July Social 2024Monday 1st July, Musselburgh Lagoons
July’s social took place at Musselburgh lagoons, where our Canoe-O practice is going from strength to strength. Organised by Hanne and David for the second year, the date was met with immediate acclaim, both by paddlers who had enjoyed themselves last time and also those who had missed out but heard all about it. (A third group of distressed would-be paddlers with other commitments will be pleased to hear that the Robertsons do report plans to do it all again next summer).
After some alarm about the forecast for wind, which apparently does not mix nicely with canoes, the evening turned out to be really quite a lovely one. We were warned, though, about getting blown too close to the eastern side of the pond (the “lee shore” in nautical terms). There were also swan warnings in place to prevent any bird/boat drama.
There were three courses to race – A,B and Score. The maps were usefully laminated and purported to be roughly drawn (scale in this sport for cartophiles is not often represented by a bar marked “100m-ish” ). However, I found the sketching in of the tree line to be entirely faithful to the landscape, and used “gap in the trees” as my main orientation feature, because from the perspective of the middle a kidney-shaped loch turns out to look very round.
A full launch and recovery service was on offer at the slipway and no one but David was obliged to get their feet wet. The first challenge was to arrive at the start jetty with the canoe facing in the right direction. Then it was off out into the middle searching for controls both on the bank and “floating” in the water. Locating the controls is only the half of it in canoe-o, though. There is a further puzzle in actually reaching them, and wind and crew co-ordination factors both play into this. All our seasoned orienteers took to this challenge like ducks to water, racing across the lagoon with power and panache.
And not only the crews had puzzles to solve. It was a very sociable evening with folk swapping front seat to back, canoe to canoe and partner to partner, leaving the timekeepers and the results computer (Hanne) with lots of work to do. After due calculation, prizes were awarded for fastest teams on this basis: Sheila and Richard for course A; Mike and Richard for course B and a three way tie on the Score – each team of Mike and Martin, Elspeth and Seb, and Karena and Richard had visited every control within 9 minutes! A variety of other chocolate based awards were made for team spirit and family contribution, including a prize unique in my experience - for best recovery from being awoken from a nap.
Congratulations to all the winners, particularly top paddler Richard who will surely be sought after as crew in years to come. And many thanks to the Robertsons for organising a smooth-running, safe and fun event for a whole lot of runners out of their natural element.
Turf Event report (With thanks to Gary from Planet Gary for providing the commentary:
"ESOC FTT#18 took place in and around Musselburgh lagoons at the same time as the canoeing.
It’s 7.00pm, I’m stationed at the sea wall and we are off. I’m never good at planning any strategy for these events, or even such a thing is even possible. It’s not like ordinary turfing, takeover time is 30 seconds and that can easily catch you out when you are used to shorter take times, block time is 3 minutes, zones are worth 10 points and the PPH is 60 points, no assists or revisits allowed. With 14 competitors and 55 zones in a relatively small event area, the one thing I can say about this event, or rather one word comes to mind, and that is frustration.
It’s almost impossible to plan more than one zone ahead, if even that, because someone will also be heading for that very same zone. At one stage it looked like I might have a clear run of three zones, but by the time I’d taken the first, both were gone. You also have to keep the screen zoomed in to see exactly where the zones are as some were a little on the small side, so easy to overshoot when you are hurtling around on the bicycle. And being zoomed in you cannot see the others turfers. Then there’s finding those zones hidden in woodland where you did not know there was a network of footpaths. Very sneaky of bythe sea.
But don’t get me wrong, it really is great fun and that is important, though some turfers tend to take things a little too seriously at times. But generally, everyone is very friendly and nice to each other, the banter is always good and I’m sure the meet at the pub afterwards would be most enjoyable.
Anyway, I managed to finish in 3rd place. First overall and first in the gent’s bike class went to Cruachan, who lives a stone’s throw from the event and put his local knowledge to good use. Perhaps we’ll need to secure a few car tyres to his bike next time to slow him down? The first female cyclist was ElsieSpanner and first foot turfer was Suilven. Tandem was the first female foot turfer and in no way due to other turfers being kind to her at all, honest! Seacat was the first junior."
Full results and details of the Turf event can be seen on the ESOC FTT #18 event page of the Turf website.
See this document for a description of how a Turf event works: Participating in a Turf Event