The Race Committee asked for narratives from folks involved in yesterday's wild and wooly Blackburn Challenge. I sent them the following:

I helped rescue 3 surfskis yesterday.

The first about 800 feet SW of the Annisquam River light. I only lost about a 30 seconds there, which I confirmed with my GPS track. There was another boat that got there a few seconds before me and the paddler, in retrospect, was very skilled at getting back into his boat.

The next two were off Folly Cove. I watched a guy struggle for about 30 seconds and realized he was not as skilled as the Annisquam River Light paddler, and altered course to help him. As I was pulling up to his stern, another surfski was arriving to help. That second surfski swamped while I was retrieving the first guy's paddle. I went to help the first guy as others were arriving. After a couple tries, I found that the best way to help a surfski is to right the boat, flop my body over the stern, and grab onto the rudder (as there are no perimeter lines.) Stabilize the boat while the paddler climbs in, AND gets both of his legs into the boat. I let him go of the boat when he had both legs off to starboard, and went to the second guy who was still in the water.

After learning all this the hard way, I was able to get the second guy upright and going at which point he said "Thank you and that I had taken 5 minutes to help him." I then looked around and saw that the first guy was back in the water, but as there were now a half dozen more boats around, I continued with my race. Checking my GPS track after the race I reckon I lost about 7:30 at the second location.

For a total of 8 minutes lost.

The Race committee just sent me an email thanking me and had adjusted my time to 3:59:22. This was 37 seconds faster than last year, and they let me know that I had finished 4th out of 23 registrants. I thought I was well out of the running. I am a happy paddler.