BANGOR – Seven years ago, after weeks of dry weather similar to this year’s conditions, local paddlers Jeff Sands and Kenny Cushman hatched a plan that they figured would lead to success in the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race.

Combining forces in a two-man kayak, the men thought, would work as well for them as it had for other top-notch paddlers who’d teamed up in the past.

It didn’t work out that way.

“We were out of contention in the first 200 yards,” Sands said on Saturday, after a much better showing in the 40th edition of the race. “We didn’t get to a chute in time, got tangled up with another canoe and our rudder system broke right off.”

That was the last time they raced together … until Saturday.

This time, Sands was determined to leave nothing to chance.

The Bangor man and his future father-in-law, Bob Bilotta, spend 13 hours last week sprucing up the two-man boat, applying fiberglass to make it stronger and able to withstand the bumps it would surely take on the 161/2-mile trip from Kenduskeag Village to downtown Bangor.

“The last coat went on at 11:30 last night,” Sands said after he and Cushman paddled to a comfortable victory in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 34 seconds. “But [Bob] said, ‘I don’t know, Jeff. The water might stick to it. It might slow you down.'”

It didn’t.

Sands and Cushman ganged up on Nova Scotia’s Trevor Maclean, whose quest for a fourth Kenduskeag win in five years came up eight minutes short.

Maclean was second in 2:16:38 while Jeff Owen of Orono and Steve Woodard of Cumberland teamed up in a racing canoe to take third in 2:23:42. Fred Ludwig was fourth overall in a long kayak (2:30:50) and Jamie Hannon and Chip Loring finished fifth paddling their racing canoe home in 2:31:22.

Hampden’s Cushman and Sands are the top kayak racers in the area, and formed a formidable team.

“It’s a little more fun when you know it’s gonna be a long race and you know you’re gonna be grunting through it, it’s more fun to be with someone else,” Cushman said.

Two years ago Fred Ludwig and Cushman teamed up to beat Maclean, and the Dartmouth, Nova Scotia paddler said he had planned to race Kenduskeag with a partner this year.

“My partner injured his shoulder a week before the race,” he said. “I go out and I go hard, but I don’t think I can beat those guys together, two guys who are good paddlers, who have a lot of experience.”

The 40th edition of the spring classic went off without a hitch, despite rumors to the contrary after two early-season races weren’t held because of low water.

In a touch of irony that most would have preferred not to deal with, Saturday’s weather was (finally) rainy. Not that it did the paddlers or spectators much good.

The huge throng that typically gathers at Six Mile Falls was late to arrive, and few seemed willing to mill around at the finish on a day when top temperatures hovered around 45 degrees.

In all, 597 participants in 339 boats started the race, and 258 boats finished.

Those numbers were lower than normal – 557 boats were entered in last year’s race, and a check of records back to 1990 show that more than 400 boats have entered in each of the last 16 years.

Tracy Willette, the city of Bangor’s recreation superintendent and the race director, said race organizers were still pleased with the turnout.

“As far as we’re concerned, given all the speculation and that kind of thing about the race over the last week and a half, it’s a pretty good turnout,” Willette said. “And obviously with the weather the way it was today.”

Saturday morning’s early downpour may have discouraged some potential paddlers who held off on making a decision until the last moment.

For others, Kenduskeag serves as a yearly reunion, and an experience not to be missed.

That certainly seems to be the case for Woodard and Owen, who still form one of the most potent canoeing tandems in Maine, even though they now live in different parts of the state and race together more rarely than they did in past years.

And when the Kenduskeag rolls around each year, you’ll likely see them paddling together.

“It was wonderful. Grueling,” Owen said. “The water was low enough that we just had to punch it the whole way. There wasn’t an easy stroke the whole way, I think.”

Woodard agreed, pointing out that in low water, a canoe’s stern sucks downward and the boat tends to plow water.

“But we were just happy they had the race,” Woodard said.

Other paddlers have slightly larger reunions when they race in the Kenduskeag.

J.R. Mabee of Bangor, for instance, always joins in with a bunch of friends in a 26-foot-long war canoe.

This year’s team: John Cangelosi of Bangor, Tammy Kelley of Lamoine, Bob Hessler of Ellsworth, Ander Thibauld of Mount Desert and Dave Lee of Hancock.

The boatload of experienced paddlers fared well – as they always do – finishing sixth overall 2:31:41.

Conspicuously missing from this year’s roster was Mabee’s wife, Leslie Winchester-Mabee.

But she had a good excuse.

“Dave Lee filled in for my wife because we’ve got a two-day-old baby girl,” Mabee said with a proud smile. “Hopefully they’ll come home later today.”

He said that despite the arrival of his daughter, there was little question that a Mabee would race.

Which one, he joked, was a matter of some discussion.

“It was hard to convince my wife not to paddle,” Mabee said. “And I was so tired yesterday, when she took a shower at the hospital I laid down in her bed with the baby. When she got out, I said, ‘You know what? Maybe you should do the race. I’ll stay here with the baby.'”

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY BRIDGET BROWN

Waterville resident Tim Stenovec lets out a cheer as he started the 40th Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race Saturday.

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY KEVIN BENNETT

Mike Sterris (right) and Ryan Lister empty water from their canoe after they dumped at Six Mile Falls during Saturday’s Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race. The pair did not finish.