A Race with Improvers

I taught a fun class near the end of September, taking students down to a little tiderace that forms under the George Washington Bridge, right here in Manhattan.

I called this an an improvers class, as everyone had some experience sea kayaking, but wanted to develop their skills a bit. The tiderace was just a bonus feature to practice against.

First, we practiced near Dyckman street, in the last bits of ebb tide, working out the fiddly bits.

A wee bit of practice.

Then, we headed south, towards to bridge.

Sally forth!

On the way.

I've mentioned the GWB tiderace before. In a post from last year, I described it a bit of a trip Kayak Dov and I took.

At the start of the flood cycle near the bridge, a wider body of water starts flowing past Jeffrey Hook, where the Little Red Lighthouse sits. Furthermore, if you look on a chart, it's clear that the hydography has a steep, banked curved in the long bay south of the bridge. The effect is that a large volume of water gets squeezed and accelerated at the hook, and the surface water piles up and back over itself. As these waves form, they appear to fall, bizaarely, back towards to flood current. As the effect builds you can actually surf upstream, and if some sizable wake arrives from, say, a passing barge, you can ride some dumpy waves in excess of 1m in height. It can be quite exciting.

For these students, it was a safe, low-consequence environment to gain confidence in somewhat rough water. What I like about the area for instruction purposes is two fold. First, there's a sizable eddy just north of the hook, making for a safe spot to retreat to or observe from, as well as a "ski lift" effect to make multiple runs practicing peelouts. Additionally, since it's a flood current, in the worst case, swimmers and boats and kit will all float back towards where we started.

Getting a taste.

Perfecting a stance.

We did have one rescue. Towards the end of the session, we did get a bit of wake that vaulted the wave heights to 1-2 feet from behind us. I shouted a heads up to my students, reminding them to keep momentum and either ride the wave or let it pass under. One was indecisive, and capsized. I was able to recover him, and called the rest over to the eddy. As a group we decided to end the tiderace portion of the session and practice rescues, with the current carrying us back to our starting position.

Taking a pumpout.

Enjoying the scenery.

Observing others.

I really enjoyed this session, and was happy to have a sizable group for instruction. It's an area I am constantly learning more about, and having a group of students with different goals and abilities pushed me to develop my coaching ability - focusing on one or two things at a time for each participant.

At the end of the day, we were treated to a weather system moving in, some potential precipitation crowding out our sunny day.

Farewell to the Bridge.

I hope to do this again next year - maybe more than once.

Little Red Lighthouse Swim

I put in some time on a familiar trail with some new faces - the Little Red Lighthouse Swim, organized by NYC Swim.

The Little Red Lighthouse is a retired lighthouse just below the George Washington Bridge. Someone wrote a children's book about it not long after the bridge was built; the gist is that the lighthouse was despondent over no longer being needed, what with the bridge's arching span and foghorn, until one foggy night only the lighthouse's light could stave over a rocky doom for local vessels.

In real life, the lighthouse was retired from service yet persists as part of Washington Park, which is quite literally down the road from me. If you were to walk downhill about two hundred feet and then south about five blocks, you'd be there. So, I signed up to support the swim in my kayak, along with several friends from the Inwood Canoe Club.

Now, this race was different. For one thing, it was a lot farther than the swim portion of the Triathlon - over six miles at least, longer by my reckoning. It also exposed swimmers to stronger currents, putting them out in the channel for most of the race, and in less sheltered waters. The moderate breeze we had managed to kick up some foot-high waves at certain points - mountains, if you're swimming in the water.

Another different is that current plays a much stronger role. Now, regular readers will recall that I have gone on at length about current and wind on the Hudson. In this case, the race started with some ebdd current left, but quickly turned to flood current, heling the swimmers. Unfortunately, not everyone in the race seemed to realize what that meant (and to be fair, for the swimmers it's hard enough to see anything, let alone the direction you ought to travel). I found myself telling people to make hard rights or hard lefts to avoid boats and other obstacles, because a gentler turn would not take them where they needed to be.

That said, once we got past the initial launch, when everyone is crowded at the front, things went along decently. Those of us in kayaks keep an eye on the swimmers, watching for gaps in coverage, and chasing down wayward swimmers. I might joke it's the slowest paddle I've made with current to Dyckman street - altogether, about four hours in boat.

To get there, I paddled the Argonaut out of Pier 96. Incidentally, against near maximum ebb current (actually, not near - it was max ebb). It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, using the usual tricks - stay close to shore, make a ferry crossing when moving across the current. I made it up to the staging area at 79th street in about half an hour.

I also saw something I wasn't sure happened. Do not read any further if your are squeamish or easily grossed out.





Very near the end, one of the last swimmers paused and tread water for a bit. I asked if he was OK, and he said yes. He asked if that was the end, and I said yes. We drifted a bit and I asked again if he needed help, and he said no. Then he threw up. A couple of convulsions, still treading water. "Let's get you in," I said, and he started to swim. I let him go. he made it in.