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< September/October 2003
	Hotline

Compact Canoeing
Go e-paddling with Digital Canoe Coach

Tired of enduring those embarrassing wipe-outs in your canoe class? Sick of forcing chemistry with an instructor you don’t get along with? Paul Mason thinks you might be, which is why he developed the Digital Canoe Coach, a unique program that uses digital technology and imaging as a form of at-home, whitewater canoe paddling instruction. It’s the futuristic way to learn how to paddle.

Basically, you send him video footage of yourself paddling. He then reviews your technique and sends you a CD, in Mac or PC format, containing edited copy of your original footage to point out your mistakes. Mason, a former freestyle competitor, cartoonist, filmmaker and son of legendary Bill Mason, includes footage of himself performing the proper move, and even digitally in-lays himself and you on the same wave. That way, you can see exactly where your strokes and boat should be. "Most people usually boof too soon, and on the CD I can place it where it should be," says Mason, 41. "It’s very precise and there are a lot of ways to digitally convey what you want to say it. When you’re on the river, all you can say. People can use a cursor to freeze the frame anywhere they want and make use of slow motion, and it gives me time to give instruction."

Mason says the $190 price tag provides more instruction than someone would typically receive in a full day and notes that the Digital Canoe Coach is whitewater specific for all abilities. "This saves a person a week of messing around," he says. Info: www.wilds.mb.ca/redcanoe/paulm.html, pmp@magma.ca.

—Matt Hansen

Teva Mountain Games Rock Vail
Highlights include Paddler Magazine Extreme Race, Eight-ball and Rodeo

What were top-level kayakers Arnd Schaeftlein, Steve Fisher, Tao Berman, Jimmy Blakeney and Clay Wright doing in the basement of Vail’s Evergreen Lodge jawing with climbing’s top pros? It was all part of Vail’s Teva Mountain Games, this portion a seminar put on by event organizer Untraditional Marketing on how to better promote and run the Games. "You kayakers all show up in your tricked-out cars while we still have trouble paying rent," said one climber. "You have to find a way for an event to show that feeling you get when it’s all on the line," said another. Then it was the kayakers’ turn. "The events should be like extreme skiing," said Schaeftlein, "and reward people’s lines and deduct mistakes." Added Berman: "In an extreme event, you should have some swims." (This year’s Paddler Magazine Extreme Race on Homestake Creek had exactly that, living up to its extreme billing with Schaeftlein swimming during practice and Ben Coleman and Tommy Hilleke swimming during the competition.)

Though the brainstorm session didn’t settle anything, it did let participants vent and suggest improvements for future events. Not that this year’s event wasn’t already a few strokes better than last year’s Games. It started with the extreme race which rattled the nerves of even wily veterans and saw 16-year-old Pat Keller careen through the sieve-laden chute to take first place, and a small piece of paddlesports’ $16,000 purse. "Adding the extreme race added some serious meat to the Games," says organizer Joel Heath. "It provided some great footage and its coverage on Fox Sports Net should help take the sport to a new level." The crowd then descended upon Vail Village for two days of rodeo—with the $2,000 first-place prize won by Dustin Urban and Tanya Shuman—and the crowd-pleasing Eight Ball—wherein competitors must run a gauntlet of saboteurs to win—before culminating with BoaterCross and raft racing on the Eagle’s Dowd Chutes. Like Homestake’s rocks did to the extreme racers, sandwiching these events, were mountain bike races, trail runs and climbing contests, bringing the total purse for the four-day event to $50,000. But competitions aside, as usual with events of this nocturnal nature it was the Teva Ball on Saturday night that got competitors dizzier than the playhole. "We saw record numbers in registration and spectators," adds Heath. "This event just continues to gain momentum."

—edb

Bay Stroker
Paddler commutes to work via kayak

If there’s an extreme opposite to road rage, Don Baugh has it. The 49-year-old Annapolis, Md., paddler ditches the automobile-choked freeways of the nation’s capital and instead kayaks to and from work on Chesapeake Bay. Instead of driving with the masses, where middle fingers, horns and obnoxious radio deejays serve up a daily dose of madness, Baugh sees great blue herons and the gentle ripples of water. "I don’t know how to describe it in words," says Baugh, who runs an environmental education program with the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "It’s really a religious experience. I feel a constant spiritual connection with water and the bay."

He’s been commuting that way for more than 10 years. For the first several years he paddled three miles to and from work. But after the Chesapeake Bay Foundation moved down the road, his commute was lengthened to seven miles, a distance that takes him roughly an hour and a half each way. Baugh, who lives 100 feet from the water, got started one fall morning by borrowing a friend’s old boat, and convincing his wife that the paddling would be good for his back and abs. He didn’t have any gear and used old oil skins during foul weather, which came promptly to the D.C. area that fall. "Those first few weeks were hell," he says.

After buying the appropriate gear (and receiving a Necky Lookshaw from his sympathetic friends) he keeps himself comfortable until the temperature drops to around 15 degrees. "It’s not really my hands that get cold but everything just ices up," he says.

Despite the cold weather of winter, he likes the dark, chilly season best; the air is brisk, no one else is on the water and it’s silent other than the steady drip and dip of his paddle. Besides keeping him fit and spiritually connected to his environment, Baugh says there are other benefits to a kayak commute as well. "You don’t need coffee," he says, "and you’re always in a good mood."

—mh