fitness paddling: exercise, train, race by kayak & canoe

The longest annual canoe and kayak race in the world.

To challenge paddlers in a world class wilderness event
- a race to midnight sun
- the Yukon River Quest

Brandon Nelson and David Kelly finished the race with a new event record of 40:37:05, breaking the old record (42:51:55) by more than two hours. From the picture on the front page of YRQ it looks like that they paddled a plastic sea kayak.

The second place overall was won by a 8 person voyager canoe "Kisseynew - Dalutweh Denesuline" in 42:56:13.

The third came Carter Johnson "XL" in a solo kayak (I believe it was Epic 18) in 44:56:34, followed by a canoe tandem with Steven Landick and Gregg Nelson (46:01:27), and British Army Team A in tandem kayak (46:01:28). Half hour later Heather Nelson was finishing is a solo kayak. 41 teams finished the race under 60 hours including 10 solo paddlers.

The race is not over yet. There are still teams paddling the river. Several teams were forced to scratch. Cold and rainy weather was certainly a contributing factor, especially, for paddlers from warm countries like Texas. Erin Magee: At that temp in that rain for the first 48 - I couldn't handle it. Not enough cold weather gear.

The River Quest adopted the Sound Rowers scheme for measuring kayaks for this year. The rule is that the length measured at the 4" water line divided by the width at the 4" water line must not exceed 10.6 for solo boats, 10.4 for tandems. According to the article All racers on deck, despite initial concerns in Whitehorse Daily Star the eighth annual YRQ got off to a bit of a rocky start, when seven of the teams entered in the race faced disqualification, due to illegal measurements of their boats.

Six Epic kayaks entered in the race went over the legal limit when they were measured at registration yesterday afternoon in Whitehorse – three of which belonged to YRQ board members.

The problem, according to past president of the board Peter Coates, who was involved in measuring the boats Tuesday, is the kayaks were advertised on the race’s website as acceptable under the rules.

“We went by the manufacturer’s numbers,” explained Coates. “Now, we’ve measured them here and there are problems.”

According to the manufacturer’s specifications, the boats are legal, but when they were measured in Whitehorse they came in at 10.72, over the 10.6 limit. The board members, excluding those who are racing, met Tuesday evening to determine whether to allow the boats, and if they did, whether to impose some sort of penalty. “I really don’t think we’re going to disqualify anyone, there will be other penalties if anything,” said Coates, prior to the meeting.

He was right in the end, as all six boats were allowed into the race without a penalty. But another team – two-time former champion Steve Landick and his partner Gregg Nelson – received a time penalty because of concerns with the measurements of their canoe.

In addition to Epic 18 kayaks, there were QCC 700X kayaks among the solo entries. Texas Water Safari racer, Richard Ameen, paddled the carbon fiber QCC 700x with Quickblade wing paddle and finished in 56:48:15. WaterTriber, Marty Sulivan "Salty Frog" finished a few minutes earlier in a rented sea kayak, Boreal Design Labrador. These two paddlers raced together before in the Virtual Race.

2006 Yukon River Quest Results

Related posts:

• 75 Teams Set to Race in 2006 Yukon River Questr
• Is Ultra-Marathon Kayak and Canoe Racing Growing?
• Why the Yukon River Quest is Growing?
• New 24 Hour Paddling Record by Brandon Nelson: 147 miles
• Steve Landick on paddles during a long expedition voyage