Soon after landing in O'Hare the evening before the Chicago Shoreline Marathon, I heard the news: 35 knot NW winds + 8-to-12 foot seas + five fisherman swept off a pier = No race!

Three races into the 2012 Oceanpaddler World Series, the scoring system designed to select the world's best downwind paddler has yielded surprising results: Though the top 15 spots are littered with big names like Jasper and Dawid Mocke, Bruce Taylor, Brendon Sarson, Ash Nesbit, Dean Gardiner and Ben Allen, they all trail Ryan Moffet, a 32-year-old firefighter from the Gold Coast and Joe Glickman, a 52-year-old journalist from Brooklyn, N.Y.

Warning: This article features no feats of paddling prowess, no storied rivalries or snippets of macho trash-talking. There's nothing here about shark attacks or boat-breaking surf, nor do I speculate about the return of double Olympic medalist Nathan Baggaley, the brilliant ski paddler released from prison last month.

Gone were the 30 knot winds, frigid temperatures, and pelting rain that whipped the gun-gray river into froth during last year’s race. There were no frantic paddlers pinned by the current against a parked barge.

I met Dean Gardiner in Chicago in 1994. It was my second year of paddling and we were in Chicago at the start a month-long stage race from Chicago to New York. He’d recently won Molokai and the forecast for 20 knot winds for our 33 mile crossing of Lake Michigan left him giddy.

Dean Gardiner - brilliant 3rd place in San Francisco (Pic: Lesley Brown)