Adventure racer Ola Olsson was paddling a Sisson Defender but wasn't happy with the way it performed in open waters. He liked the Epic V10 but wanted to use it in rivers and lakes for training and racing.

Ola Olsson's kick-up rudder assembly (Pic: Erik Wildenstam)

Looking at the recent Molokai results and examining where the top 10 came from got me thinking where it all had started and why. Fortunately I do not have to look any further than my dad Colin Fisher and my father in law Peter Cuff for history.

Peter Cuff shows how it's done - 1956-style. Note the paddle leash!

With the astonishing and frightening increases in the oil price, Lance O'Conner from Red7 Australia has come up with a brilliant idea: the paddle powered Ski-cart...  Matt Carter sent us these photos.

Lance O'Conner's amazing Ski-cart

VIP Rob enjoys a beer in Dubai

[Editor: This feels weird - I knew nothing about this article until a few minutes ago - but it's a nice surprise! Thanks Al!]

Since you are reading this article on surfski.info, it is very likely you will come across the name 'Rob Mousley'. Rob is the joint founder of surfski.info and is a prolific writer and avid surf-skier. In the 3 years of surfski.info's existence, Rob has published over 600 articles which have generated nearly 5 million pageviews from readers all over the world.

Sunday 18th May is not only the day of surf-skiing's most famous race, the Molokai Crossing, but, by some huge co-incidence, it is also Rob's 45th birthday. Rob is currently in Hawaii and will be realising a dream of taking on the winds and ocean swells to make the 56km crossing from Molokai to Oahu. In the last few weeks Rob has written a number of articles profiling the world's top surfski paddlers, and I thought it would be a good idea to profile Rob himself!