fiscal pain. It might also convince more people to join the club!

There was one more wrinkle in the registration process. If a racer was in the Junior class, which consists of racers 15 and younger, there was a $3 discount. This was intended to make it easier for the new kids to participate along with the older and, supposedly, more financially secure adults.

While it seemed rather complicated it actually was not too difficult in practice. Marty and Martine handled it with aplomb.

Get to work!

My wife arrived with my Cadence on the roof of the car. The idea was that during the slow times it would be available for someone to try out. She also took over photography duty while I was busy with other tasks. Well, she did take a few pictures, but not quite as many as I had wanted.

Launching Valet service

I had a couple of last minute quick meetings with the safety boats and handed them copies of the safety boat plan and instructions. They already had read these from my e-mails and web postings, but I wanted to make sure that they had copies in their possession. We exchanged cell phone numbers and at the last minute decided to use a different VHF frequency. Oh, well. These things happen!

Two of the boats had only a FRS walkie-talkie and cell phone. They would have to suffice.

I was somewhat surprised to see the arrival of the King County Marine Patrol. They had been notified of the race, of course, and had provided me with a permit. It was nice of them to come and check things out!

The Long pre-race meeting was held only slightly behind schedule. I went over the course, describing how the starting line was between the two orange buoys at either end of the boat launch area and how the course headed due west to the right of the readily visible far shoreline towards another orange buoy. This buoy marked the boundary of a region of dead heads. Everyone was to stay to the right of the buoy and continue west to another orange buoy. Once there, they were to turn in a clockwise direction around it and head to the north end of the lake where they would see another orange buoy. Turning clockwise around that one they would then return to the north end of boat ramp area, go around the orange buoy and finish between the south orange buoy and the pole by the south dock.

In addition, I made sure people knew that this was an open course, that if they saw anyone in trouble they should stop to assist, andmade sure that they knew we had copies of safety plans and course maps available at the registration table.

Lastly, I described the starting signals to be used. The starting bell (U.S. Coast Guard approved, and environmentally benign!) would be rung furiously 5 minutes before the race. It would be rung once one minute before, and then rung furiously at the start of the race.

Warming up

It was rather a different feeling watching people getting their boats ready and heading out, knowing that I was not going along with them. It was also going to be difficult from shore to get the kind of photos I preferred to take. Perhaps next time I could get a photographer volunteer in one of the safety boats.

9:55 AM arrived, and the bell was rung furiously. My ears rang, too. People out on the water seemed to take notice and were either moving into starting positions or were taking one last warmup run.

9:59 AM arrived, and the bell clanged once. Not very many people seemed to notice it.

They're off!

Watching the seconds tick off on my wristwatch 10 AM finally arrived and the bell was rung furiously once again as I clicked the stopwatch. I also tried to juggle a camcorder in an attempt to get some starting action as the field moved off. I soon gave up and headed back to the registration area.

They're sinking! 1st Rescue

Unfortunately one of the double rowing shells collided with a fishing boat that crossed perpendicular to the starting line just as the signal was given. The shell collided with enough force that its deck separated from the hull for a length of at least 20 inches, causing the bow to immediately submerge.

Investigation

The fishing boat stopped and provided assistance, pulling the bow man from the water. The boat rose up quite a bit enabling the stern rower to stabilize the craft with his oars. The Marine Patrol quickly came onto the scene. They discussed the matter with the people on board the two boats and made out an accident report.

Returning to shore

The double slowly returned to shore under the power of the stern rower. Paul Rollinger was nearby in his Avon ready to provide support as needed. What a way to start the day!

Unloading a Cadence

My wife had to leave, so with the help of Ron McDonald and his new son we got it down from the car. Thanks, Ron!

I spoke for a few minutes with the guys with the broken shell. They were understandable depressed about the situation, and wondered if open water racing was something they might not be cut out for. I reminded to them that they were not the only folks who collided with things. The Storb's were relatively famous for their proclivity to try merging with various obstacles during races! I wished them well, offered them food and hot drinks at the registration area and headed back.

Launching an OC-12 OC-12 at dock

People were still arriving for the short race, and the pre-race meeting was only a couple of minutes away. It also appeared there was too much food. Only a couple of the muffins had been taken, along with a couple of bagels. A couple of water bottles were gone, too. People will be hungrier after the race, but it appears that having a good pre-race selection was not very important.

Pre-race meeting

The pre-race meeting was held for the short course. Everything from the earlier meeting was repeated, with changes made to describe the earlier turn truncating the trip to the north end of the lake. I made doubly sure to tell people to yield to all other vessels as the course is open to them.

Dan Henderson, of Cascade Canoe and Kayak, was there with a bunch of younger racers. He also brought along some folks with safety boats to help provide better coverage in watching them on the course. This was great, especially considering that a couple of their boats were things like high kneel canoes, which can be quite unstable.

OC-12 preparing to leave Fulmar 19 and kayak Jeff's pedal boat

Most of the boats were in the water now and starting their warmup. Jeff Wittenfeld brought his Fulmar 19 pedal/sailing trimaran and was pedaling around the No Wake buoys. The 8 person shell was trying to leave the shore, but ran into some difficulty getting past the brush, the dock and some old pilings. Eventually they succeeded and headed out.

The sun started making an appearance, and the westerly wind seemed to be somewhat lighter, too. Perhaps this would turn into a nice day after all!

Lining up to start

With the same race signals as for the long I waited as the seconds to the starting time ticked off. At precisely 11 AM the bell clanged the start of the second race and they were off!

Short course departs Short course departs

There were no incidents at the start of this race. The Marine Patrol boat stayed at the rear, monitoring the boats as they made their way west.

Meanwhile, I was getting intermittent reports of the progress of the long race over VHF and cell phone. The FRS walkie talkies were pretty useless. The distances were just too far for these 2 mile range radios to function.

Just after the racers left two more folks drove up and said they wanted to race. One didn't have a PFD, so I lent him mine. When they both were ready to go there was another countdown to synchronize their departure with "race time", and off they went!

Going over the registration forms with Martine and Marty we determined that we had roughly 90 racers, volunteers and associated spectators. With roughly 3 people per pizza that means we would need 30 pizzas. We could afford the price of Costco pizzas for lunch - as originally planned!

I called the nearby store at 11:18 and ordered 30 hot pizzas to be picked up by noon. "No problem", they said.

I sent Ron McDonald and Jackie T-R to fetch the food and pick up some additional soft drinks. Thanks, guys!

Racers return

While I was waiting for the racers to return I began dividing the foam core score boards into a grids with one row for each boat and five columns. The columns were labeled name, boat #, class, time and place. It probably would have been better with name, boat #, time, class and place, but that will have to wait until next year. There was a separate board for each race so as to simplify scoring.

With the help of Marty, Martine and an unknown volunteer handling a pair of binoculars we divided the finish line duties as follows: the observer with binoculars would get the boat number as the boat approached the finish. Marty read the stop watch and range the bell as the boat crossed the line. Martine wrote down the boat number in advance of the finish, and then wrote their time. I transcribed the information to the score board.

Next year I'll have the score boards pre-gridded so the data would not need to be transcribed. As it was, I was still making the grid while boats were crossing the line!

First course being consumed

Noon came and went, and quite a few of the racers had finished their respective courses. Where was the food?

I told people that pizza was coming, and to hang on. Some of the food left over from before the race was disappearing, and fairly rapidly.

Pizza leftovers Socializing

Ron and Jackie returned around 12:25 with a giant stack of pizza boxes, several cases of soda and 5 pairs of gallons of juice. He also told me my math was "just a little off" as I apparently didn't give him quite enough cash for the venture and he had to use some of his own. Oops! I quickly made up the difference - what's $100 among friends?!

The crowd quickly dived into the pile of pizzas and drink.

There was still one racer on the course when the post-race meeting was held. Awards were first made to the participants in the Long race. The first boat across the finish would have been the double rowed by Rainer and Adrian Storb, except they neglected to go around the buoy at the north side of the boat ramp. They were most dismayed as they had been in hot competition with another double rowed by Theresa and Jeff Knakal. That couple did follow the instructions and ended up crossing the line ahead of them with a time 1:40:52. This is an average speed of 7.9 mph. After a minute or two the Storbs decided to go back, go around the buoy and cross the line legally.

It turned out that just about all the racers who finished the 13.3 mile long course ended up in first or second place in the class. That's what happens when there are relatively few boats and lots of classes.

During the awards Vadim Kin, the final racer on the long course, made it across the line. The crowd gave him a rousing cheer and applause, which was reflected in his big smile as he approached the shore.

The short course awards were handed out next. The 6 mile race was won by a Junior class double kayak with a time of 48:51. This translates into a speed of about 7.4 mph.

More socializing by leftovers Cadence on dock

During the ceremony Mohsen Banan, piloting one of safety boats, picked up the buoys from the course. His boat has quite a bit of speed to cover the distance and, thankfully, the room to hold several inflated buoys at once. He was able to collect them all in short order. Thanks, Mohsen!

It turned out that the ratio of people to pizza was closer to 4:1 rather than 3:1. Either that, or some large groups of people left without eating. I ended up giving most of the leftover pizzas away to participants and volunteers.

On the other hand, just about all of the two cases of water, and the two cases of sodas were consumed along with nearly half of the gallon bottles of juices. Next year those ratios will need to be adjusted, too.

I handed the scoreboards to Jeff to translate into web spreadsheets, thanked the volunteers and began packing up. It took a while, but by the time we left the place was cleaner than it was when we had arrived. Time to decompress and get to work on post-race accounting and web photography processing!

Thanks again to all the volunteers who helped make this race a success!


Random Statistics of Finishers

Percentage of racers being SR members49.44%
SR members in Long Course80.00%
SR members in Short Course37.50%
SRA-only members in Short Course18.75%
Men in Long Course68.00%
Boats in Long vs. Short28.57%
Men in Short Course73.44%
Ratio of Juniors to others8.99%
DNS (did not start)1 boat
DNF's2 boats
Avg. speed of fastest Long finisher7.91 mph
Avg. speed of fastest Short finisher7.37 mph
Avg. speed of last Long finisher3.94 mph
Avg. speed of last Short finisher3.63 mph
Boats missing the last turn & had to go back4
People per pizza consumed4.94
People per vehicle2.47
People per boat (overall)1.59
People per boat (long)1.56
People per boat (short)1.60
Person-miles traveled in race716.50
Average cost per racer (including parking)$12.20
Safety Boats on course6+
Rolls of duct tape depleted1
Boat numbers lost0

Post Race Musings

The whole thing felt just short of a Chinese fire drill, if I might use that old vaudeville reference. If not for the help of the other volunteers (Paul Rollinger and Mohsen Banan, especially) it could have been much less "smooth".

If I continue with directing the event next year there are several things I would change to improve the organization:

  • Make sure each racer knows that they are on an open course. This is already spelled out in the Sound Rowers sign up sheet, but who reads that? This must be emphasized to excess in the pre-race meetings.
  • Check off a list of the issued numbers to make it easier to see who was still out on the course.
  • Change the web page to mention that there are parking vouchers available at the registration table. This was a last minute finding and devoted a volunteer full time distributing vouchers and flagging down incoming racers to tell them about it.
  • Make better use of the Sound Rowers membership list to make sure that folks who say they are members really are up to date dues-paying members of the club.
  • Use the air horn for the starting signals. The bell is fine for the finishes, but perhaps not loud enough to reach the furthest racers. I guess the bell would be OK if it were used from the end of one of the middle docks.
  • Order fewer pizzas, muffins, M&M's and juices; no bagels, pretzels, fish crackers, Skittles, G.S. cookies.
  • Give the club camera to someone (not piloting) in a chase boat for some on the water shots.
  • Depending on the water level (this year was really low) try to scrounge up some low floating platforms for the rowers. Either that, or maybe switch to the beach area, though that would be a problem to coordinate with the chase boats and the swim area ropes might get in the way. We'll have to see if the proposed changes to the park make it work better for us to move the start.
  • Have someone less involved with things monitor the radios and cell phones, and have enough VHF radios for each safety boat to be equipped. I'd also do away with the FRS radios entirely.

The timing worked out pretty well. I had the short race start exactly one hour after the long, so the math was easy. Having the boat numbers start from either end of the spectrum made it easy to determine which course they were on. We only needed 3 people to do it: a spotter, a timer and a recorder. I was there to transcribe it to the poster boards so everyone could see the results later - and to give to Jeff to put on the web.


Photos I took during the race can be found here.

Ron McDonald's photos of the event are here.


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