At the start of day 2 of the 244km Old Mutual Bank PE2EL Challenge, the surf at notorious Woody Cape was "the smallest I've ever seen," commented Pete Cole.  "There was the odd set coming in, but no real shore break.  It was a nice calm dainty downwind.

"Oscar was incredible," he went on. "He took off hard at the start and beat the doubles on the runs."  

The conditions on the 54km leg were kind to the paddlers, offering a 20kt SW wind and surfable waves to help them on their way.

Oscar Chalupsky, who lead by five minutes at the compulsory stop at Kenton eventually won by nine minutes from Paul Marais in a time of 3h22.  Oscar was well pleased with his performance.  "I went very hard today," said the 43 year old, "to show them that I want to race!"

Oscar beat all the doubles into Port Alfred.  "The race was longer than I expected," said Oscar.  "I was expecting around 48km; in fact it was 54.  It was hard, hard work - I'm a broken old man tonight."

Oscar is determined to take the lead during tomorrow's 68km leg.  "I'll take off hard at the start tomorrow," he said, "and they won't even see me.  I want to make 12min on Paul then I can relax on the last day.  As long as there are runs, I'll be ok."

In the doubles the crew of Peter Mote and Alan Schudingh moved into the overall lead, followed by Rob Welsh and Gary Butlion.

"Our main challenge is from Rob and Gary," said Peter, "they're only about nine minutes behind us.  We'll probably go hard tomorrow to try to open up a bit of a lead.  The forecast is for an easterly on Saturday and no-one's going to get away in that."

The slowest ski so far is the double of Johan van Rooyen and Murray Williams who paddle 8:57 on day 1 and 5:11 today.

The slowest single is paddled by Gordon Langley with 8:36 and 5:07

Forecast

The forecast for tomorrow's 68km leg is for a light W wind with overcast changing to SE and E by 2pm.  

The first starters will be away by 04h40 with the last paddlers leaving Port Alfred at 05h20. 

Tentative Results (phoned through on a bad mobile line - could be errors):

Elapsed time - Singles:

1. Paul Marais 9:51
2. Oscar Chalupsky 9:58
3. Peter Cole 10:15
4. Wojtek Orzechowski 10:33

Doubles:

1. Peter Mote/Alan Schudingh 9:48
2. Rowan Matthews/Simon Britz 9:57
3. Rob Welsh/Gary Butlion 9:57
4. Bruce Neil/Theo van Dyk 9:58

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed