Chesapeake Summer
(2008-08-01)
Log Canoe crew at work on boat built for speed
The second race of the day is about to begin. Three log canoes are bearing down on the committee boat full tilt, jockeying for the best position at the starting line. And some of the committee members are getting a little nervous.
"It's going to be close. First one's going to be fine, but this .Nine, eight, seven six, five, four, three, two, one, BANG All clear, All clear."
Two of the impossibly narrow craft with way too much sail area cut so close to the committee boat as they cross the line you can hear skippers calling commands and the whoosh of their wakes.
"Okay, you can come up."
And then near disaster strikes as a crew member on one boat slips off one of the spring boards used as counterbalances against the wind into the choppy Chester River.
The helmsman slows the boat for a few seconds as crew mates pull the man aboard and off they go, the sails pulled taught to the wind, the boat heeling dangerously.
The canoes, roughly 27 to 35 feet long at the water line, are barely six feet wide. Add to that two towering masts that carry as many as five sails and you get the idea of how top heavy they are.
Even when there isn't much wind, log canoes can slice through the water at surprising speeds. When the breeze pipes up between 12 and 15 knots, as it did on this Saturday in July, the speed can be intoxicating.
"I've sailed professionally, back in the 90s, I raced professionally, all kinds of one designs. I raced Stars, Lightnings; I grew up sailing and there's nothing like this."
Mike Zidziunas (Zid JU nas) commutes from Florida on summer weekends to serve as tactician on Island Bird. It's one of three log canoes that have been in the family of retired Talbot County Judge John North for at least a hundred years.
"You get out on the end of that springboard you're ten feet from the boat; it's a fantastic view. They're beautiful to watch and just to be out here looking at the other boats, knowing, wow, we look like that too, it's really pretty cool."
Judge North, the former chairman of the state's Critical Areas Commission, is still skippering Island Bird at the age of 77, 59 years after his first race.
"It's very exciting because you're on the edge of catastrophe every minute, if there's any breeze, that is. And of course, sometimes they'll roll over even when there's no breeze if you're not attentive."
Once there were thousands of log canoes all over the Chesapeake Bay, used mostly for oystering. Bob Hughes, who raced Silver Heel until health issues got the better of him, says they were cheap and easy to make.
"They just cut a tree down and split it, cut in half or do what they had to and hollow it out. Usually in the old days they used fire and oyster shells."
Join five logs together and you had a boat.
The roughly two dozen log canoes still in existence race in weekend regattas from Eastern Shore ports Oxford, St. Michaels and Rock Hall. Each one has a chase boat that tows it out to the race course and follows it around just in case of that catastrophe that Judge North mentioned.
On this day, one of the canoes, Patricia, capsized before the second race even started, leaving crew members to tread water as they tried to right the boat. Owner John Macielag said he was starting toward the committee boat when it happened.
"We were just bearing off and a big wave hit us, we lost two of our board men off the board; freak situation, wave hit them and swept them off and once you lose your board men off the end of the board you're in big trouble."
Patricia never got into that race. Another canoe, Mystery, flipped during the race and didn't finish. That may sound frightening, but Judge North says it isn't if you've done it a lot.
I'm Joel McCord, reporting on the Chester River for 88.1, WYPR.
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