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Canoe/Kayak Racing/Orienteering Blog/Advocacy

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CKO is Canoe/Kayak Racing WITH Orienteering

Jan 12

Posted by phibious in Strategy | Comments off

CKO is canoe/kayak racing WITH orienteering - tell your friends!

Nuance Matters when Attracting Paddlers
It has been suggested that canoe/kayak orienteering (CKO) is the same as Foot Orienteering with the exception of an added boat for travel. We at Phibious would like to challenge that notion. We think of CK Orienteering more like a BOAT race that just so happens to have Orienteering!!

It is a subtle yet important difference that will drastically impact your race turnout. Canoe/Kayak Orienteering and Foot Orienteering seem to “at-a-glance” be similar. However, their cultures are very different. Just because you have the same essential mechanics does not make you alike. Are Baseball and Cricket alike? They both have bats, balls, and bases. Yet to ignore this difference is to alienate your potential participant and cause them to go elsewhere. That is no way to build a sport! And it is a certain recipe for poor race day turnout. Consider the following for a moment:

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Winning USCA Canoe/Kayak Orienteering

Jan 11

Posted by phibious in Strategy | 1 Comment

CKO is a timed race in which one- or two-person boats start at staggered intervals.

Winning Canoe Orienteering
A Seven-Time US Canoe-Orienteering Champion Reveals All
By Aims Coney, USCA Canoe-Orienteering Chair, 2008

What’s the first secret of successful canoe-o?  It’s pick your partner wisely.  Many thanks to Bob Allen, Barry Fifield, Ernst Linder, Andy Hall, and especially J-J Cote’ who endured so much, taught me so much, and ensured the success for which I later got credit.

Since 2001, championship-level canoe-o has gone through a miraculous evolution.  Back then J-J and I won the USCA Nationals by being the only team to bother portaging and dominated local meets by merely showing up with a racing canoe.  Nowadays the racers who enter the Nationals make far better decisions and local meets attract plenty of fast canoes.  It’s getting more competitive all the time, too.  At the 2001 Nationals there was a 2-1/2 hour margin between first and last places but last year the total gap, first to last, was only 38 minutes.  At local meets the long course often used to go unused, but now is often the most popular.

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