A premature end (Sunday 1 May)

From Shell

We had made it to race day at last! With perfect conditions forecast (15kt E, 4ft wind waves, N swell) I was confident it was going to be the greatest day of racing. Charms and I were lucky to be able to have a bit of a sleep-in having dropped off our gear at Hale o Lono Harbour the day before (after a slippery drive down the perilous road of doom in our Dodge hire car).

We were finally down at Kalua Koi and set up the Hurricane – double taping the iaku, “just in case”.  Soon enough I was on the water and heading out to the start line after negotiating the beach break as we had practiced the day before and Charms was swimming off to our support boat.

After circling around warming up for 30min, it was time to line up. I was happy to have found some space on the far right of the line, where the girls were all starting together (there was only one start time this year). The hooter went, and it had begun!

Just off the island the swell was quite small, and there were just the smaller wind waves to catch. My favourite! As I switched between the bumps I had a smile on my face, as I thought of Mandy laughing at me, at how much I love these kind of conditions. The swell started to pick up. I was able to catch a few, but was tossed around on a few too. I thought there was going to be a lot of learning over the next few hours, but it was going to awesome fun. I had managed to stay with the main girls pack, and picked a chick up in front to keep a hold on.

As I veered back left to get the next set of swell, I heard a snap and felt the left foot pedal go flat against the hull. This wasn’t right! It was just 30min into the race, and our support boat had raced ahead to drop off Charmian (although I didn’t realise this at the time). Realising I had no steering, I stopped paddling and tried to figure out what had happened. After a brief inspection, I realised the rudder cable had snapped at the left pedal. By this stage the conditions had become quite rough, and it was getting difficult to sit stationary on the canoe, but I thought it was fixable.

Unfortunately, we had dropped well back behind the pack by this stage, and had caught the attention of the official boat. After 5min I was still struggling to tie the tiny piece of cord back onto the cable. Brian had heard the call over the radio and had looped back to get me. Charmian jumped into the water, not knowing what was wrong, and with her on the ama, it became easier to attempt our mend. I thought I had managed to attach the rudder cable, but when Charmian hopped on, we still had no steering. The official boat was calling for us to be pulled, but we wanted more time to try once more!

Charmian tried valiantly to paddle with no steering. But it was just too difficult with the rudder forced over to the right. Our race had ended before it had really had a chance to begin. We pulled the Hurricane up onto the support boat. It took a while for the fact that our race was over to sink in. I was somewhat incredulous that something had gone wrong – I had planned so carefully, practiced everything, brought spares, checked the canoe. It was devastating after so much planning and organisation, time spent training, help and contribution of others and the sacrifice to other parts of our lives to make this happen it seemed a cruel way to finish this journey.

Jim honestly felt he had given us the best Hurricane to use for the race – and it was nice and light, with a stiff hull. Unfortunately, hidden beneath the plastic tubing, the cord between the rudder cables and pedals was completely worn. If the left one hadn’t have snapped, the right one would have at some stage during the race. It definitely reminded me how important it is to keep a boat well maintained. Whilst it looks simple enough to fix, it actually requires the whole internal rudder cable to be replaced to get the right tension. Also, trying to make repairs whilst bobbing around on the ocean is near impossible.

From Charmian

Watching Shell paddle out over the beach break I went for the swim. Little did I know then that I would swim more of the channel than paddle it. I was mildly frustrated that our boat was furthest from the shore and relieved to get to it eventually in one piece having to dodge a lot of pointed bows with excited paddlers on board  thinking of anything but watching for heads in the water, but retrospectively it was the only exercise I was to get so , all good.

Brian our driver was somewhat reticent about getting too close to the start, but seeing the boats over in the distance I could imagine the delight that Shell must be feeling to have finally arrived there. The hooter went and a great tidal wave came our way as the start line shot out . At this point one of the support boats started sinking and taking on water and sent out a Mayday call. Relieved it wasn’t us, I waited for Shell to come into view. Brian was hanging back as the main woman’s pack came by.

I watched in delight to see my partner doing so awesomely well over this unknown terrain. We followed at a distance, saw others huli and change early (as legropeless a woman lost her boat), this according to Brian should have resulted in dq’ing because one of the support guys swam to hold it upright. But Shell had none of these problems she just kept riding the waves and looked to be having fun.

The swell got bigger and the sea got bluer and I just couldn’t wait to get on. We had the call over the radio to say that changes could start. I was cross that Brian took off to drop me in without going over to Shell but she was on the far right and apparently we weren’t allowed to cross the line to get there. Anyway the time had come…..I was there ready to wave, ready to jump, with my paddle. But….no Shell? A radio call from the official boat filtered through my focussed consciousness, it was saying canoe  166 needed support as the rudder was broken. It didn’t compute that this was my canoe. This couldn’t be happening-our canoe was doing so well, it was my turn and I couldn’t wait to get on the canoe. But it was.

We went up front to watch the leaders and learn from them. What else could we do?

The snapped left cable, and badly worn right cable revealed from beneath the plastic casing in the background