Surf Ski . Info - Craig Tanner's 2006 US Champs Review

Craig Tanner's 2006 US Champs Review

Written by Craig Tanner

Tuesday, 26 September 2006

2006 U.S. Surfski Championships, Crissy Field, San Francisco, California

As people started gathering at Fort Baker for Friday’s Surfski Demo Day and Paddling Clinics, I am sure a few of them were thinking, “ What have I gotten myself into?” The winds were howling through the Gate at speeds of over 30 knots, whipping the bay waters into frothy whitecaps. While these west winds promised some great downwind surfing, they also meant a long haul into the wind outside the Gate to the usual #4 turn Buoy off Fort Cronkite. As predicted and quite the contrast, Saturday found racers waking to blue skies and calm conditions. The San Francisco Bay resembled a glassy mountain lake rather than the treacherous surfski playground it had been the day before.

Assembling this beautiful Saturday morning on September 16 at Crissy Field was the most competitive field of racers ever entered in the U.S. Surfski Championships. The list included the previous year’s winner and race favorite, Dawid Mocke of South Africa, first time visitor Barry Lewin of South Africa, Gold Medalist Greg Barton, Lewis Laughlin from Tahiti, perennial top finisher Robert Clegg, local favorite Zsolt Szadovszki, US Olympian Rami Zur, top 10 finisher at the Molokai Solo, Mark Sandvold, Olympic Gold Medalist from Canada, Adam Van Koeverden and the list went on and on.

In the women’s division there was last year’s 2^nd place finisher Kathleen Peteriet from Canada, as well as Canadian challenger and former Olympian Kamini Jain and representing Washington State was Tracy Landboe.

All had arrived here in Northern California to test their paddling skills on 16 ½ miles of some of the most challenging waters found anywhere! The waters in and around the San Francisco Bay are notorious for the ever changing currents and strong tides that can change the texture of the water from flat calm to a popping and heaving washing machine in a matter of minutes. In addition to the currents and tides is the venturi effect as the usual west winds are squeezed through the Gate. This intensifies the winds as they pass through the Gate and into the Bay.

This year’s course had been changed slightly from previous years partly due to the new race venue at Crissy Field. The course would take racers from Crissy Field east 2 ½ miles to a turn buoy at the NW tip of the famous “ Rock” or Alcatraz Island. From there they would head back the way they came, inside two channel markers going up along the San Francisco shoreline and inside the South Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Once outside the Gate they would angle towards Point Bonita and up the coast to a red Buoy located off Fort Cronkite. After making the turn at the red buoy they would pass outside the Point Bonita Buoy again and head straight back to the finish at Crissy Field.

As the race start drew closer the winds began to intensify. What earlier appeared to be a flat calm San Francisco Bay was now starting to be speckled with white caps and wind waves. This would make for a short fast down wind run to Alcatraz but create a good uphill grind back out the Gate. The tide book was calling for a 1.5 knot max ebb tide near race time.

At the sound of the air horn 90 racers churned up the water as they sped off towards Alcatraz Island and the first turn buoy. It quickly turned into a race between Dawid Mocke and Barry Lewin as they separated from the pack almost instantly. They were being chased in no particular order by Lewis Laughlin, Zsolt Szadovszki, and Greg Barton. Not far behind them were Adam Van Koeverden, Rami Zur, Tepa Leopold, Dave Jensen, Robert Clegg, Joost Zeegers and Mark Sandvold. Mocke and Lewin would be duking it out back and forth most of the way to the final turn buoy outside the Gate.

Once outside the gate the winds were much lighter but racers found a decent northwest swell of up to 6 feet that provided a choppy roller coaster ride all the way to the turn buoy. Conditions were mild by local standards, but still provided plenty of fun bumps for racers to work with.

After Mocke and Lewin reached the red turn Buoy off of Fort Cronkite, Mocke started to stretch out his lead as he began to catch run after run, surfing his way back to the Gate. Lewin, seeing Mocke’s progress took a more southerly line back towards the finish hoping to make up ground. Unfortunately for Lewin, it didn’t work. Zsolt Szadovszki had reached the turn Buoy over 1 minute ahead of Greg Barton but had expended so much energy working to stay with Lewis Laughlin he had no gas left for the down wind leg. Barton pulled past Zsolt as he had smartly conserved some energy to allow him to catch the fast moving swell and surf his way to finish 3 minutes ahead of Szadovszki.

Dawid arrived at the finish in an amazing time of 1 hour 56 minutes and 2 seconds for the 16 ½ mile course! Barry Lewin would arrive shortly after at 1:57:39, just 1 minute 37 seconds behind Dawid. Lewis Laughlin made an impressive finish of 1:58:22 followed by Greg Barton at 2:01:47. Not bad for a guy at the north end of his 40’s! Bay Area local Zsolt Szadovszki came in 5^th at 2:04:46.

In the womens race it was Tracy Landboe finishing first in a time of 2:29:42 followed closely by Kamini less than one minute behind Landboe, and Kathleen Petereit in third.