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Cape based brothers Dawid and Jasper Mocke beat the Durban
paddlers on their home turf today to win the first leg of the Dolphin Coast
Challenge by exactly two minutes.
 Oscar Chalupsky and Bevan Manson punch through massive Durban surf (Pic: Peter Duffy)
Massive Surf
"The start was hectic," said Dawid, "big waves on a low
tide. We watched the singles go and it
was carnage, guys were getting taken out and boats were breaking. A couple of the Cape guys had a nightmare
trying to get out.
 Welcome to Salt Rock (Pic: Dawid Mocke)
"It was really funny, normally when the starter horn goes,
the guys race down to the water and jump in.
None of that today! Everyone just
jogged down to the water checking out the break. The impact zone was very wide and you had to
time it just right and even then you were faced with a big wave when you got
across."
The Durban paddlers agreed.
"Ja, the waves were quite big," admitted Daryl Bartho. "We punched through two big foamies and went
over a couple of big waves before we got through."
Barry Lewin said the conditions were very difficult to
read. "When the west wind blows," he
said, "you can see the lines of waves coming in and you can time it. In the east wind, the waves break all over
the place.
 Waiting for the gap (Pic: Dawid Mocke)
For a larger image, click here.
 Two skis through, the rest still waiting (Pic: Dawid Mocke)
For a larger image, click here
"We were lucky," he added, "punched through two waves and
were first out with the Barthos on the inside."
Oscar Chalupsky and Bevan Manson were on the right of the
pack and were smacked by a wave that took their ski into the beach. "By the time we swam in, the ski had been
swept a little way to the south," said Bevan.
"We then got stuck between a sandbank and rocks and according to Oscar's
GPS we lost about 16 minutes."
 Round the corner, and over we go (Pic: Ant Fouche)
 Here comes another one... (Pic: Ant Fouche)
Huge Runs
Once through the surf though, the paddlers enjoyed the big
runs. "Jasp & I decided to go way deep
and had such a ball," said Dawid Mocke. "We
were catching insane runs and arrived at the beach first, we were quite
surprised."
Daryl said that they didn't see the Mockes at all. "We were focusing on Hank and Barry," he
said. "They got away from us at the
start. Eventually we caught up with them
and had them on the outside and were marking Herman Chalupsky and Steve Woods on the
inside. We passed both skis but when we finished
we found that there was another ski already being carried up the beach!"
After the nightmare start, Bevan and Oscar cruised to fifth
place, under fifteen minutes behind the leaders. "What an unbelievable pleasure," said
Bevan. "I've never paddled in a double
before."
"It was such fun," said Barry, "but we damaged our ski at
the start and the rudder bashed a hole in the hull and we sank in the second
half. We were so full of water we couldn't
pick the ski up at the finish. We were leading
off Westbrook but by Umhlanga it was getting hard to steer and the ski was nose-diving. Hank was under water the whole time.
"I was really surprised that Dawid went so far offshore, I didn't
think he'd do that. We've still got
something to prove tomorrow. The wind's
dropping already so it's going to be flat - but the surf isn't going to go down
so it's going to be interesting."
Deep water start
debate
Oscar Chalupsky was scathing about the first day's
race. "This was not a race," he
said. "This was all about luck. There is no skill in rushing out through the
surf - the skill in surf is in timing it right so that you don't get taken out."
"You just can't have a beach start when the surf is that
big," he went on. "Bevan and I went out
from that beach about 15 times when we were training for Molokai and we
sometimes had to wait fifteen minutes for a gap. We are highly skilled at going out in those
conditions. But we were one boat length behind
Hank and got taken out by one wave. That
is just luck."
Oscar said that wet starts should be done going upwind in
those conditions. "You set a buoy upwind
and start the guys going in that direction," he said. "Then it's easy to control. Round the can and away you go. Give the guys half an hour to get out to the
start - and I'll tell you what, I'll be one of the first in the water so I can
take my time."
"Seven single skis got out today out of, what, twenty two? What a joke!
Who can afford to come to a race and have their ski broken at the start?
"We paddle long distance racing skis," he said, "and they're
not made to go out through twenty foot surf.
If you want to do that, fine, we'll build indestructible round the cans
skis, and I'll beat anyone punching through the waves."
"We tried to punch through the wave today, but it was just
too powerful. The ski flew metres up
into the air. We had to swim back in and
start again. We spent seventeen minutes
waiting for a gap."
Only 29 of the 44 starters completed today's race.
Look ahead to Day 2
Tomorrow's flat conditions will see the top three teams
battling for an overall win with skis further back too far off the pace to hope
for anything but a stage victory to prove a point or two. The surf will still be big however, and will
provide more thrills, spills (and broken skis?).
 Dawid & Jasper Mocke looking windswept at the start (Pic: Dawid Mocke)
Results summary:
- Dawid and Jasper Mocke 2 hr 26 mins 10 secs
- Darryl and Brett Bartho 2:28:10
- Hank McGregor and Barry Lewin 2:29:04
- Herman Chalupsky and Steve Woods 2:33:14
- Oscar Chalupsky and Bevan Manson 2:41:08
[Editor: We're hoping for more photos from the organisers - come back and check later!]
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