Providence Paddle Battle 2014

[mrbig]

Freetobeme has kindly loaned me his 14' Bark! Paddled around the mysterious island in Osterville and learned about boat wakes!

Had a great time hanging out. Left my Rawson as collateral! LOL!

Muchas gracias compadre!

[kayadogg]

Just signed up for the 9 miler. I'm feeling pretty good after the CCBC and stoked to see you Kayadogg, as well as other zoners being part of this event(Mr Big keep that arm straight!). You were talking about the change in venue etc., just looking to get the physical address for parking so I can punch it into the GPS for Sunday. Winds are looking a bit strong at this point for Sunday. That should make things interesting... See ya there!

PieceOf8 - nice!  It will be great to catch up with you and all the other NE paddlers.  Here's a Google map to the coordinates of the boat ramp.  The boat ramp is new, it was just opened this past May so there aren't great directions to it yet.  It's basically at the end of E. Transit Street in Providence, so you could use that street or the coordinates below.

https://www.google.com/maps/preview?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=41.82205,-71.3886&ie=UTF8&z=17&iwloc=addr&om=0

Hoping for perfect conditions all around but we'll take sun/no rain over light winds at this point.  Looks like the short and long races will both be pretty competitive.  We even have a West-coast Zoner (JayinSoCal) flying in for the race.

MrBiggieSmalls, glad Matt hooked you up with a board!

See you all Sunday!

[PDLSFR]

Over 50 racers for tomorrows event. I stopped by the boat ramp tonight and met a couple of fellas just coming back from doing the 3 mile course, great stoke for the event, looking forward to meeting a bunch of zoners and local paddlers !!

[kayadogg]

I want to give a personal thank you to everyone that came out yesterday to race or to just show their support. We were blown away by the turnout and the positive feedback from the event. It took us 7 months of jumping through permitting hoops, insurance hoops, marine safety hoops and more but it was all worth it.  Even more difficult was planning and organizing this event from 3,000 miles away. It's a testament to the paddling community, especially in New England, and to the great people that I've met over the years. Being our first year for this, we were not expecting a high turnout, especially late in summer and also a week after the CCBC. We were thrilled with having 72 paddlers register and well over a hundred people in attendance. We had some top notch paddlers show up along with some people that were paddling for their first time (not the first time in a race but the first time on a board), beautiful weather, a challenging course and reuniting with old friends... what more can you ask for?  It was great to see a handful of guys that had paddled in the CCBC show up despite nursing sore bodies from the previous weekend. It was also great to see friends that showed up just to hang and show their support. Even cooler was being able to introduce a west coast Zoner (JayInSoCal) to a bunch of east coast Zoners. There's a pic of everyone together floating around somewhere. If anyone has a copy, it would be great to see. What a great day and we're so excited that this appears to be the first of many in this beautiful, unique paddling venue. We are also really happy to have been able to raise some money for Save the Bay and give them a sizable donation despite this being our first year.

Here's two pictures that I love from yesterday, a shot of the sunrise as we got to the site of the race yesterday morning and a picture with lots of paddlers in an area that is usually completely empty of any type of recreational activity, with the city in the background. 

Here's a link to our Facebook album which has many more pictures if anyone wants to check them out.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.701266746618598.1073741842.192711294140815&type=1&l=303b496bfc

[supthecreek]

Congratulations to John and Kristin for an amazing event ! The Providence Paddle Battle was a well planned, well organized, well run event in a really amazing venue, that had the racers paddling right into the heart of a city that doesn't see this type of activity in the downtown area. 500 yards from the interstate exit ramp with ample parking in a quiet neighborhood.... how good is that?

The race drew some very talented and accomplished athletes as well as the cream of the crop of NE race board builders.

I had a great time as a spectator...and it was great to see so many Zoners at the event!!!!

Here are some pics from the day:

[stoneaxe]

All I have to say is Jay is a sneaky bastard....

Fun event, well done Kaya....1st one always is the toughest. You learn a bit each year. Once you get it all down and get to know the players it gets easier. We need to work on getting it all the way into waterplace park. THAT would be the optimum. What was the snafu there? I bet if you made the proceeds partially go to waterfire you might get some help from them.

[mrbig]

Great event, terrific job by kayadogg and all those who organized and helped run it!

And I finally beat the guy on the bic with his daughter on the nose!

Who knew that a 14' Bark could go sooo slow...

[JayInSoCal]

This was a really fun event!  John and Kristin did a great job running it and handling the influx of late registrations.  I enjoyed meeting all the East coast zoners, you guys are awesome and really welcoming.   Thank you, PDLSFR, for letting me borrow your Naish Glide.  That board I s so fast, if I lived over there I would probably try and buy it from you.  Stoneaxe, it took all I had to keep pace with you, and if you didn't just do the CCBC the weekend before, I'm sure you would have pulled away from me at the end. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[supthecreek]

I wanted to include this picture as well... I don't know how I missed it

[PDLSFR]

Thanks Kayadogg and Kristin for a really fun event, the east coast misses you two. We will all be looking forward to next years event as I sure it will top this years. I will work on that location for the after party.

JayInSoCal your welcome for the use of my super fast Naish Glide and great job taking 3rd place !! Hope you can make it out again next year. Any Zoners looking for a discounted proven race winning board, check out the classified ad: http://www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php?action=classifieds;sa=view;id=81

[PonoBill]

So the prize for longest distance traveled for a guy from cali is a sixer of beer from Petaluma??

I guess it makes some kind of sense.

Look like a wonderful event, congratulations.

[freetobeme]

Every time I load this thread I think there must be a hijacked 20 pic Wardog post in here somewhere!!! HA HA   

GREAT job kayadogg and Kristen! Congratulations on a successful event!! I would like to have been there to help out and meet up with folks but work kept me on Cape.  My man mrbig held it down on my Bark tho 

Nice pics Creek!

[spookini]

Not sure how I missed this event, guess i was still comatose from the CCBC...

I can verify that PDLSRFs board is faaaaast.  It turned this year's CCBC into a 2hr sprint.  (After that, I didn't see it again.)