Hydrobowl 2006 pictures
Races held September 9th 2006 at the Rockford, IL Pierce lake in Rock Cut
state park.
Pictures by Dan Grow and Warren Beauchamp. Verbiage by
Warren.
More Hydrobowl Pictures by Richard Hodgkins
Hydrobowl Racing Results |
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Dan Roche puts his latest
creation together. This version has beautiful 12 foot hulls that he
build using a female mold. In addition he's using two ducted props,
which were designed for an E/V vehicle, and the two fold down wheels for
easy transportation. |
| The props fold down into
position. Dan said the props were not too efficient for HPB use, but
they sure look cool.
Dan packed up the HPB after the 100 meter
sprints with a grinding noise in the gearing up by the bottom bracket. |
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Here's Jake Free's Road
Warrior HPB. Ok, he calls it Liza. He just finished putting it back
together after the wind blew the trailer over when he was returning from
the HPB races in California, which broke the first 8 feet off the front,
and smashed the back. |
| This boat was built to set a
24 hour world record. This picture shows Jakes bulletproof drivetrain
that he built for Fast Freddy Markham to make the attempt. |
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Here's Dan Grow's HPB. Along
with other tweaks this year he built a new organic sculpture seat for
the boat. |
| This is Aaron Stiles heavy
duty off-road bike. It goes really fast down the hills, and is
gears really low, so you can get it up the hills too. |
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Here's Dan boat, all put
together and ready to drop in the water. You can see the upturned
stabilizer floats. This keeps much of them out of the water when they
are not needed. |
| Dan added a new lightweight CF
rudder. This rudder is large and airfoil shaped to prevent
stalling in the tight turns. |
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Spectators mill about
and try to stay warm. Temps were in the middle 60s and the wind was a
stiff 5 to 10 MPH out of the North. |
| Rich Hodgkins took a bunch of
pictures of the racing action, as well as providing wet and near
hypothermic racers with technical kayaking clothing. |
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Warren Beauchamp mugs
for the camera. |
| Paul Niedermann didn'y race
this year because of a broken foot, but he brought a "ringer" to
race his boat "Paul's Cat". Paul's rider, Steve Forss really made Paul's
cat fly. |
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Here's Dan's monohull in the
water. It looks idyllic, but the wind was stiff enough to create
whitecaps on the lake. |
| Bob's boat waits for Bob to
find time to put it together. So that the races could begin near the
time sceduled, Bob ended up setting up the center slalom buoys while the
100 meter races were underway. |
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Aaron Stiles brought
this new monohull HPB with unique rudder fairing. It was made of
fiberglass over solid foam and was nicely finished. Aaron had just
completed it the night before, and had some problems with steering and
the drivetrain that required Bob to take his 'ole trusty blue hulled
boat out and rescue him. |
| Bob Buerger brought the parts
for his "new" catamaran, and he and Len Brunkalla worked hard to get it
put together as everyone else raced.
Unfortunately, he broke the drivetrain
shortly after putting it in the water, and was not able to race it. Next
year!Unfortunately, he broke the drivetrain shortly after putting it in
the water, and was not able to race it. Next year! |
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Rich Hodgkins and Peg Cipolla
were the official representatives of the kayaking community. Here's the
beautiful carbon/Kevlar racing kayak that Rich raced. |
| Here are a couple very
pretty surf-skis that Rich brought. The yellow one is for sale... |
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Warren Beauchamp times the
races. Peg Cipolla checks out her GPS. |
| Dan Grow watches the races. |
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Bob Burger crises into
shore with his blue hulled workhorse boat. On Friday night we loaded
this little boat up with 250 pounds of anchors and floats so Bob could
set up the course. |
| Warren puts the dive unit into
his kayak. Warren thought he would be able to race without any
stabilization floats this year, but after tooling around in the water
for a while, he quickly discovered that any turn made the boat lean, and
that it was very scary and decided not to race it. Fortunately Peg
Cipolla had brought these red "Sea Wings", which were designed to help
train kayakers. They were a lifesaver, and allowed warren to race his
boat and be competitive. |
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At the end of the day, the
boats were all loaded back onto the cars and trailers for the trip home. |
| Jake Free was so cold after
spending the day in the brisk wind that he broke out the ear muffs... |
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