We made 4 stops, and there were too many casual canoe/kayak/drunk/etc people on the river for us to go all out 100% of the time, but it was still a race and 18 miles. My partner was shitty though; every year I get a new person who doesn't follow directions. We started out with him in the front of the canoe, but he couldn't steer it plus his weight made it hard for me to make any impact in the back. After falling into the rive like three times we switched positions and sailed down the river rather smoothly, outside of a few run ins with other canoes.
The problem was some of our turns. It's a long ordeal, I understand conserving energy for the last leg of the race. But when you're speeding towards a falling tree, or the river bank, you have to be working hard as fuck to avoid that shit. But while I'd be frantically trying to turn the boat, he'd be in the back with his paddle lifelessly in the water, slowing us down. So we hit a few tree branches and shit, causing us to lose significant time.
