The 2^nd annual Mayor’s Cup race around Manhattan island was bigger and better this year – drawing competitors from around the USA plus South Africa, Hong Kong and Puerto Rico.

 

The race started from Battery Park near the former World Trade Center location. At the gun, we headed up the Hudson River. An early pack of 4 formed with Herman Chalupsky, Zsolt Szadovszki, Ian Gray and myself.  Sean Brennan was right there at times with Joe Glickman chasing us. We had an incoming tide which gave us a nice push – paddling around 16 km/hr into a light headwind.

 

The pack paddled at a consistent pace trading leaders with nobody wanting to waste too much energy early in the race. The race media boat occasionally sped ahead to get some shots of us from the front. As this happened, a large wake would come rolling across the river and the front pack would split up and sprint to catch a ride of the wakes as they came past.

 

After 20 km, we turned into the Harlem River which gave us an hour of completely flat water. We encountered slack current. At first the front pack hugged the edges of the river, thinking the current would be against us, but then moved out into the center and continued at the same speed (just over 12 km/hr). Again nobody was willing to expend too much energy pulling the pack and we settled into a nice comfortable pace, broken up on occasion when the media boat would send large wakes in our direction – causing the pack to break and sprint for a few minutes catching runs until the wakes had passed.

 

As we approached the end of the Harlem River, I took a chance to grab a Cytomax Energy Gel pack and a good drink. I settled into the “diamond” position, which is directly behind the lead boat with paddler’s riding the wake of the leader on either side. This give a very good ride in a pack – getting benefit from the stern wake of the leader and the 2 side wakes of the paddlers on either side. I took this opportunity to grab a cliff bar,

 

We then came onto the East River and through “Hell’s Gate” a portion that typically has strong converging currents and large standing waves. This year it was nothing – only a few waves less than 1 ft that went virtually unnoticed. Here the current picked up again in our favor as the tide had changed to outgoing. Gradually more and more wave action started to appear.

 

By the south side of Roosevelt Island, the waves had picked up to the point where we could start getting some runs. I took off at a hard pace, trying to get as much advantage as possible out of them. Herman went with me, Zsolt held about 2 boat lengths back and Ian dropped back further. The media boat start pulling ahead with more wakes in sight of the  lead pack. I didn’t want the race to be decided by who was able to surf the media boat, so I pulled out a whistle, blew it loudly several times and waved my arms at the boat to stay our of our way. The boat turned away and left us to our own race. I continued to pull hard and Herman stayed on my wake.

 

Eventually Zsolt started to drop back from us and the media boat started getting closer again. Having dropped the whistle into an inaccessible location, I yelled and waved my arms for them to stay away. Herman charged ahead while I waved and I dropped onto his wake. We cut close to the south end of Manhattan and then past a large ferry that had just pulled into dock. We crossed about 10 meters behind the ferry with a large prop wash shooting behind. Herman pulled another boat length on me in this portion. We then started encountering good size waves that were rebounding off the seawall.

 

Having pulled closer to Herman’s tail, I saw him set his paddle down briefly and wave his arm. At first I thought he had caught a runt that would allow him to stop for a second or two – then quickly the fishing line ran across my chest. I grabbed it with my left hand and pulled it off my paddle, then it was across my neck. I grabbed it again to throw it over my head. As I did this, it wrapped around my wristwatch. I was stopped dead in the water struggling to get the line off. No matter how hard I tried, the tightly stretched line seemed completely snarled around my watch. It was no easy task trying to dislodge the line with a confused pattern of 5’ waves tossing me in all directions. After what seemed like eternity, I finally freed the watch and the line was no across my neck again. I grabbed it with my other had, throwing it over my head with the line taking my hat with it.

 

I was free just as Zsolt pulled up beside me. It seemed that I had been caught for several minutes, when it reality it was likely closer to 20 seconds. I took off chasing after Herman, knowing that with just over a kilometer to go, my chances of making up this much time were slim. I paddled the confused seas to the line, finishing a disappointing 2^nd.

 

It’s hard to say if I would have won, had I not been snagged by the line. I was feeling strong and ready to fight to the finish. However Herman is a tough competitor, had a 1 boat length lead and wouldn’t relinquish it easy.  It would have been a good race to the finish and wish we could have raced it to completion. Another controversial finish on an otherwise well organized and fun event. For me, it was the 2^nd race in a row finishing shortly behind a Chalupsky (after closing to about 15 seconds behind Oscar at the finish of the US Surf Ski Champs).

 

Here are the top 10 overall finishers.