Picton Portage Kayak Race 2008
The Picton Portage Kayak Race is organised by the Marlborough Multisport club
The race course starts in Picton with a 10 km paddle passing Mabel Island to starboard and then heading to Torea Bay. Having survived the open and wake crossed waters of the main sound you leap out of your kayak .... and run 2 km up a really steep hill and down dale to The Portage (except that the Pirate staggered around with his heavy, slippery and awkward multisport kakyak at a pitiful walking pace).
Eventually arriving at The Portage it is straight into a 7 km paddle down Kenepuru Sound to the second and last 3km Portage to Te Mahia that takes you back over the hill and into Queen Charlotte Sound at Mistle Toe Bay. Then it is a 10km sprint to the finish line back in Picton.
The Picton Portage Kayak race is a great challenge and you can say in all honesty that you really have achieved something once you cross the finish line.
17 May 2008 was the scene of the Pirates 2nd Picton Portage Race. Petulous weather eased with a great big High Pressure Cell sitting over Picton to give perfect (apart from the fog drama) calm conditions. Forecast conditions were ideal for campaigning my very tippy Apteryx multisport racer. That is the lightest and fastest kayak I have. But being made of fibreglass and heavily repaired from richochetting my way down the Rangatikei River earlier in the year, the kayak has put on quite a bit of weight [a bit like its owner].
The apteryx is probably not the ideal sort of boat for this race. [quite a few doubles do the race resolving some of the more awkward issues of portaging - one person on each end]. This year I trialed a shoulder sling which arguably made things a little easier.
Here is the my ol Apteryx multisport boat ready to walk onto the ferry. The trolley is handy for getting on and off the ferry and is on constant standby for duty in the Picton Portage race. Espcially if I were to get a 'sore back' or decide that I am just too old to be carting kayaks up hill and down dale. There is a 'recreation' division for trolley toted kayaks, but nobody has taken the easy option in the two years I have done the race.
Plans are afoot for making a skin on frame multisport boat for next years race. Hopefully that boat will be fairly light and being being made of wood, should have no sharp edges. The framing should also provide plenty of useful hand holds for portaging. So watch this space ....
Son, Sam is making a skin on frame multisport racer as part of his 7th Form Design Tech course. So far he has made a start on a model - Pros: very, very easy to portage Cons: I need to loose a huge amount of weight to fit in it!!!
For me, this years race went pretty well. I was relegated to starting in the 'elite group' 10 minutes behind normal racers. Being an 'old fart' I soon got dropped from the pack, but managed to stay in touch for most of the first leg. I didn't loose too much time during the portage with my walking up the hill and half jogging down to the Portage strategy.
Indeed I was ahead of last years performance all the way through to the start of the last paddle leg. There I managed to loose quite a bit of time. I am not sure what happened there. I guess I was just that much older and tired.
Conditions were slightly different: This years weather was perfectly calm (perhaps too perfectly calm - I remember picking up a moderate tail wind to the finish in Picton last year and that would have helped boost my speed at that end of the race).
Eventually I finished 4 minutes slower than my last years time.
Being a sad old man I finished 2nd to last on line, but because some paddlers started 10 minutes ahead of me I managed to pick up a few places to finish in what I consider a creditable 5th to last (4th to last, last year). And due to a much smaller field that means I was 13/17 compared to 26/29 last year.
Normally, being a 'mid fleeter' I can only assume that the Picton Portage race being a 'hard' race attracts only hard racers making for a fiercly competitive field - the winners were about an hour faster than little old me.
Obviously I am just going to have to harden up. And if I want to run with the big boys and big girls .... I will have to start running with the kayak. However, training for 'running with the kayak' is a bit problematic around Wellingotn with narrow busy roads complete with buses and usually windy weather ... so the chances of being blown off your feet and/or being run over by a bus while you were out training must be fairly high. That is why my training strategy to date has been to just 'wing it'.
Race Start - Gorillas in the mist?
This years race started with some drama as the start was delayed (due to the fog and a ferry coming in somewhere in the fog - Us racers were suitably impressed it could berth because at the time we couldn't even see the wharf and we were
practically standing on it - oh, and did I mention that there was a humpback whale and calf somewhere just off
Picton and somewhere in the middle of our race course. And a pod of dolphins too.
Unfortunately we never got to see the whales during the race - that would have made it a real adventure race. But the lead double did get escorted by 10 bottle nose dolphins on the return to Picton)
... Then the race was cancelled (due to the fog and race organisers liability issues should somebody get lost in the fog, run over in the fog or capsize and not be found in the fog)
.... then run (due to the fog lifting).
Lining the Apteryx up for race sign in at 0800, things were looking ok
At race briefing ... things weren't looking great: Mabel Island was somewhere out there along with an incoming ferry, a couple of whales and a pod of dolphins
Race start was delayed at this stage
Soon after, racers retired to the coffee shop. But the race did start in clear conditions about an hour later. A pair of racers look on at the Apteryx in disbelief (hiding under the right date palm).
In the end fog actually was a bit of a problem for about 1/2 the Kenepuru leg. I had to do a 'great circle' route, dipping into a large bay to maintain gloomy visual contact with a mesmerising shore line and a fortunately large white launch moored on a point (which I used as a guiding beacon). Luckily, I paddled into clear air at the turning point into Te Mahia Bay.
I made good inroads into the only person I was to pass during the race because at this stage she had got lost in
the Kenepuru Sound fog and had paddled off course into the middle of the Sound. When the fog lifted enough for me to
see her, she had seen the error of her ways and was doing a right angled turn to follow the kayakers in front to the start of the Te Mahia - Mistletoe bay portage.
Portaging a heavily repaired fibreglass apteryx (and any multisport boat for that matter) is a chore of a mission.
Next year I will either be trialling my skin on frame multisport boat (if it ever gets built) or trolley-ing the baidarka. Screw the rules, the intent of the race and ethics. I am an old fart and even I might have to admit that carrying kayaks for 5 km up hills is a bit much.
But sensational weather, glass - oily calm sea conditions, so many jelly fish in places that it was like paddling through brash ice ... the jelly fish were thick enough to slow me down at times, and the race is a brilliant challenge with brilliant scenary.
Certainly you feel like you have achieved something once pass that finish line.
I will be at the start line next year for sure