One Stroke Over the Line
Bob Vincent does not take a DNF beside his name in race results lightly. The 62-year-old marathon canoe-
ist from Dorchester, Ontario, had twice entered the Texas Water Safari—billed as the world’s toughest boat race—but limped away with a “Did Not Finish” both times. In 2003, Vincent paddled in a six- person crew but left the boat when de- hydration threatened. In 2004, he and his partner wrapped their canoe around a rock and abandoned the race. The Safari is a gruelling 418-kilometre,
non-stop race down the San Marcos River to the Gulf of Mexico that has tested pad- dlers since 1965. Mid- June temperatures often top 38 degrees. The portages—and there are many—con- ceal poisonous spi- ders and snakes. The river is strewn with tree trunks torn from the banks by flood waters and alligators prowl its lower stretches. Paddlers must carry all of their food and gear; a support crew can only offer water, ice and verbal encourage- ment—for what it’s worth. When Vincent and I finished reason-
BY DON STONEMAN
Marathon canoeing means pushing yourself—and sometimes being pulled by your partner.
I was also intrigued by what I would
learn from spending more time in the canoe with “Coach Bob,” as he’s known to the readers of the col- umn he writes under that name for the USCA’s Canoe News. “Bob loves to analyze every
aspect of paddling, racing and training,” says editor Gareth Stevens, “He’s fascinating to be around if you share, even slight- ly, his obsession for paddling.” For Vincent, it is the variables of racing that have captivated him for
trunk I clung to. We waited until daylight for Vincent to perform
his canoe-fixing magic. I will give short shrift to
our ordeal of capsizing in a dark San Antonio Bay, when we swam to the shore and spent most of the night dozing on a flooded grassy island waiting
for the howling wind to die down. And I will merely summarize the last part of our journey along a ship-
Vincent packs his 170 pounds onto a potent 5’8” frame. He bench-presses 245 pounds. And he would not stand for another DNF.
the last 40 years. “It’s so quiet when you’re on the water
by yourself,” he says. “And so incredibly intense when you’re bearing down on another canoe.” And so, on to Texas. We wanted to finish in less than 50
ably well at the 25-kilometre 2004 United States Canoe Association (USCA) Nation- als, he asked me to race the 2005 Safari with him. I laughed in his face. The look he gave stopped me in mid-chuckle. A week later, I called to tell him I had changed my mind. Vincent packs his 170 pounds onto a potent 5’8” frame. He bench-presses 245 pounds. And he would not stand for another DNF. If anyone could get me across the Safari’s distant finish line it would be Vincent. Vincent, with his trademark polka-dot
cotton welding hat bobbing steadily, had finished the 740-kilometre Yukon River Quest from Whitehorse to Daw- son City twice, once as overall winner after out-psyching and out-paddling a pair of strong and younger kayakers in a faster boat.
hours, and so we had suffered through winter aerobic training in the cold rain and snow. Vincent had readied our 18.5- foot-long hull with extra bulkheads to stiffen and strengthen the 30-pound Kevlar eggshell. I will spare readers the gruesome de-
tails of the race. I will skim over the fact that at the first liftover portage a few hundred yards into the race I unwisely ran so fast I dropped our canoe, breaking a gunnel that Vincent would later fix. I won’t dwell on the new personal re-
cords I set for projectile vomiting in the heat of every afternoon. Vincent kept paddling while I rested, drank, ate and recovered. I will skim over the crash into trees the
second night on the river when Vincent patiently coaxed me off the mid-river tree
ping canal, following a compass bear- ing in the dark while dodging old piers and fighting waves until dawn. We fin- ished after 69 hours, to the relief of 30 onlookers who were worried because we had disappeared for six hours.
What I will be sure to mention, how-
ever, is that at the finish line one of the historic greats of the Safari approached to congratulate me and tell me it had taken him four atempts to get his fin- ishing plaque in the C2 class. I nodded, and thanked him, but I didn’t tell him he should have first tried it with Bob Vin- cent for a partner. I spent the next two weeks on power-
ful antibiotics fighting infections from in- sect bites incurred while sleeping on that flooded island. Soon I was racing again, amazed at how easy 20-kilometre races had become. But when Vincent called and told me that just bettering his DNF finishes wasn’t enough, that he was go- ing back to the Safari in 2006, all I could do was wish him well. I did learn a lot from paddling with
Coach Bob as an example. I learned my next attempt at the Safari will have to wait until I am older and tougher.
—Fifty-year-old Don Stoneman races canoes and instructs marathon paddling in south- western Ontario.
C A NOE ROOT S n
4 5
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68