Q. Do you Wear Gloves?
A. No...for the reasons stated earlier. Buy some Tuf Foot and use it nightly for a month or two before the race. Bring some waterproof tape to cover any "hot spots" that might develop.
Q. What kind of navigation lights are required, and good?
A. A full set of navigation lights are required for all boats. Even if you don't think you'll be paddling at night. White stern light and the red and green bow lights are required.
A. On the stern, I've seen several folks use the $5 Ozark Trail mini LED lantern that can be found at WalMart. Mount it on the lid of a clear plastic peanut butter jar mounted to the stern of the boat, and screw the jar over it. Waterproof, cheap, and will run the entire race on one set of batteries.
A. On the bow, red and green lights are required. Cheap, and easy, are the Eveready red and green battery powered "glow sticks". Attach with velcro and tape to the boat. Another option are taking Sylvania Dot It H20 puck lights, and cover one lens with red electrical tape and one with green electrical tape. The tap lights attach to the boat with velcro and will last the length of the race. If you want to get fancy, you can find 4-LED little red and green accent lights on eBay that will run off a 9V battery, or any 12V source. I use 8AA batteries to run my pair of red/green bow LEDs. Everything is velcroed in place.
Q. Paddling at night?
A. The race is scheduled during periods of near-full moon AND when the moon is actually out during the majority of night hours. Do NOT plan on running down the river with some kind of light setup on the boat lighting the way. It doesn't work. Use your night vision for the most part. Wear a $15 LED headlamp for instant light when you need it. Carry a LED spotlight or other type of bright flashlight to look for buoys and channel markers (which are reflective, and show up great with LED light). I used a 2 D cell LED Maglite attached to the side of the boat. I could reach down and turn it on, and turn the boat left to right a bit and scan the entire shoreline for channel markers in the dark of night. Find a marker on the far bank, turn off the light and aim for it using the treeline shapes as a guide. One headlamp and one maglite did the trick for me.
A. Note that paddling at night is NOT required to finish the race in under 88 hours. The checkpoint cutoffs are set up to allow for layovers at checkpoints for the dark hours. If you plan to paddle at night you should be prepared with good lighting. It's also a good idea to paddle with a group.
Q. Do you use a single or double blade paddle?
A. Double blade paddles work best in kayaks, surfskis, and race canoes where the paddler sits low to the water. Single blades work best in canoes. some folks bring both to switch up now and then and use different muscle groups, if the seating position in the boat makes it efficient. There is no speed advantage to a double blade (in a craft that makes using either possible) over a LONG race because instead of swinging a 10 oz carbon ZRE single blade, you are swinging a 24oz paddle around, and your overall stroke rate is about the same. All this is my opinion. I paddled an excursion canoe with only a single blade and don't even own a double.
« Last Edit: 12/23/10 at 16:27:09 by N/A »
And I ain't too old to hurry Cause I ain't too old to die But I sure am hard to beat Ride on AC/DC, Ride On
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