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Fantastic conditions tonight with a great turn out. The wind was a light easterly and some fantastic PB's were set (7 in all). The issue of wash riding at a time trial was raised again and clarification will be advised next week.
I will be away camping next week but will be back the week after. If someone can pick up PT you will have a time keeper.
A number of paddlers elected to do the half lake (2.24km) and here are their times:
John Townsend , 14 Starboard Allstar: 14.37
Wendy, 9'2" Fanatic: 22.19
Sue Madigan, 12'6 Starboard Race: 25.57
Natalie Persal, 12'6" Starboard Alstar: 27.18
Here are the times from tonight's time trials. Some massive PB's and others narrowly missed theirs.
Cozzette took 6 minutes off her first attempt.
David took off over 30 seconds.
Alison took off more then 20 seconds and just pipped Di by 1 second. Look forward to next week on this.
Jonsey smashed 53 seconds off his best.
Matt keeps moving up the charts with 36 seconds off his best.
Jon did a PB as his first night and an impressive first go as well.
Steve the man of steel just missed his PB by 7 seconds.
Marcel dropped more that a whole minute off his PB.
Ryan scrapped another 2 seconds off his best on this new weapon of a Hobie Raw board.
Trevor missed his PB by 5 seconds but not bad after a massive foot infection.
Tonight's times
Updated Leader Board
Great times! And very close!
Look forward to seeing what you come up wrt wash riding. We also call ours time-trials and our only rule is you can't impede a paddler by blocking his access to put paddle in water. Seeing you send the guys off a the same time is not really a time-trial so not sure how you'd make a rule about it.
I'm in favour of wash-riding, mainly because I can leach off the youngsters and also because its a great way to hone the skill for the real races.
Give me a break!! 27.01 fook me, surely stopping 2 seconds earlier wouldnt have hurt anyone 
Wash riding is a tricky one!
My personal opinion is, a paddler should mix it up. Its a big "NO, NO" to wash ride 100% of the time.
If you are good enough to wash ride you should be good enough to take the lead!!
That's in a race and time trial.
PS well done Matt, smashing time on a 12'6 and paddling by yourself.
piss off all 4 of you blokes on ur 21 inch wide toothpicks. get a mans board, one that you get a good stretch by just putting ur feet on the edges of it.
as for wash riding, u all got wicked times tonight and i think everyone of you blokes did wash ride at some stage... maybe not rjk... who cares, see if u can go sub 26 minutes!
Unbelievable times by every paddler.
The Kayak lanes are there lets use them.Stay in the designated lane,2 k down ,kick turn a separate buoy,2 k back.take your time.no drafting,Ryan stays happy!!
Hi Guys Di here, not Trev, he's at school. Agree with PT. How about this? We have 8 lanes, designate one lane to the dragon boaters, then seed the lanes i.e. take the top seven paddlers each Thurs and allocate them to a separate lane. Then take the bottom seven and allocate them to each lane. Put the middle ones in between - the logic here is the slow ones will not be able to wash ride the fast ones anyway. Start at the buoys, turn at the end of your lane, end at the buoys (not on the beach) - will make this shorter but everyone does the same distance and we will get true times. Will also make it easier for beginners like me to get going at the beginning because the wash makes it very difficult to stay on the board. Will also make timing accurate and time trials more fun as it takes away the constant debate on wash riding and really shows whose quickest. Any comments???? Cheers Di
The idea of telling DBers to turn a boat up and down lane 8 made me LOL. Obviously not a lot of 6 ft maoris or czechs in that crew compared to NSW.
Go the Mad Max option and stick barbed wire on the back of your board for the tailgaters. 
If you want a true time trial and have the facility to do so then this should perhaps be considered by using the lanes at your disposal.
But if you want to breed racers then starting in a bunch, washriding and turning buoys wit guys around you is the way to go.
Who cares if a guy has a slightly inflated TT time due to washriding? How is that cheating? It just means he used the tools available in the race.
If that was the logic the RJK's time on a 15'6 should be taken off the leaderboard....
Glad you took the bait...
I've been doing TT's for the past 3 years, often 2 a week so I've pretty much seen it all. And yes, you can inflate your time, how much is relative to the length of the course and whether the guy towing is suited in terms of his strength vs. your strength.
On our 1.9km course I have done 11.37 drafting and 11.46 without drafting - this does not mean that the difference is then 9secs on that distance as too many other factors play in, such as weather and how you are feeling on the day. On our longer 3km course I've done 18.29 with drafting and just under 19min on my own-some. With the right fitness I will repeat 18.29 without drafting, at least that is my goal.
So for sure it makes a difference, but so what? If I'm strong enough to hang on to a guy doing 9.7km/h then that also means something to me and it means that my equipment allows me to hang on.
Wrt to your 15'6 time I'm not suggesting you were drafting, but using a longer board to get the course record could arguably be just as unfair? I mean, if the others aren't allowed to use the wash what gives you the right to pitch up with a faster board?
The funny part is that here no-one is complaining about the drafting - its the slower guys that are complaining that the water is getting too messy when there are too many people ahead of them and that this impedes their times...
The guys that are serious about their training pull out of the draft to get more resistance.
We don't have the luxury of using lanes as we're in relatively narrow canals - you seem to have that luxury - so the solution would seem to be to use them if drafting is such a big deal.
I think you'll find the TT's becoming boring, might as well go and do them on your own with a stopwatch.
Some good points.
Because its a time trial it's all relative to your equipment so a longer board isn't an unfair advantage as such. But I wanted to see how I rated against the top guys so I sold my 15"6 and got a 14.
What gets me is the top guys wash riding each other. I'm 92kg so I put off a decent wake. To have people like trev wash riding me when he clearly already has the top record really annoys me. The thing with the leader board is its a good comparison to see how your going, but when you put the hard yards in then someone wash rides then sprints the finish to win, that is not a good comparo!
If its a TT why don't you just stagger the start times. Surely 30seconds between each person would be enough for the water to settle to stop the wash and mess??
I love wash ridingIt is a good skill , a small sprint from the lead rider can open up a pretty good gap quickly if your concerned abouit someone getting a free ride.Id hate drafting to be taken out of racing , its all part of the tactics
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Yes, Swannie well said.
From a newbies point of view, it works well in it's current format, and I see no reason to change. The racing is pretty casual, but still serious enough, and starting together in the one group gives us practice in having to get away quickly and dealing with others wash.
I don't tend to wash ride because I am always trying to see if I am improving, and this is difficult to judge if your times are assisted by washriding. I actually don't mind if someone is wash riding me as it gives me practice in trying to drop them. Ryan I know you are a bit of a target to washride by some, but take it as a complement, we know who is doing the work.
For general opinion: One thing I feel we could try is when we turn up on a really windy day (usually not many turn up) and times are obviously going to be nowhere near our usual, maybe we could mix it up and do a few shorter sprint races and not worry about timing.
Regards KJ
PS thanks to all involved in the club, been a great motivator.
