Jackson Kayak

Well, Ivan came on Friday and the Nationals were on Sunday. I don’t know what the organizers were thinking when they didn’t move the event to Saturday. The Potomac River flooded out Dickerson and created a flatwater course out of a normally world class whitewater slalom course. The event wasn’t cancelled, which was a good thing, it was just held on a class 1 rapid, with 13 gates, crazy. Most competitors came trained up for hard moves in hard whitewater. The “show must go on” and it did.

There were about 20 people from Canada, and about 50 competitors in the men’s kayak class. I borrowed a boat from my good friend Danny Stock, who I coached in the early years of his slalom career.

The Olympians from Athens were there- Brett Hyle, Scott Parsons, Rebecca Giddens, and Joe Jacobi. Also two time Olympian, Eric Giddens was there, as well as past US Team members like Jason Beakes.

I got in the water at the start a little late, not realizing that there were bibs missing and that my master plan to do a 10 minute warm-up would be replaced with a 30 second; put my skirt on and get into the starting gate and go. My first run was off from the start, hitting the second gate because I was low in it and tight on the outside pole. I got to the bottom in 66.7 seconds and had a 2 second penalty, putting me in 10th place after first runs. On my second run I had time to warm up and was starting to feel like a slalom boater again. I got down the course in 64 seconds and didn’t hit any gates. It only moved me up one spot, since the times are combined, but I finished in 9th place, not too bad. I was happy with my moments of brilliance, even though they were combined with moments of indecision as I tried to remember what a 13 foot boat paddles like and how to get through some of these gates fast without hitting the poles.

The fun parts of the event were both competing and seeing the best slalom racers of the USA again. The water being flat was a bummer for everybody, and certainly didn’t do me any favors in my performance. The harder the water the more it plays into my skill set, not that I don’t have plenty of experience doing nearly flatwater gates over the 13 years of full time training I did from 1984-1996, most of the workouts being on the Feeder Canal.

I took some photos of the best of the best in the USA. Scott Mann won the race, showing that just because he wasn’t on the USA Olympic Team- he was the man to contend with on this day. Scott Mann (www.scottmann.com ) would have had the best shot of making the Olympic team in 2004 if it weren’t for a funky qualification process and a bad stroke of luck under that process.

I tried to get Rebecca to pose her six pack for you but she got shy on me, talk about a fit woman!

Emily and Dane were quite interested in racing but the rules require you to check your boat to meet specs and neither of them have a boat, so the Fun 1 and 2 Fun would have not passed by about 7 or 8 feet, meaning no race. I think it is time to introduce them to a little slalom action, since they both have the aptitude for it and may want the option to compete in the Olympics in the future. It will be interesting to see how they like it. I think, ultimately, Emily will be more apt to get hooked on it.

The new rule change in 2005 that shortens the minimum length of the boats from 13’2” to 11’6” will make it much more fun for me. I will likely work with David Knight and design a boat, make the plug, and have PS Composites make the mold and three boats for me. A really cut down one for Dane, a cut down one for Emily and a full size one for me. Jackson Kayak slalom boat? All I know is that David and I saw several “short” slalom boats that were now debuting and they were simply scaled down versions of the full size ones! This is the type of mistakes boat designers were making in 1990. The opportunity to create a boat that does so many things better than now is in front of their faces. David and I shook our heads when we saw what these designers thought the new boats should look like. So far the athletes are particularly liking the new smaller boats, and I don’t blame them. Unfortunately, unlike in freestyle where every boater has experienced the rapid and radical changes in boat design, and realize that just because something is new doesn’t make it better, the slalom boaters look at a shorter boat and lump all shorter boats together and create their opinion based on trying the single boat. Sorry for the run on sentence there.

Anyway- Once we finish our creek boat, and two river running creek boats, look for a 11.5’ slalom kayak from us. Also look for a radically different boat than you see the in the current slalom boats.

OK, so this will likely be the last of the slalom articles for another 6 months or so. The next one may be with my new boat, we’ll see.

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