Passy competitors survive weather; Cushman wins

WALDO – H.I. Hasey paddled to the shore and pulled out his kayak after finishing the Passagassawaukeag River Race Saturday. A few people standing on the river banks looked at the Bangor resident with smiles and shakes of their heads. Hasey’s blue Kevlar helmet was caked in ice, and small icicles were hanging off the helmet’s sides.

Hasey’s helmet seemed among the iciest cases at Saturday’s race. There were plenty of participants scooping snow out of their boats, scraping ice off equipment, and scurrying back to their cars and trucks to change into warm, dry clothes.

But canoe and kayak racers are hardy, and for most of the competitors in Saturday’s 31st annual race, the weather – which seemed to alter between snow, sleet and freezing rain – didn’t cause any problems at all.

Kenny Cushman said he couldn’t remember racing in such bad conditions, although the cold, ice and poor visibility weren’t a big deal. The Hampden resident rebounded from a disappointing finish last weekend to place first overall in his kayak, an easy win over second-place finisher Fred Ludwig of Houlton and Bangor’s Jeff Sands, who was third.

A total of 112 participants competed in 69 boats despite the conditions.

“I’ve never seen anything this bad but I thought everything went pretty smooth,” Cushman said after the awards ceremony. “I didn’t even really notice the weather once I got going.”

Cushman, Ludwig and Sands finished in the same order last year.

Ludwig edged Cushman at last weekend’s St. George River Race. Cushman felt much better about his effort on the Passy, in which he clocked a time of 39 minutes, 13 seconds, about two minutes faster than Ludwig.

“I paddled fairly well today,” Cushman said. “I had a better race than last weekend. I had some screw-ups last weekend, and I didn’t feel like I paddled as well as I did today.”

It was so wet and cold that race organizers had trouble getting duct tape numbers to stick to the kayaks and canoes. That’s always a concern for those who are trying to record the numbers as boats cross the finish line.

“The rain and snow and ice, it just made it hard to put the duct tape on, but I think we did all right,” said Dale Cross, who runs the race for the Waldo County YMCA in Belfast. “Everyone seemed to be happy.”

Cross competed in a canoe with his son Aaron, and said the weather bothered him a bit.

“It was hard to see with the sleet and rain and snow hitting us in the face,” he said. “But the water was good. It wasn’t bad at all. It was a good race that way.”

Visibility wasn’t a problem for other people, but there are plenty of challenges.

“When I’m racing I dress a lot lighter than I would than if I was doing white-water play,” Hasey said. “I don’t dress for immersion, which isn’t smart, but I don’t expect to flip. If I do, chances are I can roll back up and go.”

Jamie Hannon of Orono and Chip Loring of Old Town turned in the top canoe time of the race, a 45:24 in the two-man medium recreational canoe category. Paul Brown of Swanville and Greg McMorrow of Thorndike won the two-man canoe in 45:48.

Newburgh’s Matt and Sarah Dingle clocked a 45:52 in the two-person mixed canoe. John Alsop of Skowhegan logged the top one-man canoe time of 47:03.

Hasey finished fourth in the long kayak division, his second fourth-place finish in two races. He said he won all the races he entered in the short kayak division, but he hasn’t been as successful in the long kayaks where he’s racing against Cushman, Ludwig and Sands.

“I did really, really well [last year] but I didn’t really have any competition,” he said. “This year it’s really different because I’m finding that I’m losing every race that I’m entering.”