Canoe Challenges and Contests (Oddball Division)

[Guest]

I mentioned the Canoe Orienteering Challenge in another thread, a group/club event which remains my favorite. We held a couple of other oddball group challenges and contests every year. Hidden within the fun were some skill improvements

The Crazy Canoe Olympics. Several different, uh, peculiar events.

Bow Only. One paddler the bow. Style points for not using the seat in tandem but crouching way up in the stem. Mass launch, once out around the marker out in the lake (bleach bottle on an anchor) and back to shore.

A mass mess of canoes weaving and veering wildly, with some inadvertent bumper car action and capsizes. Not suitable for expensive composite canoes.

The lightweight kid paddlers often did best. My younger son took first one year stuffed way in the stem of a Dagger Tupelo; the \ canoe started fill up with water over the sunken stem as he rounded the marker, and he submarined just as he touched the finish line.

Stern Only. One paddler, in the stern, but restricted only to back paddling out around the marker and back. Harder than you would think with a mass of other canoes around you, or worse in unsee-able in your way up ahead (behind). Also a hilarious mess.

You could tell the folks with WW experience and better backpaddle boat control. Provided they got out clear to an early lead.

Two paddlers in a Tandem. With a choice of paddlers facing each other across the middle, or paddlers facing away, each towards the nearest stem. The practiced tandem teams rarely had much competition, especially if one of them was calling out side and stroke commands.

But the unpracticed teams were more fun to watch.

Lake Poling. Set up by a poling friend, who supplied the poles. He used more of a slalom course, and made sure the outer marker was well beyond pole-able depth, so some windmilling was necessary if the pole plungers were still upright.

Not a fair contest if there are experienced polers involved, but again, the unpracticed were the most fun to watch.

Those asinine Canoe Olympics always had both the contestants and audience laughing their arse off, swimmers included. And there were some actual paddling skills to be learned. Or awkwardness to be avoided.

 

[yellowcanoe]

slalom
course
Run
in reverse
solo

 

[Guest]

slalom
course
Run
in reverse
solo

I had a well known whitewater canoeist show up on a day trip to paddle a Class 1 river. I knew of his paddling accomplishments and open boater skills, but had never paddled with him and was surprised to see him show up for that club trip; not really his kind of river.

He was great company, and he paddled just in front of me while we talked about this and that.

That wide ranging discussion was made easier because he paddle almost the entire trip backwards while facing me.

 

[yellowcanoe]

i like to paddle backward too to converse
When there is noise a reverse wedge is called for
My first whitewater lesson the instructor had is run a mild stretch backward
Probably to show us that we would not die

 

[Guest]

The annual Canoe Orienteering Challenge was absolutely the best of those silly contests. Both for the participants, and for the paddler crew doing the set up a few days before.

Canoe Orienteering Contest. Hand painted scrap wood “Duckheads” on stakes, hidden in the Marsh, denoted on a hand-out map with compass headings from a piece of surveyor’s tape at the water’s edge.

Side note – The set up was at least as much fun as participating in the hunt, maybe more as the production crew got more and more devious as the years went on. To wit:

“OK, #17 is 87 feet NNW of this surveyor’s ribbon marked on the edge of the marsh” Except that 87 feet NNW is measured across the water to the other side of the gut, and you landed on the wrong side before looking at the compass dummy.

“OK, this one should be easy, #20 is only 15 feet from the tape”. Except the flag tape is in the middle of a 200 yard long bank of pluff mud (we landed 100 yards away and salt marsh cordgrass hummock jumped over from there to place the marker).

BTW, that silly Canoe Orienteering Contest was the most laughs we ever had as a group of paddling friends, First, Second and Third Place finisher awards, Muddiest Canoe Award, Last Place Award (a new compass). We did not have Participation Trophies, but we really should have.

I highly recommend setting up a devious Canoe Orienteering course if you have a half dozen or more paddling friends or belong to a paddling club. It will absolutely serve to heighten the participant’s map and compass skills, and their situational awareness, if not their level of trust in the devious set up crew.

More on that most highly recommended group event.

The set up took four guys in two tandem canoes all day, but it was always worth the effort. The set up crew staked out painted wood Duckhead markers some compass heading and distance away from a bankside flag (surveyor’s ribbon) tied at the marsh edge. The two crews would head in different directions around the marsh loop, each with a couple dozen artifacts to emplace. The time consuming part of the set up was the note taking, with compass headings, measuring distances and map marking.

And, as above, figuring out the most challenging (devious) ways and places to place the flags and artifacts.

The Orienteering Challenge ran on the Honor System. The participants received a photocopy of a topo map with each collectible “Artifact” (painted wood Duckhead) location marked and numbered.

The Duckheads were worth between 1 to 4 points, depending on the bankside difficulty of landing, retrieve-ability and paddling distance away, so there was some strategic thinking involved; three or four quick easy one-pointers, or try for a couple high value targets? Who is ahead of us? Who is behind? Can I drop off the bowman at #13 and paddle on solo to try for #14?

Along with the marked topo map photocopy each canoe got a printed spreadsheet listing the artifact # (as the field of contestants got larger every year I made additional Duckheads, the last few years there were an even 50 hidden in the marsh; it was seriously long hard day setting out 25 markers), as well as the Point Value of each artifact, the compass heading and distance in feet from the flag.

Plus some (maybe) helpful hint or clue to be deciphered. From copies of the handouts: “A lonely thyoides stands in your way”. “Finding this might stump you”. “At the fork take the Ondatra trail less travelled” “Are you a little across with me?” “Below the Pandion abode” “As the slough narrows, near the M. coypus trap” (I caught heck one years from a nutria trapper who showed up the same day we were running the orienteering challenge)

“Just a stroll through the Phragmites”. “Across the island the calamus flag is sweet”. heck, just writing the hints & clues during set up was fun, and a little natural history lesson is always good to include.

If curious, Sweetflag

https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com...?species=11718

Good luck with winter identification. Bwahahahaha.

The Canoe Orienteering Challenge ran on the Honor system. The first team to recover a Duckhead artifact removed the bankside marker flag, not that subsequent teams didn’t waste time looking for a flag far up some gut only to discover that it was already gone.

Total each boat’s point score on the leader board as they arrive back at the launch. Have a buffet, drinks and chairs available for the early arrivals awaiting the later returnees. The slowly gathering crowd at the launch was always a humorous source of comparative tales of woe and misadventures. Wonder why it was taking Chip and Kara hours to return (she was stuck almost irretrievably in waist deep pluff mud) and eventually award the “prizes”.


Edit: Those of you familiar with Canoeswithduckheads prose will appreciate this. CWDH was part of the Canoe Orienteering set up crew for several years. Just imagine how puzzlingly convoluted his hints & clues were.

 

[pblanc]

I am surprised you did not mention canoe stacking on Raystown Lake, Mike.

 

[dougd]

Like this Pete? Wish I had a picture of Topher and Nightswimmer doing a duo stack with 4 canoes one year. Glad I was on shore!

dougd

 

[pblanc]

Yup, a really futile and stupid gesture. And they were just the guys to do it.

 

[Guest]

Yup, a really futile and stupid gesture. And they were just the guys to do it.

I have a framed series of old 35mm photos on the shop office wall that I believe illustrates the first ever triple stack poling challenge. I note that two of the three boats being abused are mine.

In sequence; Topher standing with pole in my RX Explorer, pulling the second boat (my RX Freedom Solo) across sideways, changing his stack plan, disembarking the Freedom Solo and pulling Tom’s Wenonah across as boat #2, clambering back up onto the second level (still holding his pole in one hand), pulling the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] story (Freedom Solo) across, climbing up, and successfully poling the triple stack.

A large part of that stupid poling challenge was stacking the canoes without assistance.

A more futile and stupid gesture was Topher and (IIRC) DougD’s attempt at the bad idea of tandem poling.

Not tandem poling together in the same canoe, no no no, but tandem poling by placing two (unattached) canoes side-by-side, with each poler planting one leg in each hull. When the two canoes inevitably spread apart it turned out that manly groin areas were not designed to accommodate such a waterbourne split.

Admittedly I sat comfortably in my canoe nearby and encouraged that attempt. What are friends for?

 

[Chip]

The annual Canoe Orienteering Challenge was absolutely the best of those silly contests. Both for the participants, and for the paddler crew doing the set up a few days before.

Come on, Mike, do it again! I know you still have those duckhead markers tucked away on a shelf (and labeled). Those events were fun.

I don't think Mike mentioned he ran the event in March, when water and mud in the Blackwater NWR is about 40F and the weather is usually cool, windy, and sometimes raining. F-U-N.

 

[dougd]

I have a framed series of old 35mm photos on the shop office wall that I believe illustrates the first ever triple stack poling challenge. I note that two of the three boats being abused are mine.

In sequence; Topher standing with pole in my RX Explorer, pulling the second boat (my RX Freedom Solo) across sideways, changing his stack plan, disembarking the Freedom Solo and pulling Tom’s Wenonah across as boat #2, clambering back up onto the second level (still holding his pole in one hand), pulling the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] story (Freedom Solo) across, climbing up, and successfully poling the triple stack.

A large part of that stupid poling challenge was stacking the canoes without assistance.

A more futile and stupid gesture was Topher and (IIRC) DougD’s attempt at the bad idea of tandem poling.

Not tandem poling together in the same canoe, no no no, but tandem poling by placing two (unattached) canoes side-by-side, with each poler planting one leg in each hull. When the two canoes inevitably spread apart it turned out that manly groin areas were not designed to accommodate such a waterbourne split.

Admittedly I sat comfortably in my canoe nearby and encouraged that attempt. What are friends for?

I don't recall doing that with Topher but considering the climate of Raystown that doesn't surprise me at all! ;-) I have no doubts that Topher and I gave that a shot though!

 

[Guest]

Come on, Mike, do it again! I know you still have those duckhead markers tucked away on a shelf (and labeled). Those events were fun.

I do have a large box, labeled Canoe Orienteering Markers. What I’m not sure I have left in me is another 8 or 10 hour spell of clambering up muddy banks, knee deep marsh boot mucking, falling in holes and getting in and out of the canoe twenty five freaking times in one day doing the set up.

The set up was always a long arduous day; while the high score participants might get in and out of the canoe to collect 4 or 5 markers, the set up crews got beat to heck emplacing all 50 of them.

Still, I am compelled to encourage folks with paddling friends to attempt setting up a Canoe Orienteering Challenge. The comparative tales of woe and misadventure as folks returned to the take out were one especially enjoyable part.

Why are Jean and Mark so muddy? (Poorly planned strategy for exiting the canoe into pluff mud). Why is Laura and Patrick’s canoe filled with Spartina grass? (Couldn’t manage headway into the wind up one narrow slough and pulled themselves along by grasping at grass stalks). Why do Patty and Theresa always take last place? (They paddle out, recover a single artifact and call it good, spending the rest of the day sitting there drinking beer, laughing at the competitive idiots and giving misguided directions)

OK, I may have enjoyed that Canoe Orienteering Challenge in part because my wife and then young sons took First Place for several years running, before other folks clued into their winning strategy.

Their winning strategy: Three of them paddling a tandem, all reading the map and route strategizing, with an eye out for who was ahead or behind, or who was heading which way or up which gut.

Diane would land the canoe against the bank at a flag, and stay in the boat holding it there. A very important task, more than once folks returned to the water with a hard won marker to discover that the wind or tide had taken their unoccupied boat for a ride. There was one instance of salvage rights, “Oh look, an abandoned vessel, floating along with a couple of Duckhead markers in the bilge, guess we’ll help ourselves those points before we thoughtfully tow the canoe back”. Salvage rights or piracy, there was some discussion.

To aid in egress and reentry Team McCrea brought a half-moon shaped “mud platform” (piece of plywood with a rope handle to unschlooop it from the mud suction), to help in getting out and back into the canoe without dragging 5 lbs of stinky marsh mud into the canoe each time.

My sons would jump out on the platform and scamper up the bank, a task better suited for lithe and lightweight kids, compass in hand and commence a dual search along the correct route while Diane called out compass corrections if they wandered off line around obstacles. “Come left 10 degrees”

It helped that they knew that marsh well, knew that the loop and guts were tidal waters, and came prepared with the day’s tide timing to assist their strategizing. Tidal action in marsh loop with a thorofare through the narrow neck makes for interesting choices; free ride out, or back, or maybe both ways if we take this route around in the wind. Wind was a big factor.

It also helped that we owned a couple of 100 foot tape measure reels, with tent stakes at the bitter end (we needed them for the set up crew), so their “187 feet away SSW 210”, and “alterniflora – patens -alterniflora yet again” clue was spot on, especially after they learned the scientific names of some local flora and fauna.

A convoluted marsh was the ideal location for Canoe Orienteering. We used the Thorofare Marsh Loop in Fishing Bay Wildlife Management Area. Long a favorite marsh paddling venue, a 5+ mile circuit around the loop, add another few miles for side channel excursions and some tramps afoot through the marsh or across a couple high ground forest islands. My favorite marsh paddle in Maryland, but no place you want to be in bug season.

http://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Documents/fishingbaymap.pdfhttp://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Documents/fishingbaymap.pdf

From the launch folks could head in any of four directions, with dozens of guts and sloughs to be explored for marked artifacts. Strongly tidal waters, and the Orienteering Challenge was always held in the bugless winter months (on non-hunting days).

We tried Canoe Orienteering once on a many fingered lake, but it was too open at the launch and quickly became more of a race than a chess match of strategies. A convoluted swamp venue might work as well as a marsh.

Wherever, if you have friends who enjoy a good hunt and a good laugh, and maybe need to work on their map & compass skills, an orienteering challenge is a wonderfully worthwhile event for all ages. The kids and especially seemed to have fun. A few newbie adult teams had a problem being wet, cold and muddy in more challenging weather years, and never came again.

But a lot of folks came back to suffer another day of cold marsh mud year after year, so it was a good yardstick to gauge un-whiney paddling companions.

The set up crew is of course ineligible to compete, and needs to go back a week later and recover any (few) uncollected artifacts and flagging. Their reward for a hard day’s labor was waiting at the launch to greet returnees, starting up the stoves and handing out warm food and cold drink while tabulating the results.

That end nuttiness is too much fun for everyone involved, especially with the gathering crowd at the take out watching the leader board and laughing about each other’s foibles. That is a crazy fun scene as folks paddle in, and it gets more raucous with each returning canoe.

Seriously worth a try. If anyone is interested I’d be happy to mail out a leftover topo map copy and example spreadsheet of compass headings and bizarre clues.

 

[Sweetfancymoses]

I stumbled across this yesterday. Incidentally, when people ask us what we do when we go canoe camping, I tell them that the first mate paddles and that I water ski behind her.