Molokai musings

Good day in a pretty rough channel with props to Nappy as always! We ended up second in the 60s and 84th/119 crews. The congestion and wake city zone around the first change was pretty major. Little did we know until afterwards what was going on then. We just paddled through it all and didn't make a change until around an hour and a half into the race. Long stints in the canoe work better for us guys by far as we have trained that way and our "changes" aren't exactly speedy!

Afterwards we got the news that Luke Evselin had a serious accident during that first change. (see http://thegardenisland.com/sports/recreation/article_9e7a50d6-d5d1-11df-9092-001cc4c002e0.html). He's going to be OK but it'll be awhile before he's back in the water again. Lots of prayers and support for him from everyone in the paddling community. He was planning on going down to race in the Hawaiki Nui again; talked to him recently about his crew.

A good time for the race committee to take a a new look at ways to minimize this kind of risk, which we have all been talking about for a number of years as the number of entries have increased. Staggered starts make the most sense; others think the number of crews should be limited. And of course there's the iron route as well. However fluid and food drops are still needed but they can be spaced out better.