A tale of lost paddles, and other mysterious stories…
Another Regatta…. DONE AND DUSTED….SMOOTHLY!!
What was forecasted to be a stormy and a wet day, nothing was stopping the Komodo warriors from racing. The day turned out to be perfect!
One could not see any waves on the lake and this caused a little bit of a confusion to the paddlers, since they had to adapt to the situation and try to bring back memories about how to make a good start when the boats are not tossed around by the waves.
Before we jump into the writeup, let us seize the opportunity to say a big thank you for our volunteers and the coaching team for the awesome effort in making this regatta a success.
The day began with two sweepstakes 500ms races, where ACT State crew – Women and Opens (10s boat) raced against the clubs (20s boat) …. Bring on the competition!
WAIT, No time to rest…..let’s marshal for the 2K race! The women’s boat created waves, powered through the other boats in the race, and finished with a cracking time of 12:08.15. Races #5 and #6 were combined, which resulted in two Komodo boats in a single race. Was this a pursuit? NO! Each Komodo boat put their best effort and achieved the two best timings in the race. Komodo BLUE led the way with an advantage of 9.3 seconds ahead of Komodo WHITE.
The two seasoned Komodo sweeps, Aunty M. and Ads, were focused on crushing the competition, even if our boats didn’t have the right of way on several occasions. They had to “tap down” the boat’s rate 80 percent and 50 percent rate, BUT we were relentless! We anticipated the lifts and used every window of opportunity to our advantage.
On to the 200ms…. Is the coffee trailer here? NOT YET!
We had almost forgotten the feeling of doing a 200ms race in a 20s boat. The boat was powerful, heavy, but we churned through the races by remembering to ‘twist and thump’. The reinforcement calls from our sweeps – “Yes, crew”, “One machine”, “I want more” helped overcome the lactic moments and reminded us to finish the race with exhilaration.
In the middle of all the marshaling, coordination and intensity, our config masterminds were planning the distribution of power in the boat — CAN WE IMPROVE PERFORMANCE and POWER!?!
We were excited to see the two interstate clubs:
- Mako MAKO
- Western Waratahs / Red Dragons
They put up a great performance, especially in the final (last) race where Mako finished ahead of Komodo WHITE by 2.7 seconds!
After a long night spent with analysis our coaching crew figured out that this result could be the consequence of a rushed start. From a “journalist point” of view that is too factual and boring, so after a 20 seconds spent with thinking, let’s say that the winning crew used some kind of alien technology which allowed them to bend space, thus gaining that 2.7 seconds.
This assumption could explain the stories being told about paddles mysteriously disappearing and breaking through the day…
Nobody confirmed these stories, but that does not mean they could not be true. Was it aliens, or simply the lack of caffeine?
To summarize the day:
- We went there to win.
- Open 2K: smashed it.
- Mixed 2 K: got penalized, smashed it anyway.
- 200 Women: smashed it.
- 200 Open: smashed it.
- 200 Mixed: almost smashed it.
Will we do it again?
- Yes but better.
How?
- We do not know (yet)
We will be back with more unprovable theories and with even more nonsense questions.
A&V, a frivolous news agency Est.: Sunday
