Vernon FWC 2010

The annual Vernon Fresh Water Challenge race was again held on the August 1 holiday long weekend.  Sunday saw the women's, the mixed and the short iron course begin early in the morning. Normally in this race the temperature can be close to  40^o Celsius. The daily wind cycle from the sun heating the surrounding land causes strong southerly afternoon winds to affect the men's race. This year was different however.

A change in weather conditions saw the temperature down in the mid 20^oC range and a very strong wind in the morning over 20 knots at times. This presented a strong headwind for 2/3 of the 45 km race, leaving 1/3 of the race for some downwind surfing.

Much of the downwind portion, however, lay in the lee of the steep shoreline and long downwind help was not available. The top women's team still took 4 hours 39 minutes hours to complete the race. Race Results are HERE.

The difficulty experienced in the women's portion of the race prompted race officials to reverse the race course direction for the men's portion of the race giving a protected headwind portion and 2/3 of the race surfing home. This, of course, prompted many female voices to complain about the men always ending up getting the best race course, "again". :-)

Many of the top performing Canadian teams use the Vernon change race to sort out who will be going to Catalina or Molokai and to practice changes in real life conditions. For first time change racers, this race provides great learning in sorting out how the changes work under pressure. The Vancouver Island VI Va'a crew were using the race to sort out their crews targeting the Molokai races in September.The VI Va'a women intentionally used 10 paddlers and ended up second but cannot claim an official 2^nd place due to the extra paddler.  False Creek came in first and Ocean River came in officially 2^nd but with a slower time than VI Va'a.

The VI Va'a men's team gave a strong second place finish in just a hair over the 4 minute mark behind the local Pentiction team. ORPC came in 4^th spot with just over 12 minutes separating the 1^st and 4^th place positions. ORPC had an epic 14/100^ths of a second to-the-line battle for the 3-4 spot with Pacific Reach.

VI Va'a also fielded a Rec mixed crew in the short course iron portion of the race. They did did extremely well, coming in second overall, just behind the False Creek men's crew. Yaaa, Yaaa!

As always, the Vernon Fresh Water Challenge of 2010 was a successful race. I, for one, thought it was a resounding success (at least it seemed that way from my not so hard working spot in an escort boat.)