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 "Hawaiian Sports Festival" - sun and sand somewhere in the Pacific? Not this one! This one was held on 15th-17th June 2007 at Rerik, Germany on the Baltic sea...
Unfortunately we only found out about the event after it had happened - but here's the story.
Third Year
It seems ocean paddling is thriving in northern Europe - not only on surf ski, but OC and board paddling as well. The Festival, now in its third year, includes surf ski, OC and ironman-style events.
 Where in the world is Rerik?
Where is Rerik?
It's situated on the Baltic Sea in Northern Germany at the base of the Wustrow Peninsula - a location that offers a wide range of potential courses, both on the sea or in the lagoon. This enables the organizers to run the event even when the weather makes open ocean paddling too dangerous.
 The Wustrow Peninsula offers many options for courses
The event appears to be well sponsored - encouragingly, a brewery seems to be one of the main sponsors (and reading between the lines, the party on the Saturday evening was a cracker...)
OC v Surf Ski
From the photos, you can see that the entries were dominated by OC-1, and the surf skis appear to be spec skis - and those mostly Australian designed Force Field skis. There don't appear to be any long distance racing skis in the photos...
 OC-1/Surf Ski Start
Festival 2007
After a sunny Friday, the weather closed in and the racing on Saturday was held inside the lagoon for safety reasons.
Conditions were bleak - with wind and rain. But in spite of the bad weather, the event was a success and the Hawaiian Sports Festival will be held again in June next year.
 Long Distance Race Winner - looks cold
 Winner - 15km race
Friday the 13th?
"Perhaps we should run it on Friday 13th," the organizers said, "since the weather could hardly be worse (unless it actually snows!)".
 Martin Buday - current European OC-1 champion
The event website is at www.hawaiiansportsfestival.com
Results may be downloaded here.
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