ARB Surf Ski World Cup - Man it was fun! (** with video **)
Written by Rob Mousley
Saturday, 07 July 2007
My ski was stalled and broadside to a massive wave that
towered above me. I was an hour into the
biggest race of my life, looking up at a wall of water poised to break on my
head.
I tried to brace - but my paddled flailed in air over a
precipice. The ski started sliding
backwards over the falls...
Welcome to Durban's 2007 ARB Surf Ski World Cup!
Saturday Evening, 30
June 2007
Finally I was looking forward to
a race in Durban. At the 2005 Scottburgh
to Brighton race I'd been terrified of the surf and had injured my shoulder
going out at Scottburgh; in 2006 I snapped my ski in humiliatingly small surf
the day before the World Cup.
But this year I was confident - I was fit, I'd done plenty
of big downwind runs in Cape Town and I'd just spent half an hour going in and
out through the Durban surf without breaking my ski.
Even the weather gods were playing ball. The wind forecast: 18-27kts SW so we'd have
an excellent downwind run. Waves 6-8ft
so the launch from Toti beach should be easy.
I even felt faintly disappointed because I'd heard about the big sea
swells of the classic Durban downwind runs... It looked as though it would be mostly
wind-driven waves. Still, infinitely
better than the flat conditions of 2006.
Race Day: Amanzimtoti
Beach
As we drove down to the beach at Toti we were relieved to
see that the predicted small break was a reality. It really wasn't going to be a problem to get
out. The car park and lawns were a mass
of skis and anxious paddlers doing last minute checks.
On the beach Billy Harker announced, "We're not making lifejackets compulsory, but
we strongly recommend that you wear one.
The NSRI are reporting hectic conditions out there - the wind is 25kts
predicted to strengthen to 35kts before the end of the race. "
Three kaapies before the start (Photo: Rob Mousley)
Looking around me I could see that very few of the paddlers
had heeded the call - most were not using PFDs.
Next to me a PFD-clad paddler equipped with leash, flares and cell phone
was muttering, "I can't understand these guys."
The Start
The start was delayed while we waited for the press
helicopter to arrive. We watched the sea
apprehensively as the waves seemed bigger by the minute.
Finally - at 08h52 - the starting gun: 150 adrenalin-pumped
paddlers from 6 countries leapt into their skis. Several fell out in front of me and I waited
until the scrum had cleared.
(And for a brief video clip of the start, check the end of the article...)
We'd
watched waves breaking hard between the beach and the buoys around which we had
to turn and a set came through as I made my way out. I steered to the right of the spot where they
were breaking and reached the buoys unscathed while cries of anguish to my left
told me that others hadn't been as lucky.
Others weren't so lucky - race over before it began (Photo: Andrew Fyfe)
Then it was around the buoys and head towards the
Bluff.
A ski appeared in front of me heading out to sea - I
recognized New Zealand ace paddler Katie Pocock and knew that something had
gone wrong with her ski (she was heading for a rescue boat having bent her
rudder going over the shark nets. She
couldn't fix it and retired from the race.)
Wild Sea
I saw immediately that the waves were MUCH bigger and wilder
than I had anticipated. Yes, there were
fair sized wind swells angled slightly offshore, but there were sets of huge 3-4m
sea swells sweeping across from right to left, angled slightly onshore.
Hank at speed mid race (Photo: Gameplan Media)
This was what I'd always heard about Durban downwind
conditions - you catch the slower wind swells, get up to speed and turn onto
the bigger, faster sea swells. The
theory was good - but I was intimidated by the immensity and power of the waves. These things were roaring behind me - for seconds on end. I'm used to waves that crash, but this was
different - a longer deeper, altogether more powerful sound that went on and on. "Whatever you do, don't look back!"
Tentative
For the first ten km or so I was a little tentative and
finally I broached off a wind-generated
wave, slewing right and wallowing, just as a massive sea swell arrived. I
looked up at it, realised that it was about to break and steered up it,
frantically trying to get over it before it collapsed. I arrived at the top of the wave facing the
wrong way and came to a dead stop. I slapped the paddle down to the left
of the ski to brace myself - but there was nothing underneath me - just a void...
the ski slowly slid backwards down the face of the wave and it seemed to sink
into the water as I floated off it.
I scrambled
back on - "Careful, don't go over again, go, go, go!" - before the next wave
arrived - only to find that my leash had come undone... I fiddled about with it - "F#@%ing thing!" - for
some more precious seconds - I definitely didn't want to carry on without it. Teetering with my feet out of the boat, I
battled to clip it into place. Finally
it was fixed and I turned and accelerated down yet another wave.
Strangely,
the swim had actually increased my confidence - partly because of the warmth of
the water. In Cape Town, you die if you
spend too long in the water. Here you
could swim all day without getting cold. I recalled one of Dawid Mocke's lessons:
"wallowing is bad! If you're not moving
fast, the waves will eat you!" I had to
be more assertive with the waves.
And after
that, I had such a ball. One or two sobering moments when the waves
seemed to be getting even bigger, but I was having such fun that at times I
found myself laughing out loud, just with the sheer excitement and joy of
it. I passed fellow Capetonian Dean Jordaan who had a big grin on
his face. As we caught a run together he yelled, "This is why I
paddle!"
About five
minutes after I passed him he came off at speed while shooting one of the
monster waves. When he surfaced, his ski was already 15m away and
rolling. He took 30 minutes to swim in
to shore, ski gone, race over.
Meanwhile I
spotted another paddler on a red and yellow ski up ahead and within five
minutes had caught up and overtaken him, further boosting my confidence.
The last leg
All too soon the big antenna at the harbor loomed up and I
briefly imagined what it would be like just to carry on up the coast, taking
advantage of these extraordinary conditions.
Sanity returned with a jolt as I realized that I was a
little too close in and the waves seemed to be breaking harder than ever - as
if over a reef. I angled out to sea to
avoid this area (but then turned onto and caught probably my biggest, fastest
run of the day and then had to angle out even harder). I found out later that there IS a reef there,
just before the harbor.
Avoiding the reef
Turning around the end of the harbor wall, I was faced with
the prospect of 1.5km into the teeth of a howling 35kt wind. The small wind chop kept knocking the nose of
the ski sideways. As I ground my way towards
the beach, Jamii Hamlin passed and powered away from me. Then I recognized Tiffany Kruger about 100m
in front of me and the thought of being beaten by such a slight girl gave me new strength! I clawed my way up and past her, beating her
by only about 30m to finish in 99th place out of 196 in a time of
2:06. Oscar had won the race (in a time
of 1:39:56); there had been confusion with a ship and some sort of
protest. I heard too that plenty of
people had had to be rescued and that skis had been abandoned.
Oscar at the finish - in 35kts of wind (Photo: Gameplan Media)
In fact some 46 paddlers had failed to finish, some 20 skis
were lost, the majority of which were recovered on beaches far to the north of
Durban. One ski was recovered 4 days
later, undamaged, 145km away at Mtunzini!
Special Experience
It's striking how differently people experienced this
race. I spoke to the battered French
team afterwards in the hospitality tent.
Jean Rillard, the only French paddler with any surf ski experience (and that on flat water) looked
exhausted. He had spent over an hour in
the water, clinging to Gavin Searle's ski after losing his own craft. The two young French girls Julie Raeckelboom
and Amélie Bouillet looked in a state of shock.
Accompanied by their coach, they had battled the elements for a while
before abandoning their skis to be rescued by one of the rubber ducks. Morgan Joncour, a white water kayaking
specialist, was the only team member still smiling. He'd come within 5km of the finish when he
snapped a rudder cable. I asked Jean
what the girls thought of the experience and he replied, "They say they don't
want to come to South Africa again!"
But for the paddlers who did finish the race, it was a
special experience. The size and
violence of those swells made for the most extreme conditions I've ever paddled
in - appropriate to a World Cup event and I felt privileged to be able to take
part. Man, it was fun!
Famous last words written by Dean Jordaan,
July 07, 2007
I can't help thinking I should have kept my mouth shut. Neptune heard and showed me who's boss.
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Shark Nets??? written by Marsh Jones,
July 08, 2007
Rob, Great writeup! Wild race and congrats for finishing. You mentioned Katie Pocock's retiring from the race due to an incident with the shark nets. That's a hazard I'd not heard of before.
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Shark nets written by Rob Mousley,
July 08, 2007
Yep, there are lines of nets strung along the Durban beaches. Usually it's not a problem to go over them, but clearly if your rudder gets hooked, it can be an issue.
Stuart Knaggs of the Caribbean team stuck the nose of his ski through the mesh of the nets and had to get off his ski to pull it out...
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... written by Janet Mousley,
July 09, 2007
Great write up ... loved the pictures (only comment from a woman's perspective ... we usually prefer to be described as "women" rather than "girls")!
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