Missouri 340: Finished!

SandyBottom and SOS crossed the the Finish Line at 1:01 am Friday, July 27.

Their time in the race was 65 hours and 1 minute. Wow.


Photo by Dave J (Galt_57) of the St. Louis Canoe and Kayak Club.




During that time they got about 6 hours sleep. I roughly guestimate they spent another 2.5 hrs on land, and so were on the water for ~56.5 hrs averaging ~6 mph while moving.

SB and SOS called home in the wee hours Friday to report in very weary voices that they were headed out on a 40-minute drive to Stan and Dana's house for hot showers, food, and rest. Sleep well !


"Wayfarer" demonstrating proper post-race sleep technique. Note the blissful expression and relaxed paddle grip. (Photo by Connie Uliasz after Marek Uliasz finished the 2006 MR340 race.)





SB was 3/9
SandyBottom's goal for the race was to finish in 75 hours or less. Done! Among the 9 paddlers in the Women's Solo division, SandyBottom (at 65:01) finished 3rd. The other early finishers were Erin Magee (55:33) who used a wing paddle in a long sleek racer (Spencer Canoes DSX), and Katie Pfefferkorn (58:57) who used a Werner euro-blade and a 17-foot kayak on loan from Scott Mansker, the MR340 Coordinator. Katie did not bring the concrete canoe she recently built as part of her chemical engineering curriculum at M.U.; darn it! (Note: The MR340 website has incorrectly posted Katie's time as 48:57.) Final times are not yet posted for all of the other 6 solo women, but "DNF" has been posted for 3 of them.

SOS was 13/45
Among the 45 paddlers in the Men's Solo division, SOS (at 65:01) finished 13th using a single-blade paddle and Kruger Seawind on loan from Stan. First place was won by Dave Anderson (46:21). To date, "DNF" has been posted for 5 of the 45 solo men. "Wayfarer" Marek Uliasz (68:00) had to repair some leaks in his new boat (Thunderbolt X) but finished 14th. He has previously put together a fine photo gallery of the 2006 MR340; so, watch his website for his photos from the 2007 race. Compared to his time in the 2006 MR-340 (78:32) Marek improved his time substantially. Another WaterTribe friend "RiverJohn" Flegg (77:40) paddled his Kruger Seawind in to 21st place. I wonder if he'll be paddling home now up the Mississippi ... ?

ManitouCruiser and Capt of the O'dark30 4/18
Among the 18 teams in the men's tandem division, Mark and Brian (59:28) used single-blade paddles to bring a Kruger Cruiser in to 4th place. West Hansen and Richard Steppe (44:27) won 1st place in this division and were 1st overall across all divisions. West Hansen paddled solo in the 2006 MR-340 and was the overall winner (53:40 in 2006) in that first annual MR-340.

Mixed Tandem and Women's Tandem
Among the 3 mixed tandem boats, 2 are posted as "DNF" --that includes the team of Ann Grove & Wayne Kocher whose OC2 collided with a barge "train". One news report online mentions that they were swamped by the huge (bow) wave created by the barge, while the other report online says the a barge ran over their boat and they had to "crawl out from under the barge". There was only 1 entry in the women's tandem division: Di McHenry and Natalie Courson (61:09).

Well done all!