I just spent a few Minutes talking with Meg on ABC Riverland about our trip – so take a look and listen.
We have discussed doing a quick update each Monday as we progress down the River.
Real-time Tracking
Before we get onto that, tune into ABC Regional Radio (Renmark SA) on 1062AM on Monday 29th (Feb) at around 10:30am, I will be having a talk about the trip.
A few years ago, a friend who was spending the day as land crew for another Marathon Paddler said:
Any Sport is Fun with Telemetry
Scott T
When we are out and about paddling down the Murray, both Brad any myself will be running SPOT satellite trackers.
Spot Tracker
What this means is that every 5 or 10 minutes, we will send a GPS “SPOT” to a satellite and that SPOT will appear on a web page – in near real time. My SPOT subscription allows me to do 10 minute updates and Brad’s Subscription is configured for 5 Minute updates.
I have been using my SPOT while out on training Paddles on Westlakes and my public page can be found at Bob’s Border2Beach The real-time data is available for 7 days.
Once we get going you can also Track Brad at his Page – Brad’s Border2Beach
As an extra, with the SPOT we can also configure real-time email alerts and that means when we are out and about, we can hit a button on the SPOT and it sends a short email to pre-configured email addresses along with a link to the page.
I have put together a mailing list – which you can subscribe to. The list is a notification -only list – and subscribers will get an email whenever I push the OK button on my SPOT Tracker
Subscribe to the Border2Beach SPOT mailing list.
* Note, at the completion of our adventure, the mailing list will be deleted.
I will also have with me my APRS tracker and whenever there is coverage, simply check my Tracker page for updates. We will be running a portable Internet Gateway from the car, so we are likely to have at least some APRS coverage wherever we have Internet coverage from the cars.
Preparation
I know, I have not made many posts over the last little while on my blog and with now only a week to go will give a bit of an update. Yeah, more updates to the blog will happen, but after the adventure!
I am doing this in my C18 – yeah the same one where I broke off the foot pegs way back at the 32km mark of the HCC in 2014.
I finally got around to fixing up this mess and replaced the pegs on the side with a full footplate.
Lucky for me, in my new boat, it has a full plate, so I had something to guide me in making something.
I made up something that resembled a footplate and then cut the original hinged foot-pedals down so i could re-use them for the rudder. I used some 6mm ply and then epoxied and glassed it all for strength.
I then took to the cockpit opening with a jigsaw and cut a bit of it away, removing as much as i could to give me more room for the knees to come up – and to let me actually leg-drive. You get an idea of how much I cut away and how much more room it gives me.
Finally, the keyhole surgery – of installing some rails and fitting the new footplate into the boat.
Of course, with the boat ready, this only left me to get out in it and get ready myself!
I have been out a few times now – and of course, every time I have been out the wind has been terrible, but in only 3 weeks, I have been very happy and over a relative short distance of 15km in 30+km/h winds I have already hit my marathon training pace of 2 years ago! It took me about 8 weeks last time to hit that pace, so very happy with how things are progressing.
Of course, I would have liked a few more weeks of prep, but once I hit the river it will all fall into place.
With now just 1 week to go, I’ll get out on this weekend I’ll make a couple of small adjustments and then do a nice 20-25km paddle to make sure I’m ready to go.
Border2Beach – Murray River 2016
Wow – it is about to start!
Over the Weekends in March we (Myself and Brad) will paddle the entire length of the Murray River in South Australia from just upstream of the NSW Border at Higgins Cutting to the Murray Mouth at Goolwa.
In the coming days we will post some links where you you will be able to track our progress in (near) real time on a map.
It was nearly a year ago when we first discussed this and a lot has happened but everything is actually coming together
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speedbumps
Well this years lead up and training for the RPM has had a lot of speedbumps and it is now rapidly approaching!
First off, I was on-call for work for a couple of weeks, which seriously curtails any boat-time. The next hurdle is getting my seat right in the boat. I thought I had it OK, but then I started getting numb legs after about 45 minutes – to the point where I have to stop and get out!.
Limited boat-time while still trying to come to terms with the boat in all conditions is having a serious slow-down on my preparation.
First step-back. Over the summer months I did manage to get a little bit of coaching, which has given me a few items I need to improve on. It is slowly starting to come together in that regards, and every time I do get on the water there are improvements – both in terms of how I finish and the average speed.
I have had a couple of coaching sessions including doing a visual clinic with Clint Robinson. It is great to be able to get someone to really tell you what you are doing well and what you need to look at changing, then get back out and work on the specifics.
Now, for the most part, in the hour before my legs go numb, I am averaging around the 9.0km/h mark, which is a big step-up from the previous 8.2km/h in the C18. Of course, the downside is as soon as I have to stop and get out for a few minutes, the average speed drops off, and I cannot even get an indication as to the average over a longer distance at the moment.
Current progress is that I am having a custom carbon fibre seat made – and it came out of the mold last week. All was going well with the fitting and getting ready to blow the foam to fit it to the boat, until we noticed that I had “broken” it in the process! Well, not totally broken, just flattened it somewhat!. Fortunately, it was still somewhat green and some heat was applied and it returned to the correct shape! So, back to the drawing board, some extra re-enforcement will be added to spread the load a bit before we try again later in the week.
So, a few small changes to my foam “seat” and then I headed down to Encounter Bay on Sunday morning to participate in their monthly 6km handicap event, with a scratch time of 50 minutes.
Waiting for the start
As this was my “first” event, and I have been averaging around the 9km/h mark I figured that I could do 6km in just under 40 minutes and suggested 39.30 time, or a 10.30 start offset. I figured being only 6km, and very protected that I could sustain a tad over 9km/h.
I was wrong! The conditions were pretty much perfect and I was a lot quicker than I thought, and finished the 6km in 37.41 (9.3km/h). At the end, I was just starting to feel a bit numb, but I guessed that with just 6km, it would be pretty much OK.
So, now all I can hope is that I can manage to get my seating sorted out in time for the B2B and see how it goes – otherwise, I will have to get my other boat repaired so I can use it. That would be a big backwards step in terms of my performance, so trying to avoid that step unless I have no options.