Jim Morris
“What I found at my first practice in ‘99 was a close-knit team of guys who had been training together since the mid-80s, inventing their own technique as they went. I joined as they were preparing to defend the 500m World Championship they had won in Hong Kong in 1997.
One of my favorite races was when we got rammed in the Senior A Mixed 250m at the 2002 Club Crew World Championships in Rome.
This was the first time I had ever been picked as right-stroke in a race; I was pretty nervous. I put my trust in super-consistent Chris Marquart in left stroke seat, super-smart drummer Joyce Wald, and Billy Heffernan (IMO the best steersman in North America) at the tiller. I figured that if I mirrored Marquart’s stroke and obeyed Joyce’s every word, things were likely to go OK despite my inexperience. Little did I know something 'bad' was lurking behind us… and one lane to our right.
By 'bad' I mean B.A.D. - the Bay Area Dragons - the other US team at the Rome CCWC. We had recently been rammed hard by them one month earlier on their own home water at US Nationals. In an attempt to wake-ride us late in the race, their steerer had lost control and rammed the crap out of us, knocking Billy Hef clear off the boat and into the water. The hit really shook him up and the rescue boat had to collect him. A month later and 8 time-zones away, there they were again, just to our right in lane 1. I thought, ‘Ok – No hard feelings – It’s a short 250m race – they’ll be more cautious this time, right? Sure.’
‘Paddlers, are you ready?!’
'Attention!'
>>Bang<<
Joyce called us nicely through the start, then drove us into a fast settle with the usual, 'Eight. Nine. LOOONG!' I saw B.A.D. falling back in the corner of my eye almost immediately. It seemed all was going according to plan, until Joyce started pointing to her left and down the length of the boat, yelling 'Billy…Billy…BILLY! - ON YOUR RIGHT!' Then the whole boat shook, tilted hard left, and made a slicing turn hard to the right.
The Rome course was essentially a huge fountain; the sides were vertical concrete walls similar to a pool. To make it worse, numerous metal docks jutted out in places along the course.
We in Philly are taught to never stop paddling in the middle of a race, so Marquart and I kept up the pace despite the fact that we were headed right for one of those jutting docks. True to form, Joyce yelled, 'BILLY IS DOWN! We have no steering! DO NOT STOP PADDLING!'
In retrospect, this is one of the times when you realize the advantages of a truly great drummer who has earned the unflinching confidence of her team… Joyce was essentially the hood ornament on 2 tons worth of boat and crew that was closing fast on a metal dock mounted to a concrete wall, and she knew it. Heedless of her personal safety (we had literally broken one of her legs at practice earlier that year…but that’s another story), she kept us going.
'DO NOT STOP PADDLING!' was her command, so that’s what we did, until her quick thinking was revealed. 'FRONT LEFT - DRAW! BACK RIGHT - DRAW! PULL US AROUND! KEEP PADDLING!' And when you look at the video (did I mention there’s video?) you can see Marquart in left stroke seat reaching way out to draw, and Mitch Pelekane and a few others doing the same near the back-right. Sure enough, the boat began to turn back to the left, but it wasn’t going to be enough. From the front, I could tell we were going to hit the dock. I braced myself to set my paddle into a hard post to attempt a rudder at front right…just as the boat curved hard away from the wall.
'BILLY IS UP!' yelled Joyce. 'We have steering!' Despite the crash, Billy hadn’t gone in the water this time. He was knocked down, but not out of the boat. After getting thrown around in the stern for several strokes, he got back on his feet, grabbed the tiller, and yanked us hard back to the left, missing the death dock by about 8 feet. Disaster averted - but we were now completely off the course and the turns had slowed us down. The other boats were heading down the course without us, and remember, this was a short 250m race.
Then Joyce did something unexpected, especially since the race was almost certainly going to be re-run. She re-ignited the engine of the boat mid-course by calling a second opening sprint, knowing it was so totally ingrained that we couldn’t help but obey. 'Threeee – Foooour – Fiiiive – UP!' As one, we all fired up into a high-rate shoulder pop. That lasted for just a few strokes when she called a full-pressure fast settle: 'Eight – Nine – LOOOONG!' All the adrenaline from our ram and near-wreck experience poured into our arms and backs.
We were reaching forward like we could grab the boats ahead of us and drag them back to us with our hands. The boat surged. We shot forward like a rocket and I remember thinking, 'No way we recover this race, but this boat’s on fire and we’ve gotta BURN!' It felt amazing.
Glancing left at Marquart sitting next to me, he had to be thinking something similar. And in the stern was master steersman Billy Heffernan, who angled us back onto the race course, across the width of the now-empty lane one, and right into our own legal lane number two just in time for us to cross the finish line – ahead of all other boats. We had actually won the race.
Win or lose, Philly is usually pretty damn stoic at the end of a race, unless we’re at Worlds. This time we made an exception. It was only a semi-final, but we cheered when we won. Billy dropped the tiller, raised his arms, and did a kind of happy, incredulous 'Can you believe that just happened?' spin in the back of the boat.
Yeah, it happened. It was just a short distance Senior A semi-final in a club-crew race, but it was improbable and gutsy and amazing and it’ll always be one of my favorites. I’m glad we cheered at the end. And like I said, there’s video; just search 'Philly rammed CCWC.' ”
[Jim Morris (Philadelphia, USA) paddler/founding board member/officer on Philadelphia Dragon Boat Association, paddler on First Families and US national team.]
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