By coincidence of the religious calendar, Easter came early this year, on March 31 --- which meant that Carnival, the big bash before Lent, and the Ocean-to-Ocean Cayuco Race, which takes place the weekend before Easter, also came relatively early in the 2002 calendar. By coincidence of The Panama News production schedule, all three of this year's cayuco racing events --- the Copa Club de Yates de Balboa (from the BYC dock to the end of the Amador Causeway and back), the Gamboa Rainforest Regatta sprint competition, and the time-honored Ocean-to-Ocean Race --- all took place on weekends when this online newspaper was being produced. Add a fifth Friday in March to our second and fourth weekend of each month publication schedule, and this report comes to you three weeks after the main event.

If this year's races were problematic from a sports coverage point of view, they were a smashing success from the perspectives of participation and attendance. In the number of boats, the number of people coming from abroad to paddle and the number of spectators at the start and finish, the 2002 Ocean-to-Ocean Race outshone the events of the previous few years. New boats are being built and raced, Panama has embraced this old Zonian tradition as its own, and the people who made it possible --- Sue Stabler, John Husum and Pablo Prieto, to name a few --- should be very proud.

(Now if only IPAT would fully realize the tourism potential in these events, and if only the Panamanian public schools would understand the double opportunity to give high school shop classes projects to build and young athletes challenges to take up, cayuco racing would REALLY come into its own.)

This was the second year for the race off the Amador Causeway, and the second year in which the Gamboa Regatta took place on the Chagres River rather than at the Gamboa Beach. A year's experience meant more successful events in each case. This was Ocean-to-Ocean Race number 49, so the art of organizing this event is well established and the 50th race, to be held during the Republic of Panama's centennial, will most definitely not be a shot in the dark.

At the finish line in Diablo the Abou Saad Shrine, which runs the food concessions, made more money this year than in the past few, owing to the bigger crowd. Their main income from the event, however, came as usual from ad sales for the program. It is hoped by many, and especially The Panama News, that the terrible slump in advertising that has accompanied this country's economic troubles will be mitigated next year, so that the historic race will be a bigger fundraising success for the Shriners and thus the burned and crippled children whom they help.

This year a new boat with a new crew, Anacardium, won the big race and the juvenile male category. However, the oustanding performance in the Ocean-to-Ocean Race was in the juvenile female and open categories: Jungle Crew (Christina Crump, Samantha Parthenais, Alejandra Jaramillo and Katharine Huerbsch) won all five legs in the former group, while Sudden Impact (Jay Gibson, Kris Gibson, Rene Vargas and Denise Winkler) not only won all five legs of their race, they set five category records in doing so.

Among the international contestants, Brittania did not rule the waves --- the Royal Navy delegation paddling the Slave Galley were the last crew to finish in the open category, but then they only saw a cayuco for the first time the day before the race began. Balboa High grad Ted Henter, one of several people who come down from the States every year to compete in the big race, captained the Lone Star to a second place finish in the open category. There was also a Costa Rican crew for the first time in this Panamanian event.

For the first time this year, the Club de Remo de Balboa (Balboa Paddling Club) assigned points for the various boats' performances in all three races, each of which presents a somewhat different athletic challenge. In the juvenile male category, Carioca was the overall winner, with Rio Teta taking the juvenile female prize, Scenic Route dominating the young coed boats and Sudden Impact taking the season honors in the open category.

Also noteworthy was crew of the last boat to finish the entire race, the Rio Chagres. They are the ones pictured at the top of this page, and their time wouldn't seem like such a great feat, unless you also knew that these were eighth graders, the youngest crew in memory to paddle all the way from one side to the other.

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