Daily Archives: April 27, 2012

By Vladimir Brezina

The other day I looked at the calendar and suddenly realized that there are barely three months left: it’s high time to get into shape, and get the kayaks shipshape, for this year’s Blackburn Challenge!

The Blackburn Challenge, organized by the Cape Ann Rowing Club, is a ~20-mile open water race around Cape Ann, the rocky cape that projects into the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston, Massachusetts. It’s a well known and well established event—last year was the 25th running of the race (and there was one participant who had been in all 25 of them!). The fun part is that the race is open to “all seaworthy oar or paddle powered craft. Classes include men’s and women’s Banks dories, fixed seat singles, doubles, multi-oars with cox, multi-oars without cox, sliding seat singles & doubles, single & double touring kayaks, single & double racing kayaks, surf skis, and outrigger canoes.” Even, in the last couple of years, paddleboards! So it’s quite a colorful flotilla out there on the ocean during the race!

Johna and I have raced in the Blackburn Challenge in 2010 and 2011, and we will be going again this year. The 2012 Challenge is on Saturday, July 14th. If that sort of thing appeals to you, you should certainly think about going too!

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