Pawtuckaway 2002 Canoe-O by Joel

Pawtuckaway 2002 Canoe-o Pictures

Every year, on the weekend after Labor Day, UNO (the orienteering club that covers New Hampshire and Maine) holds a family orienteering and camping weekend at Pawtuckaway State Park in Raymond, NH. Each year, Daphne and I host a canoe orienteering event co-incident with the rest of the weekend activities.

This was our six annual Pawtuckaway Canoe-o and our most popular so far. We had a total of 51 groups run the course (although some people went twice). Aims Coney said that that makes us the largest canoe orienteering event in North America.

The weather was great for the canoe-o. It was warm on Saturday and hot on Sunday so the water seemed very inviting to the orienteering crowd. The lake was also very quiet, with very few boats around to disturb the canoes. Finally, the water was high for fall (although the approach to some of the controls still called for some rock avoidance).

The course this year was a little shorter than last year, so more people were able to finish it. But there were few opportunities to run to the controls so it was a real paddling competition. When I designed the course, I expected Aims Coney to send J.J. Cote, his partner, swimming from control 12 to control 11. But they just paddled around the island instead. Afterwards, Aims said he was glad that the course was mostly paddling for a change.

This years winners, as expected, were the national champions, Aims Coney and J.J. Cote. The men's single winner was Aims who ran the course a second time, solo. The best woman's solo run was put in by Terry Myers, who is also a national champion.

The best score from a mixed couple was Lex and Pete Bundschuh. Lex wanted me to be sure to mention that her boat was the best scoring boat with someone with a double X chromosome. I also want to congratulate Al and Andy Jenks. This father and son team got all the controls and came within ten minutes of Aims' time. I expect to see good things from these two in future years.

Here are the final scores. You got three points for every control and lost one point for every minute (and fraction thereof) over 60 minutes. With fourteen controls, the best possible score was 42 points. Ties were broken by comparing total time (faster is better).

You might also be interested in the pictures I took during the weekend. There are pictures of almost all of the contestants as well as some action shots (and some artsy shots mixed in as well).

This web page (http://www.gouldhome.com/Pawtuckaway2002Canoe-o.html) was last updated on September 12, 2002. For any comments or suggestions about the site contact Daphne Gould. Contents copyright © 1999-2003 by Joel and Daphne Gould.