Plum Beach Lighthouse Race Summary

For the past 4 years, the Plum Beach Lighthouse Race has marked the end of the New England ocean paddling season. With high winds forecast for its original date, race director Wesley Echols decided to extend the season by a day – shifting the race from Saturday to Sunday. The 8 mile out-and-back course starts off of North Kingstown Town Beach, proceeds a half mile to a channel marker in the mouth of Wickford Harbor, then heads south to turn on the historic Plum Beach Lighthouse, passing outside of Fox Island on the way. A northwest wind of 10-15 mph would mean some reasonable downwind on the first half of the race, with an unwelcome headwind on the return to the start. The temperature was around 60, with sunny skies.

A modest field of a dozen skis, including one double, participated in the race. Favorite Rob Jehn made the long drive up from New Jersey (as did Melinda Schlehlein), with John Redos of Pennsylvania also spending many hours on the road to attend. Greg Lesher would again face off against Rob in one last attempt to wrest a victory from him this season. Although Northeast stand-out Sean Brennan was originally scheduled to attend, he was unable to make the shifted date, leaving the third podium spot wide open. Tim Dwyer, Kirk Olsen, and Chris Chappell seemed likely candidates. On the women’s side, Leslie Chappell was favored to win.

As he has in the past few New England races, Chris moved into the immediate lead off the line, with Greg successfully latching onto his draft. Rob pursued a line slightly to the right. Rob soon pulled even with Chris, at which time Greg crossed over to his draft. Chris fell off the pace. Rob and Greg stayed together until the marker turn, separating to different lines as they started towards Fox Island. The fetch increased as the paddlers moved away from the mainland, eventually resulting in some helpful waves. On an outside line, Rob stabilized his lead to several lengths over Greg. Behind them, Tim had moved to third, with Kirk chasing.

Once past Fox Island, downwind conditions improved, although the predominant waves were unexpectedly from the port quarter. Rob remained outside as Greg edged increasingly more inside while taking advantage of the swell. The leaders arrived at the lighthouse at virtually the same time, although they rounded the sparkplug-like building in opposite directions. In order, the next to make the turn were Tim, Kirk, Wesley, and the double of Robin Francis & Igor Yeremeev. Now paddling into the wind and waves, speeds dropped considerably.

Although Greg had matched Rob on the downwind leg, the latter started to pull slowly ahead on the leg back to Fox Island. As conditions mellowed closer to land, Rob accelerated the rate at which he extended his lead, ultimately finishing over 2 minutes ahead at 1:08:23. For most of the race, Tim had thought that he was set to claim third place. Kirk was looking to challenge that assumption. He surprised Tim by appearing behind him late in the going. Tim managed to stay ahead, but the two paddlers were only 4 seconds apart after the final leg sprint. Wesley took 5th place, with Robin & Igor finishing a minute behind him in their first tandem race together. In the women’s category, Leslie claimed the win and Melinda the place. Here are the full results:

You can find more detailed race results from SurfskiAmerica.

This marks the final race in the SurfskiRacing.com point series. Congratulations to Rob Jehn for winning the 2021 championship title, scoring 71 points in his best 6 races. Greg Lesher finished 2nd in the series with 64 points, and Tim Dwyer 3rd with 51 points. No women participated in enough races to officially qualify for a championship title, but congrats to Erin Lamb, Leslie Chappell, and Mary Beth Gangloff for racking up the 3 highest point scores.

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