Tag Archives: sports

Photo of Seventy48 Boat Race Start in front of the Foss Waterway Seaport in Tacoma, Washington.

Seventy Miles of what in 48 Hours?

Photography, Sailing, , , ,

Last summer I met a guy named Jesse at Blake Island while he was the “cruise director” of Salish 100. We talked about doing some photography for the two races he also runs. The Seventy48 and the Race to Alaska or R2AK. I got back in touch with Jesse this spring and we hatched a plan for me to cover the race.

While I hadn’t done any professional sports photography in years, I wanted to cover this race like I was working for a news agency. The Northwest Maritime Centre, the organizer of the race, wanted photos in as much real-time as possible during the race. So this was a great fit for a crazy photographic adventure that would suit my two passions photography and being on the water.

What is The Seventy48?

SEVENTY48 aka 70 miles in 48 hours.
Rules are simple: no motors, no support, and no wind. That’s right. HUMAN POWER ONLY. Pedal, paddle, or row. We don’t care. It’s up to you. (And this is a boat race. Leave your 10 speed-towing-a-canoe idea at home.)  ~ Seventy48 Website

Ben Lobaugh in his Minto rowing across Commencement Bay near Tacoma, Washington
Ben Lobaugh in his Minto rowing across Commencement Bay.

Also after I told Ben Lobaugh about my crazy plans to photograph the race. He decides to enter the race with his 8-foot Minto! You can learn more about Ben’s race on his blog post.

The Gear

Since I didn’t have any recent professional gear to cover the race. I asked my friend Ted Peters if I could borrow his old Sony a6000 and an 80mm – 300mm. My current laptop was anything but mobile I also borrowed an eight-year-old Macbook from my nephew and grabbed a bunch of SD cards and a decent data plan for my iPhone 14 Pro phone.

The Boat

While I didn’t know what boat I was going to be on Jessie would assure me he’d get me mobile on the water for the race, Little did I know I was going to be on a 13-foot open-air tender for most of the race. While I had an engine and Captain Dan driving. I felt a little kinship with the competitors.

Robert Dall working on his laptop from a boat in the middle of Commencement Bay in Tacoma, Washington.
Filing images from the start of the race from a laptop on the water.
Captain Dan

The Start

Watching 128 teams outside the Foss Waterway Seaport gather and then start was thrilling on such a beautiful night (Yes the race starts at 7:00 pm, yes that is in the evening). The weather wouldn’t be this nice all weekend so as the old saying goes you gotta shoot when the light is right! Also and unknown to the everyone involved in the race. The Lady Washington was moored in Tacoma for the night and made for a great backdrop to the start!

Team from the Seventy48 race kayaking on Commencement Bay with Mount Rainier in the background.
Mount Rainier also made for a stunning backdrop to the start of the race.

While I had sailed out of Tacoma with Ben before and I had been to Vashon Island in my 20’s I had never seen the Colvos Passage side of the Vashon before. As the sun hid behind the Olympic Peninsula the field started to stretch out and twilight started to fall we saw each team slowly turn on their night running lights one by one. It was something that I witnessed but couldn’t easily photograph so it was an experience to be had and to be remembered.

As Colvos Passage opened back up to Pudget Sound we raced to find the leaders of the race. Their tracker position isn’t in real time so we had already passed their position and still couldn’t find them in the blackness of night. We did find a small white light against the undeveloped blackness of Blake Island State Park. Living up to their name The Beasts from the East were certainly hauling ass up the sound.

The Other Boat

My accommodations for the night.

Once we had gotten to Blake Island we found our sleep accommodations for the night. It was an old wooden sailing boat that was originally launched New Zealand. It had crossed the Drake Passage, at least once, if not twice, from what I remember. She then made her way up to Alaska for several years before finding her current owners in Puget Sound. Hearing the history of this boat was amazing.

The Stories

Jeremiah Bonsmith of Team Daddleboard takes a nap under a picnic table at Fay Bainbridge Park during the Seventy 48 Race. (I am pleased to report he finished the race)

One of the reasons I was attracted to photography was the magic of film and the intricacy of the cameras. But really, it was capturing people’s stories of life and adventure. This race was no different. We left Blake Island early and went up to Fay Bainbridge State Park where we found a number of competitors who had stopped for a quick break before continuing.

I found Jeremiah Bonsmith of Team Daddleboard. He was laying out all his gear on a picnic table. (I am paraphrasing our conversation)  Everything is soaking wet, The headwind is a lot harder, and I wasn’t making a lot of progress. I am gonna let everything dry out have a nap and see if I want to continue.

I returned some 15 minutes later and he was asleep under the table and I got this great photo. It really told his story I thought. I never saw him again, but I am pleased to report that he did complete the race. (Jeremiah if you are reading this leave me a note in the comments I’ll get you the photo)

The Marine life

The Port Townsend welcoming committee

The animals I saw on route were amazing. I saw Harbor seals at the start line in Tacoma, Porpoises jumping in Admiralty Inlet Bay and the Sea Lion welcoming committee at Port Townsend who wasn’t impressed that I was on her dock LOL.

 

The Finish

There was a beautiful rainbow that appeared over the finish line on the Saturday evening.

Arriving to Victorian seaport of Port Townsend and the Northwest Marine Center I set up my base camp in Helen Keeley Boathouse.

Fellow Canadian Audrey Standish was all smiles at the finish line of the Seventy 48.

The range of emotions from competitors that were completely went from dogged determination to finish, weepy to see loved ones and one Audrey Standish from the aptly named Chucklewave who was laughing from ear to ear upon arrival.

You can’t capture everything on a race of this magnitude you just have to capture of variety of every type of competitor and stories that peak your interest.

The Party

Team Sculling Chinooks getting there tie cut for the Seventy48 NeckTie Party.

The next day I was asked to cover the Seventy48 Necktie Party. This was a new event for the Seventy48 as it becomes more of it’s own event then a tag on to the R2AK. The length of the neck tie depends on how much of the race you completed.

Conclusion

There is a lot from the career as a photojournalist I didn’t enjoy. Tragedy the most. But I did miss the adrenaline from shooting sports and meeting a deadline. The Seventy48 let me scratch that itch.

The town of Port Townsend was beautiful and I enjoyed a walk through the historic downtown getting dinner at the Nifty Fiftys Soda Fountain which was quite welcome respite. I also got the chance to see the historic Tally Ho in the final stages of her rebuild.

Please enjoy the rest of the photos in the gallery below.

 

Men with Brooms: Manitoban’s love their curling

Photography, ,

This article was originally published in March 3, 2003 on the website sportshooter.com

Men with Brooms: Manitoban’s love their curling

Dave Hamblin, current World Junior Champion yells directions down the ice while the other team looks on.
Dave Hamblin, current World Junior Champion yells directions down the ice while the other team looks on.
Photo by Robert Dall/Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic

What involves lots of moving around, sweating and yelling hard at the top of your lungs?

Get your mind out of the gutter I was referring to curling . . . Just as rural Texans love their football, Manitoban’s love their curling.

The recent Safeway Select Manitoba Curling Championships were in my fair city last month. They took over the twin pad arena that’s home to our AAA hockey team. In one arena they converted the NHL sized hockey rink into 5 sheets of curling ice made by one of the best ice makers in North America, Hans Wuthrich. The host committee then converted the other rink in a bar of equal size.

Yes, a bar, which is one, reason I like the sport so much, The social side of curling is equally as large as the competition itself. The organizers rarely hold the championship in a major centre because the competition gets lost with in the city. They take it to small town support the local economy and take over the town for the week.

Curling is so beloved because the prairies are cold and ruthless in the winters; the farmers and rural folk need something to do through the cold.

During this years five days curling event it was -25C to -30C outside and yet some one had the bright idea for all 300 staff and volunteers to wear the sportsshooter famed Hawaiian T-shits and lays. They also never dropped a smile from there over worked faces.

Brent Scales of Swan River, yells down the ice. Photo by Robert Dall/Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic

The curling lingo creates barely legible cutlines that can read. “Skip James Kirkness throwing the hammer drew the button and won the end” Why are you using hammers? What are buttons doing on the ice? And why is everyone called Skip?

Curling is about as confusing to understand as cricket, two extremely simple games completely confused by people trying to cover them.

Yet, this is a polite sport where everyone is yelling at each other. When you not yelling your leaning on your broom used for sweeping and everyone sweeps except for the skip who yells and leans and generally freezes their but off because they rarely move. Yes, this is one confusing sport.

Shooting positions weren’t bad with organizer’s giving you full run of the place. When you arrived they give you a chunk of carpet and you find a nice spot and realize why you need the carpet. Your sitting on the hockey ice they didn’t use. Good news, those free liquor tickets you also received can be used while shooting and your drink never gets warm. Bad news, the carpet only minority helps from getting a frozen bottom.

The week ended with well over 1000 people pilling into the bar on the Saturday night to listen to the reunion of the band Double Eagle a once huge country band that got it’s started in Portage la Prairie, MB. While I was learning the social side of curling I saw mid-aged western wearing couples dancing right beside 20-something skater clad boys and their Halter-top clothed girlfriends, dancing in prefect co-habitation. Maybe the world needs more curling. . . With the world curling championships happening a short drive away in Winnipeg, MB this year it should be easy to see the best in the world. All I need to do is find a client and some credentials, any takers . . .

This article was originally published in March 3, 2003 on the website sportshooter.com

The London 2012 Games was a real social sport

Technology, , ,

When the Olympics were in Vancouver in 2010, I volunteered and enjoyed connecting with other volunteers during and after the Games, mainly via Facebook. People have called the 2010 Games the first social Olympics, and while I agree with that, I think the London 2012 Games were the first to really take hold of the technology and run with it. Pun intended.

I have two stellar examples that demonstrate this.

My father and I were watching the men’s eight rowing from Eton Dorney and we kept seeing a large number of cyclists in the background following the rowers. Dad wondered who they were–members of the audience, judges, or crew members.

Meanwhile, I was wondering how the rowers at the front of the boats could hear the calls of the coxswains at the back of the boats.

Neither of  had participated in the sport, so I searched on Google for answers to our questions. I found more about the coxswains than I did about the cyclists, but not exactly what I wanted. During my search I came across the Twitter account for Rowing Canada and I sent my two queries in their direction.

The next day I found responses to both of the questions waiting for me.

Wow! Answers directed right to me. In the old days you had to rely on the TV announcer to provide everything and if he didn’t mention it you were left to ponder. (It certainly made for more lively conversation around our house about the amount of coaches every team has.) 🙂

The second example left me a little more starstruck.

I was watching the closing ceremonies live and I thought I would send out a thank you tweet to a number of Olympic athletes who were on Twitter and whom I had watched during the games.

Regardless of whether they won medals or not, I just wanted to say thanks for wearing the maple leaf. To my complete surprise, Simon Whitfield, triathlete and opening ceremonies flag bearer, replied back from the middle of the field during the closing ceremonies.

https://twitter.com/simonwhitfield/status/234755827930640384

It was the first time I had ever watched a live event of this scale and communicated with a participant in this way. Although the Games were 7,578 km away, I felt a part of them. And even though it was only a small part, it was an exciting moment for me nonetheless.

These two examples show what kind of interaction, what kind of support we can show our athletes when they dedicate the vast majority of their lives to sport, hoping to represent their country in front of the world.

I look forward to the Sochi Games when I will be patriotically watching our athletes represent our home and native land. And knowing they are interacting directly with fans like me.