June 2009 Archives

I love that Dirty Water! Oh Boston You're My Home!

By David on June 22, 2009 12:55 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
This weekend was the annual Northeastern Alumni Sailing Regatta.  I made my annual pilgrimage back to Boston to the banks of the river Charles to relive the glory days of my sailing career for an afternoon.  During the first race It struck me quite bluntly that i really like this town and why did I ever leave.  The sharp pain of this realization soon left me and it was replaced with a dull ache reminding why I left and why I'm probably better off for it.  

Actually the sharp pain was caused by the boom coming across and whacking me in the forehead.  My sunglasses managed to survive,  but I was visibly bleeding right above my eye. The dull ache was a result of the lump starting to form on my head.  Concussion be dammed I rallied and positioned for the start of my race race a bit dazed.  The start was actually recalled, because of the shear volume of boats over the line early.   Which really helped since I was over far to early. To compensate I barged between the mark and the committee boat, nearly ramming another ill positioned boat.  

My successive starts were noticeably better.  I even had a couple 4th place finishes and one 3rd place finish out of  a fleet of 16 boats.   Our banquet dinner afterward was nice, but many of my friends have become much too busy to have the same level of fun that we used to have.  We are all growing noticeably older. Highlighted by Marty's 30th birthday this year, which hit me like a brick wall.   Even I called it an early night to get some rest before  rowing practice in the morning.  

Since I started rowing after leaving Boston I never had a chance to row on the Charles.  So for this trip I arranged to get in some rowing time on the good Ole Rivah Chuck.  I worked through community rowing, and they set me up with a coached 1-1 rowing session in a single with one of the rowing coaches from Boston College.  The River Charles is an awesome venue to go rowing, no current, little boat traffic, and relatively clean for an urban river.  By comparison it blows away the Harlem river.  Also the coach they hooked me up with was great, and uber helpful. It was the most productive hour I've spent in a single in some time.  

Schuylkill Navy Regatta

By David on June 17, 2009 3:41 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
In the wee hours of Saturday morning, before the Sun even dared to show it's face I drove through the NYRA gate at Elmwood park.  After just having just left there at 10:30 the night before.  I said a groggy hello as I shifted a cooler, chairs and some other supplies from the trunk of my car to the back of the pickup truck pulling the trailer.  I managed to eat half of a day old bagel and down some water before we started our Trek to Philadelphia.  

We were heading to Kelly Drive on the Schuylkill River, the race course site for the rowing clubs that make up the Schuylkill Navy of Philadelphia.  My first race was in the Mens Novice 1x race. After warming up and stretching out on land, I put my shell in the water a half hour before my race.  After paddling up the river to the top of the 2k course, I worked my way back down to the 1k start.  Unlike my first race there were no stake boats.  Instead you floated on the river, and someone on shore had everyone move forward or backward until we were all lined up.  

My first start my enthusiasm got the better of me and I was in the water before I knew what was really happening.  I briefly panicked thinking I had to get back in the boat and "catch up", before I realized that the race had stopped and they would be restarting it.  My first attempt at reentering the Shell was poorly planned and resulted in landing right back in the water.  The referee came up to me and asked me if I wanted to continue rowing, to which I replied "YES"! He then asked me if I wanted to continue racing, to which I replied "FUCK YES"! He then asked if I had ever done this before, to which I replied "no".   Had I known about the no assistance rule I would have said, "get away, let me drown dammit"!  A few quick pointers from the ref and I was soon back in the boat. 

My second race start was signifigantly  less aggressive, but I was soon picking off boats as pulled down the course.  I was rowing better then my previous race. My stroke was cleaner, my slide was much less rushed and overall the boat was moving better.  At the 600 meter mark with one boat still behind me I realized the end was getting near, and I still has some gas left. But when I went to take it up a notch the combination of the wet plastic seat and the wet UNI made for a very slippery combination and I started to loosing by seat and therefore the set of the boat. Rather then catching crabs in the unset boats or risk going swimming again I backed off frustrated that i wasn't able to go all in for the last few hundred meters.  I ended up placing second 4 seconds out of first. 

My dad showed up for my second race.  He was running late in morning which was compounded when he map quested his own directions to a an address he found.  My second race was in a double with Peter in bow. When we rowed together in a double for the first time almost a week before it was messy at best. Over the course of a week and a few practices together we managed to bring it together.  Our race went rather well, in a boat that felt really good.  We ended up placing second from last in the race, and about 12 seconds slower on the course then our womans double. By the time we crossed the finish line we blew away the last place boat.  

Our Womans Quad had an explosive start and a lad of several boat lengths going down the river.  By the time they finished they won with enough of a margin to overcome a substantial handicap.  



Schuylkill Navy Regatta Results

Race #15, Men's Novice Single 
                     Event 2   Final                    

Place  Lane          Name                Team             Time    Split 
  1      1   C C                   Fairmount RA          4:19.82        
  2      4   David Wiedaseck       New York RA           4:24.34    4.52
  3      5   A A                   Fairmount RA          4:30.16   10.34
  4      2   Charles Blessing      Passaic River RA      4:40.25   20.43
 DNS     3   B B                   Fairmount RA       

Race #44, Women's Masters Double B            
                    Event 27   Final                    

Place  Lane          Name                Team             Time    Split 
  1      3   Michelle Fryc         Capital RC            3:36.62        
  2      4   Helen Woznack         Passaic River RA      3:39.01    2.39
  3      1   Liz Seward            New York RA           3:43.40    6.78
  4      2   Jamie Clark           Wilmington RC         4:05.18   28.56
 DNS     5   Jenny Lawton          Greenwich                      

          Race #47, Men's Masters Double A/B            
                    Event 30   Final                    

                                                                       Water  Water   Handi 

Place  Lane          Name                Team           Time    Split  Place   Time    cap  
  1      1   Steve Mcguinn         University BC       3:19.01           2   3:21.61    2.6
  2      4   Chris Storm           Union BC            3:19.17    0.16   1   3:19.67    0.5
  3      5   Michael Murphy        Bachelors BC        3:38.63   19.62   3   3:39.73    1.1
  4      2   David Wiedaseck       New York RA         3:51.41   32.40   4   3:55.61    4.2
  5      3   Rich Hamilton         Crescent BC         4:11.73   52.72   5   4:14.33    2.6

Catch the Cooper Regatta

By David on June 17, 2009 2:55 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
The Catch the Cooper Regatta has officially kicked off my Crew racing career.  Originally I didn't think I would be able to start racing until much later in the season.  But I discovered they have novice regattas, many of which have a 1x event for a single.  Since I'm the only novice in my group this works out well.  

With the rest of my group not being quite ready to ramp up for a regatta yet, I registered myself for the race and arranged to borrow a boat.  Originally I looked into the possibility of taking one of our clubs boats, but the logistics and liability of transporting it made it prohibitive.  Instead the Cooper Rowing Club generously offered to lend me a boat.  

The Cooper river course is straight and well buoyed.  My particular race was short, only 1,000 meters or 1km.  Part way down the course I realized that the referee  would tell you if you were in danger of going outside of your lane.  At that point I gave up on watching where I was going and focused on my stroke.  It wasn't the most graceful race,  I rushed the slide for about half of the race, before I realized it and settled in. Toward the end I managed to build a lead on the trailing two boats.  I finished third, 6 seconds behind the first place boat.  However, with my handicap I would have had to have finished 25 seconds earlier. 

Considering I came in mid fleet and dry side up, I counted my first race as a success.  



Catch the Cooper 2009 Race Results

 Race #10, Men's Masters Novice Single A/C/D/E/F     
                     Event 3   Final                    

                                                                         Water  Water   Handi 

Place  Lane          Name                Team             Time    Split  Place   Time    cap  
  1      6   Scott Collins         Maritime RC           4:25.20           1   4:44.80   19.6
  2      2   John Glace            Cooper River RC C     4:35.82   10.62   2   4:46.82   11.0
  3      4   David Wiedaseck       New York RA           4:51.95   26.75   3   4:52.05    0.1
  4      3   Joe Oliver            Unaffiliated ..       4:52.50   27.30   5   5:15.00   22.5
  5      5   Robert Murray         Cooper River RC A     4:57.93   32.73   4   5:14.83   16.9
 SCR     1   Charles Blessing      Passaic River RA                      SCR             30.6

State Side Again - Returned from Exploring Europe

By David on June 3, 2009 4:01 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
I used to be able to blog more, now it's a challenge just to get the post written before it becomes old hat.  

I returned stateside Sunday after spending a little over a week in Europe.  A trip to Dublin turned into a Euro road trip stopping in Ireland, Belgium, and France. It was a very busy trip getting up to an alarm clock every morning at 7am and getting back to the hotel each night around 11:30pm.  Note the use of the word "trip" not vacation".  

Before I left I finally caved in and bought myself a DSLR camera, finally settling on the Cannon T1i. My rationalization was that with all the travel I have scheduled for this summer I would really have allot of opportunity to use it. I posted the pictures here. I also bought a book on the mechanics of photography including apertures, focal length, ISO speeds, f-stops, etc.  and read it on the plane to and from my work trip to Orlando.  I bought a second book on composition, which I read on the plane and trains during my European trip. After playing with the camera a little bit before i left I decided I "needed" the 75-300mm telephoto lens and ended up buying it before I left.  

We landed in Dublin bright and early Sunday morning and dropped our bags off at the Harcourt Hotel.  Since it was hours before we could check in we decided to get the tour of the Guinness factory out of the way.  After having been up for almost 24 hours with very little sleep on the plane, they let us in for our tour at 9:30am.  I'm pretty sure I almost fell asleep standing up a few times during the tour.  It wasn't even 11 by the time I finished drinking my Guinness at the Gravity bar.  When she met up with us, Stacey was disappointed to hear that the only thing I could stomach at the point was lunch and a much needed nap.  later on we saw St. Stephens green (See picture of the swan in the grass), Temple Bar, and had dinner at the Brazen Head, the oldest Pub in Ireland. The next morning we flew out to Belgium
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One of Stacey's friends met us at the airport and traveled with us to Leuven, a small College city in Belgium not far from Brussels. Note the food and beer in Belgium are awesome. We dis a walking tour of Leuven and had dinner.  The following day we took the train to Brugge.  A  very cute town near the Belgian coast.  There was a significant amount of tourist-ing going on there.  I got a really great shot of one of the swans swimming in the pond zoomed at 300mm without a tripod.  
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The following morning we took the Thalys high speed train to Paris.  I had an awesome steak Tartar for lunch at this restaurant near the hotel. We also had an awesome dinner at Procope  
, and awesome restaurant recommendation we got from one of the guys working on the BatoBus. The street it's on isn't labeled on any map but Google maps will get you pretty close. While we were there we got to see the Louve, Notre Dame, the Effiel Tower, the Arch de Triumph, and the Luxemburg Gardens. 

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After Paris we were back in Dublin for a day and a half.  We saw Trinity College and the following day took a tour of the Wicklow hills in Wicklow county south of Dublin.  

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