okay this a vent and a question. yesterday in moku's mens open 4 race is where the frustration finally blew up. coming out of a dead heat 1st quarter mile with puna and kai opua , keauhou coming out of our turn is faced with a official boat in our lane. so at that moment when we are getting up speed out of the turn (in a 4 man!) the boat driver accelerates and twists 90 degrees and heads off from lane 3 towards lane 4. the result was 4 1' wakes that instantly hit keauhou and stopped all speed gained out of the hole. in a race that decided by 1-2 seconds each week this is a pretty big factor.
the next race in the mixed open the same official boat was in lane 6 this time. yes that was keauhou's lane, not sure of that was on purpose, but this time he did what i figured he should do. he slowly drifted past the boats and let them pass before twisting and hitting the throttle and throwing wakes.
im a bit confused, how does the officials choose what boat to follow. if following a boat wouldnt the driver by at least the end of the day know how to position himself to not put up large wakes in the middle of a flat water race course?
this is not a 1 time event either.
the whole keying of officials cars is horrible and that is pushing it way to far. we all leave it out on the race course and take nothing personal
thanks
Submitted by islandlife on Sun, 06/27/2010 - 7:08am
Blame your coach, you finished in second in the previous week behind Puna, Puna chose lane 2 so your coach could have chosen lane 1 (In MOKU lanes are chosen by clubs in the order of finish of the previous regatta. In Hilo the inside lanes are preferred). The official boat is never in lane 1 and is very often around lane 3 - 4 and for for the faster boat turns (first 4 lanes), then moves over a few lanes to watch the slower boat turns. Pay attention. Enough already.
#1 Sun, 06/27/2010 - 7:29pm
that doesnt answer anything or address the boat wake issue.
my confusion lies in inconsistency of the official boat race to race.
i would think with all the rules paddling has they would have guidelines
for official boats to follow exactly for the same results race to race.
the very next race was totally different then the previous one with the
officials course and actions during the race.
so why the change? why did they move from lane 3-4 like you said they are always in to
lane 6-7 for that race?
everything you stated is common knowledge
#2 Sun, 06/27/2010 - 8:27pm
Kaiwiki- Correction on your post. There are always 2 official boats on the race course to watch for turns. The official motor boats divide the the race event in half based on the number of entrys. Meaning, if there are 8 canoes on the race event then OB-1 will watch lanes 1 - 4 and OB-2 will watch lanes 5 - 8.
Island life- For the wakes, those come from the boat drivers. The boat drivers are not officials. They carry the officials but are not officials. Make sense?
I think a lot of those wakes that are being experienced by your crew/club may be the location of the start boat at the start of each event. From my view , it seems the start boat may be to close to all canoes on the start line. A lot of times the official boat plays catch up after the start to go up and watch for turns which causes the wakes that your crew/club experienced on the way back to finish line.
SOLUTION, because MOKU runs a quarter mile race course, it would be ideal to have the official boat located half way between the race course. This will eliminate a lot of those wakes that you speak about. One, it gives the boat driver a 1/8 mile to re-position its self for canoes to pass by safely, wake free and it saves $$ on the gas.
#3 Sun, 06/27/2010 - 9:34pm
There are two Official boats on the course. One watches for violations in lanes 1-7 while the other watches for violations in lanes 8-14.
The Official boat's "inconsistency from race to race" you question is due to where the potential violation will be based on the position of canoes as they proceed to the turns. The officials have to be in position to make accurate calls if a violation occurs. This is different from race to race. At times, more than one potential violation is likely at the same turn. The official observes the first potential violation and then must move, if possible, to be in position to clearly observe if the second potential violation indeed occurs.
Official boat wake during regattas is inevitable. Canoe wake is also created. For example, in yesterday's regatta, the lead 18-boys crew generated a 6" wake. The lead Freshman men's crew generated an 8"-9" wake! As the official following these two crews, I observed this personally and made mental note knowing paddlers complain about wake every weekend but don't realize that if the canoes are generating wakes of this size, Official boat wake will occur as well. The only way officials can be in position to make accurate calls of interference and flags touching the water on turns, is to travel down the course at the same speed of the canoes.
Not trying to be sarcastic but, the only way to minimize Official boat wake is to minimize the speed of the canoes. This won't happen so, we must accept the fact that Official boat wake is an integral part of regatta racing.
Each of the Official boats has an official with decades of experience officiating as well as paddling. We are clearly aware of paddlers concerns and do our best to minimize wake. Now that paddlers are aware of our responsibilities as officials, I trust this helps to clear the air.
#4 Sun, 06/27/2010 - 10:09pm
Eddie, your "Solution" won't work. Accurate calls can not be made 1/8-mile away from turn flags.
#5 Sun, 06/27/2010 - 10:20pm
What do you folks do under windy conditions? Complain that your lane is more bumpy than the lane on the inside?
There is always next week. To be honest, the original poster sounds like a typical rower. That group complains when a fly lands in their lanes.
This is outrigger paddling where we deal with whatever situation that may come in front of us. We are typically looking for "conditions". To complain about a 1' wake, well, that sounds like a bunch of rowers.
Again, it was one race. Enjoy the fact that you are out on the water and don't dwell on things out of your control.
#6 Mon, 06/28/2010 - 4:23am
ocean conditions are fine with me. i like surf and bumps coming from 1 man.
now when you get artificial wakes that were not "natural" that hit pretty much only 2 boats (kai opua 3rd and keauhou 2nd) that can cause some frustration. this is a question not a vent, long distance season will be here soon enough and nothing like this will matter. cannot wait!
i have gone over the scenario im talking about in my head many times and the only thing that could of been different
was the official boat taking a different line behind the canoes to avoid "i must move now or get hit". 10 feet to the left or the right it would of been all good as the offical would not of had to accelerate 90 degrees across the course.
the canoe wakes are going in a direction where they will not stop momentum. the angle of the official boat waves were straight at the canoes. heck in the right position you can ride boat wakes of other canoes ahead of you if you line it up right.
whats rowing?! :) is that the sport where they paddle facing the wrong way?
#7 Mon, 06/28/2010 - 6:06am
islandlife,
Moku has an annual coaches and officials clinic where we go over new as well as the more important established rules. Please come to contribute your ideas and learn more about what the officials have to look for and where we have to be in order to make the right calls. Perhaps you have some ideas we can implement for the future.
#8 Mon, 06/28/2010 - 6:44am
If the main purpose for the official boats is to watch for turn infractions why not have them on the far side (beyond) the turn, whether 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile. That way they could watch the canoes as they come down to the turn and after all canoes turn they could follow them back to the finish. Zero wake, but probably makes too much sense as they are used to following/watching the race!
#9 Mon, 06/28/2010 - 5:51pm
We will then be on the 'blind' side of the canoe and unable to see whether the ama indeed ran over the flag or not...especially when we have to look at 7 lanes! The canoe hull will be obstructing our line of sight. What may seem to make sense, may not always accomplish the intended objective.
I invite anyone who doesn't understand what an officials job is, to come on the boat for a couple of races and live in our shoes for a bit. I'm sure you will then understand.
#10 Mon, 06/28/2010 - 6:01pm