Wirth captures victory at Passy Paddlers unfazed by early snow flurries

BELFAST – It was spitting snow on a late Saturday morning as registration for the 34th annual Passagassawakeag River Race began.

The snow never amounted to anything, however, and those who used that as a barometer and opted not to get out and paddle missed a great race and excellent racing conditions.

Hometown boy Ray Wirth was one of the 103 paddlers who refused to skip the race and that was a good thing, since the 46-year-old English teacher at Searsport High School posted the best overall time as he finished the 8-mile course in 45 minutes, 19 seconds.

This was the sixth time Wirth had paddled the Passy. He used a canoe twice and a plastic sea kayak the other three times. This time, he had a new toy to play with: A long racing kayak.

“This is the first time I felt like I was in a boat where I could contend for first place,” said Wirth. “I paddled this during the week in the plastic boat because it was lower, but this was great. It was a lot easier getting down through.”

The best time turned in by a canoe was an impressive 46:45 by the two-man team of Bucky Owen and Jeff Owen from Orono in the recreational division of the century class.

High water brought smiles to the faces of everyone in the 66 boats that left the starting line near the Savage Road in Waldo.

“We went out and did it with some friends yesterday and had fun, so we decided to do it today,” said Morrill’s Don Cross, an electrician at Bath Iron Works who came out of a 10-year racing retirement to do the Passy with 8-year-old son Andrew. “This is the first time he’d ever been in whitewater.”

“I’d say it went up 8 to 12 inches since yesterday. I think it made for perfect conditions,” said Cross.

Nobody – especially his son – would argue with Cross on that point.

“It was a little higher today, but I think it was a little easier,” said Andrew Cross. “It was fun. It wasn’t too scary. I liked the rapids the best.”

So did Belfast High School sophomore Ade Hills, whose favorite race of the spring river racing season is the first one (last week’s St. George) because of the abundant whitewater.

“It’s a lot shorter, but it’s more hardcore with more whitewater,” the 15-year-old Belmont native explained. “With this one, you have to be more technical and it’s not as fast paced, but it was great today with the higher water.”

Hills and Dan Littlefield of Waldo finished first in the open canoe two-person junior-senior class with a 54:43.

First-time Passy paddler Mike Sproul agreed with Hills. Normally, the Brownville native wouldn’t even have his canoe out this early, but a change in the former train conductor’s work schedule allowed the longtime paddler to start his season ahead of schedule.

“Usually, my first race is the Kenduskeag because it was hard to find the time to get in some races, but now I’m a car switcher at Derby Shops and I have my weekends off,” said Sproul, who finished ninth in the OC1 (single) rec class with a time of 1:02:15. “I saw snow on the way down, but the conditions were pretty good for the race. I had fun. I’ll come back to do this one for sure.”

Sproul, 49, has been canoeing since he was 10 and has done at least a couple of races each of the last 10 years.

“Now that my schedule lets me, I’m trying to do more races,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to get out earlier, but it’s hard to, and in Brownville there’s still four feet of snow and the water’s all still iced up, so you don’t think of it.”

River racing is almost all race director Dale Cross thinks about this time of year. The executive director of the Waldo County YMCA has been involved in this race and the St. George for the last 30 years as either a paddler or race official. He has been race director the last 20 and it’s the support, cooperation, and dedication of his fellow YMCA employees and several volunteers that keep him coming back each year.

“I give a lot of credit to the staff at the Y. It really couldn’t happen without them,” Cross said. “We have a lot of great people doing great stuff. I mean, we spent the better part of Friday pulling snow out of here [finish line shorefront] with shovels and a snowblower.

“We love this. It’s a coming out of winter and sign of spring thing for me.”