Lighter is faster. The Epic V10 Super Elite (SE) that I’ve been paddling for the past month weighs 19 pounds – a full 20 pounds less than the V10 Standard I’d been racing up ‘til the SE came into our quiver. I do recognize that my “Lighter is faster” comment may or may not be factually true. One could argue that less weight – or less mass – means less glide between strokes, otherwise translated into “more deceleration” and therefore requiring increased force applied again and again to maintain a given speed. But the reality is that, at the very least, I BELIEVE in “Lighter is faster” when it comes to racing boats, and therefore for me it is true. The proof has been in my workouts and my races with the SE.
I’m not a sprint paddler, but I find that doing an all out speed run in a ski is a pretty good objective test for me to compare one boat to the next. In the standard, fiberglass V10 I’ve been paddling, I could push it to a top end speed of 10.0 mph. In the past year of paddling it, I tried that test probably 5 or 6 times, and never did break 10.0. Same with the Vector, at 35 pounds. 10.0 again and again. But in a series of sprints in the SE, I was able to hit 10.6 consistently. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Less weight to push, less energy spent getting to speed, higher speed possible.
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Is the SE more tippy than the standard? No, the SE isn’t any less stable than its E-glass brother, which I find to be a pretty stable design in general. But it IS “twitchier.” It goes back to that weight thing – or mass, if you prefer. Take it to the extreme: imagine a 300-pound tree trunk in the shape of a surfski. Crazy heavy for a ‘ski. Can you just feel how sluggish that thing would be? It would “lumber” from side to side. Once it started a roll to the left, it’d take a major lean to slooowwwwlllllyyyyyyy bring it back. Trying to catch a wave, you’d just power and power and power and, usually, the wave would just flow under you and out of reach before you could get on it.
But… it wouldn’t be “twitchy.” It wouldn’t jitter under you, feeling like it was electrified, trembling like it’s full of helium and just trying to escape and fly off. That’s kind of how the SE felt the first few times I paddled it. Twitchy. The opposite of the tree trunk ski. Ridiculously stiff so there’s zero “flex” to absorb wave- or paddler-movement energy, like a baidarka. And crazy light, therefore with extremely minimal resistance to movement through space. So when power is applied… ZOOM! Furthermore, that twitchiness and responsiveness – physics aside – creates an INCREDIBLE placebo effect for the paddler. Every time I get in the boat I’m just expecting to feel “unleashed.”
On the first Wednesday Nighter I raced it in, I relied on the easily-accessed acceleration to blast 2 or 3 lengths from boat to boat as I worked my way through a pack, and to gain an advantage 50 or 100 yards out from any given turn. The SE just leapt out of the water, and when I tapered back down after a sprint I found I wasn’t gasping to recover, but could hold a high enough cruising speed to keep the ground I’d just gained. By the end of the 3.5 mile course – which wasn’t necessarily on a “fast” night conditions-wise, I had basically matched my fastest time ever, about a 26:35.
The inspiration to get the boat this spring, though, was to have a great Ski to Sea race on Memorial Day weekend. I’d put together an incredibly strong Whatcom County Mixed team with the goal of winning that division decisively, and I wanted to have a stand-out performance in the kayak leg. Like most of the top 20 or 30 paddlers (maybe more?) I was on the water basically alone, with no one within minutes ahead of me to chase down. When I took the handoff from our mountain biker, I focused primarily on racing as relaxed as possible while trying for good, long strokes. I knew the boat and my training this year would take care of the rest as long as I stayed steady, didn’t go anaerobic on the first run or for any significant duration during the paddle, and didn’t make any mistakes. By the time I crossed the finish line, I felt like I’d paddled such a relaxed race I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn I’d finished 5 minutes off the leader. There wasn’t another ski even visible in front of me on the course, so I had no context whatsoever for how I would stack up. Team RE/MAX met our goal of winning the division by over 40 minutes, and that alone made the race a success.
When the final results were posted, though, I read that in the kayak leg I’d paddled to a 3rd place overall – my highest finish ever. What really made my day, though, was that I was just 21 seconds off the day’s Top Gun, Eric Moll – an absolute powerhouse of a racer from Seattle. (BC racer Ian MacKenzie took 2nd, only 6 seconds off Moll). Over a 38-minute time trial paddle, just 21 seconds off the leader. Placebo or not, I attribute that surprising result to the Epic V10 SE. I absolutely LOVE this boat!
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