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It's not often that you have the opportunity to see paddling legends like Greg Barton, Dean Gardiner and Oscar Chalupsky all together in one place. Joe Glickman (a legend in his own right, author and adventurer) conducted a part interview, part panel discussion with the three of them in front of an appreciative audience at the Dubai International Marine Club last night.
 The Legends: Greg Barton, Dean Gardiner, Oscar Chalupsky. Joe Glickman on the right. (Pic: Alain Jaques)
Meeting Dean Gardiner
Joe kicked off the show with a description of how he met Dean and Greg at a 30 day endurance race in America which included crossing the Great Lakes. Joe decided to study Dean to learn how a "real" paddler behaves during a big event.
Joe was apparently most impressed with Dean's ability to attract the ladies. Joe was hoping to acquire some pulling tactics when he and Dean spotted a particularly attractive waitress in a restaurant. Sadly Joe's hopes were dashed when Dean caught on to the waitress's pronunciation of the word "waffles". Imitating her mid-west nasal twang, Dean started repeating "waffles, waffles, waffles" to the point where the waitress was about to call the cops...
After studying Dean at close quarters during the month long race, Joe eventually realised that real paddlers simply behave as though they're off their rockers - and he's never looked back.
Greg Barton
In contrast to Dean's ultra-laid back style, Greg changes from a gentle, introvert on land to a Mr Hyde persona on the water, which goes some way to explain his bronze medal at the '48 Olympics and his gold medals in '88 and ‘92. Talking to Greg, Joe found that he'd won pretty much any race he could name: "Molokai OC6?" "Yeah, won it a couple of times" "Cross country skiing races?" "Yeah, won a couple".
Thinking to fix Greg, Joe finally asked him "Yeah, but did you ever win anything at the West Minister Dog Show?" "No, but I dated an ugly chick and she won!"
Oscar Chalupsky
Joe first met Oscar by proxy in that Greg and Dean both knew this Oscar character well, and talked about him. A lot.
Dean would imitate Oscar's humble style: "My brother Herman is the greatest paddler in the world. No-one can stay with him on the flat. He's the best downwind paddler ever... I beat him by ten minutes." Greg would agree, "Yes, he did say that!" The stories continued, detailing Oscar's legendary drinking, paddling and sexual abilities, sometimes combining all three.
The legend grew to the point that Joe "couldn't figure out whether Oscar was a complete psycho, the greatest asshole that ever lived, or some kind of mythological god that had somehow landed in a boat..."
Joe finally met Oscar the next year at a race in Canada and was intrigued to see if Oscar would live up to his legend. "He was much worse."
But what followed really epitomised Oscar for Joe. The race was a 60 mile crossing of the St. Laurence seaway and Oscar and Herman traded the lead the entire way across before Herman won by a nose...
Joe asked Oscar what had happened to be told that Herman had actually jumped onto a the wash of a sperm whale that had come up, Oscar was about to get on the back of a whale when a boat came past, spun him out and that was why Herman had won by a couple of centimetres. (Oscar has a habit of being able to diagnose exactly why he lost a race.)
After that race, Oscar drank innumerable beers, then decided to drive 15 hours back to Boston, played golf, slept for two hours then called Joe waking him and asking, "where are you, you lazy bastard?!"
"But that's Oscar in a nutshell: no boundaries, no limits, nothing can't be said..."
The Panel Discussion
"Where did you realise that you were going to do this paddling thing really intensely?"
Oscar: took up the sport when he was about twelve after doing "all the normal sports, like soccer, rugby and tennis".
Dean: grew up surfing, joined a surf club to paddle on the flat days when he couldn't surf. Didn't really get into it until he was in his twenties, when he started doing surf lifesaving events. He got bored of that but found Molokai and it all started from there.
Greg: started as a young kid. Inspired by his coach in to being paddling in 1964. After his gold medals, heard about this guy Oscar Chalupsky in Hawaii and decided he'd go race him. And that's how he got into surf ski racing.
"What was the moment where you realised that you were going to make this a central focus of your life?"
Oscar: "Surf ski paddling is just fun." Winning was a small part of what Oscar wanted to do, but there wasn't a specific moment.
Dean: "Umm... yeah, over to Greg!"
Greg: "For me it was probably when I was twelve years old and watched the US Olympic trials. I realised you could do the Olympics in kayaking. Four years later, my brother was on the US Olympic team. Four years after that I was on the US team which boycotted the Olympics that year. Won a medal four years after that and finally won a gold medal at the Olympics four years after that!"
Dean (having had some time to think about it): "There wasn't really a turning point, it was just something that happened - and there won't be a single turning point when I decide to hang up my paddle."
"Greg, tell us, if there is one, the best of your Olympic wins."
"Actually, the most memorable win for me was the '87 World Championships. That was when I was coming up in the sport. I always wanted to be at the top of the podium and that was when I finally reached the top. It was also when I realised that instead of being the hunter, I was now the hunted!"
"These guys have defined Molokai, Oscar with 11 wins and Dean 9. (Greg 0, the same as me, it's ironic). Is any one win more meaningful than the others?"
Oscar: "The first one was memorable because it was against Grant Kenny who had won five in a row. I hated Grant Kenny because when he won the Iron Man in Australia, it made the TV news in South Africa. When I won it, there was a 2cm report in the classifieds in the newspaper!
"Then I met him at Molokai and managed to beat him.
"Winning ten was always a good one.
"The win against Nathan Baggaley was a sweet one too partly because guys shouldn't be winning in their forties but also because the field was the strongest ever."
Dean: No.
"What are the biggest conditions you've been in and are there conditions that a surf ski could not handle?"
Dean: "I think Durban this year for those that were there was probably pretty extreme from a wind perspective. The swell wasn't there but the wind chop was there... so that was probably one of the biggest conditions I've been in. Then in Cape Town in 2004 - that was pretty big, had some decent swell. That was a pretty big event.
"I don't believe that there's any surf size that skis can't handle - with the exception of breaking waves. Obviously if the wind got to the point where you were being blown off the boat - 40-50kts -then it's unmanageable, but I think surf skis are designed to perform in big runs..."
"How often have you been out when you've felt that you were about to sh#t yourself?"
Dean: "There's probably been a couple times off Sydney in big south storms when all the bomborras along the coast have been breaking. There's one memorable time, probably the biggest stuff I've ever been in, but apart from that everything else you've sort of felt within your ability to handle."
Oscar: "I don't think there are any conditions that we couldn't go out in. I've had some big ones , pretty scary where you think if you lose your ski, your boat's gone...
"I've had some runs in big conditions, 30-40kts of wind on waves with 50-60ft faces where my speed gauge, one of those old impeller things registered 56km/h. That was good fun and you still felt as though you were in control.
"One of our biggest problems here in South Africa, which you don't have in Australia, is the surf. Getting out and coming in is a serious mission, we don't have protected bays and so on. Sometimes to get a good downwind run, it'll take you half an hour just to get out through the surf. But I think these skis are made for that - they can go in anything from flat water to huge waves."
"The Molokai course has gone back to the old route. What's your take on moving it back and the thought processes behind it?"
Oscar: "The fun in the sport is all about moving water, going downwind, catching runs at 3-40km/h. But Dean loves commenting about flat water surf ski paddling..."
Dean: "I'm glad the guys have moved the race back to the original course for a couple of reasons. One, it is a race from Molokai to Oahu and that is the closest point on Oahu that you're going hit. Also the history of the race is about doing that course. I'm stoked to see it go back. It's a manageable distance for most people. The winners do it in about 3:30; the punters do it in about 4:30to 5:30. I said the new course was too long and this year the conditions happened to the worst imaginable and we saw what a course that length could do to people."
Greg: "It would have been a lot better this year if the weather had cooperated and not that much longer - but Dean is right, it is a race from Molokai to Oahu. It's already a lot longer than most of the other races and it makes sense to run it to the closest point."
"Dean has 9 Molokais, Oscar has 11. 2004 where the depth of talent paddling was such that some people thought neither Oscar nor Dean would win it. But they fought unbelievable, Dean dropped Clint Robinson on the Wall, Oscar caught up and eventually took it. The question is: are there any more Molokai wins for either of you?"
Dean: "Probably not!"
Oscar: "Plenty more! I mean, this oke Greg is turning 48 in two days time, and I'd like to take all these guys and put them against him over 2000m! I'm young, I'm only 45 - so there's at least another 3!"
Greg, when are you going to win your first one?
Greg: "This year I should have gone - it might have been a good chance for me! Probably in about 5 years time when I'm about 52, 53. Actually when I did my first Molo, I'd heard about Grant Kenny won five in row then Oscar came and won seven in a row, I thought I could do the same thing, young guy, just won an Olympic Gold Medal, I'd kick Oscar's ass. So my first Molokai, Oscar had heard about me and was concerned that I'd really come through and asked some of the Hawaii guys how I was doing. "Oh man, he was out of sight!" He was really worried... but they didn't tell that I was out of sight behind them!" That was my first Molokai. Oscar only beat me by 45 minutes. The next time I raced he beat me by 15 so I figure if I wait for 6-7 years, I'll pass him.
How extreme can you get?
See: http://www.surfski.info/content/view/292/147/
Greg, as a student of paddling and as a manufacturer, where do you see surf ski paddling going in the US?
"I think ski paddling has a good future in America. The US Champs have really helped the sport. We've got the NY Mayor's Cup and events like these and the event here really help get people excited about the sport.
"Next year I hope to see 200 people at the US Champs and we'll see where it goes from there."
Why is South Africa so dominant in long distance surf ski paddling?
Oscar: "I think the Olympics was something that South Africans weren't involved in so we had to pick something else. Australia has done really well at the Olympics and we haven't. Our sport has been about long distance paddling - we've always had long distance racing like the 244km PE to EL race and I think that's helped us. And we have so much racing - sometimes twice a week.
"Internationally I think we've done well, but Australia is coming back strongly. The new guys like Tim Jacobs and Ken Wallace are coming up.
"In Europe, they have many paddlers. For example they have over 500 paddlers at the French championships. They still have the problem that if the waves get over 2ft they cancel the race, but they'll come right in time and I think Europe is the new boomtown for surf ski paddling."
Talk about the Association of Professional Paddlers
Dean: "The sports developing quickly and there have been races worldwide more many years that guys like Oscar, Lewis and myself have been going to. We start to see now a bit of formation and that's coming through the work of Rob and Alain with Surfski.info. I think that's been a tremendous leap forward in the sport. The guys putting on the races in Hong Kong, here and elsewhere in the world are all doing it with the same thought in mind and that's pushing the sport forward. So I can only see things getting better.
What has to be done is to lay down the ground rules have to be laid down pretty firmly to make the sport good and different to any other paddling sport. We have to find a way to make our sport unique, and obviously what makes the sport unique is that it's raced in the open ocean and it's raced in chop. The difference with us is that we go out in the bumps and it's not about the fastest paddler winning but the about guys utilising the environment and their skills in those particular conditions. That's the unique thing about our sport and that's what we've got to play with."
Rob, how do you foresee the World Rankings happening?
Rob Mousley, Surfski.info: "As you know we did a World Rankings thing last year using the top races, and we got a lot of the top paddlers involved, but we ended up with a World Rankings that had about 33 people on it. Looking forward, we realised that a World Series is not really about choosing the best paddler in the world, it's really about giving exposure to and promoting the sport itself.
"So in the last couple of months we've been working with guys in Australia, the US and South Africa on the ground rules that Dean referred to earlier and essentially the big change that we've done is instead of giving points only to the top 10 or 15 paddlers, we're going all the way down to 50th position in each race. We'll distinguish between the races by giving them star races so that the points get multiplied by the star rating - the winner of a 4 star race will get 4 x 50 = 200 points while a smaller 1-star race will see the winner score just the 50 points.
"But what this means is that at the end of the season we'll have maybe 800 or 1000 people on the World Rankings - and that will be a much more sellable proposition to a big sponsor. That's what we really want - a big sponsor that will come with a million dollars to blast this sport through the roof!"
 Mousley explaining the Surf Ski World Series
Greg, do you think the ICF's involvement in a World Tour would be positive or negative?
Greg: I think we need to look at the ICF with a grain of salt. I think it would do a lot of good for the sport for example it would give us a lot of instant credibility. On the other hand, they might try to tie us down to certain things that we don't want to do like run surf ski races on flat water to make it "fair" for everybody.
"So I think we need to look at it, investigate it, see what the racers and race organisers want to do and see if we can find common ground. If we can find a common set of rules that works for the paddlers and works for the ICF then it could be a win-win situation. But if we can't find common ground and they say we all have to paddle 20kg skis on flat water, then we'd need to go our separate ways.
We've come a long way without ICF and I think we can carry on. If the ICF wants to come along, that'll help; if not, then we should do our own thing."
"What will skis be like 10 years down the road?"
Greg: "I see skis becoming more specialised. A few years ago there were only one or two skis that the most of the top ski racers used. You're starting to see more skis out there. I know Fenn has got a new design for this event.
"We've got some new designs down the road. I think we'll start to see that one ski will suit a certain type of paddler in certain conditions and another ski may fit someone else. I think we'll start to see more specialised skis - and really that's going to help the sport because instead of everybody having to paddle the same thing, you'll be able to use the ski that best suits you."
This whole phenomenon of copying boats. What can you do and is it a real problem?
Dean: "Yeah, I think it's a problem and I think it's wrong. What you find is that the people who put the effort in designing the boats also put the money into the sport, and it's very rare that you see the floppers and the copiers putting anything back into the sport and they just take all the time. Some people might argue that it gives you the cheaper option of a boat which is fine, but you've got to realise that the copier is the one that's ripping people off - he's the one that's getting the good deal, not you."
Greg: "Getting back to what I was talking about - more skis customised for individual paddlers, I think if you're flopping, all innovation will stop. There'll be no motivation for designers make new designs, to invest money, make prototypes."
Oscar, how light can skis get, and how important is weight?
Oscar: "The interesting thing about formula 1 racing cars is that they're the lightest, strongest cars that there are. Crashing a heavier standard car into a wall at 300km/h is fatal - but you can do that with F1 cars. It's the same thing with the lighter, stronger skis.
"The funny thing is that a couple of years ago we had the discussion and Dean said he didn't want limits and scales on the beach although I wanted it. Now we're making the lightest skis.
"Light skis really impress the fillies - you can lift them with one hand and it makes you look good!
"But lightness is important - but it's not just the weight - we do rigidity tests - and these light skis hardly flex at all."
Greg: "A lighter ski is going to accelerate faster, is going to be more exciting and easier to catch runs. Probably the most important thing for Oscar is that for every kilo you drop off the ski, that's that much more beer you can drink!"
What is the effect of lighter skis on getting women and kids in the sport and is that a real growth potential?
Dean: "Yeah, absolutely, that has been a brake on the sport, but it's not just the weight it's the size and volume of the skis. For a girl to push around a guy's size ski, that just isn't the right thing to do - they need a boat with less volume and less weight. Another way to grow the girls involvement is to offer more doubles races, and having women's categories also helps."
To Oscar: How has Herman helped make you the paddler you are?
Oscar: "As I've said before, competition helps. If competition is tough it makes you tougher... I think that's what's made South African surf ski paddling the best in the world at the moment."
Are drugs a problem in our sport and is testing necessary?
Dean: "I think drugs are a problem worldwide and not just in sport. But when you talk about the kind of sport that we're doing, there's very little that drugs can do to make you perform better. Downwind racing particularly, I couldn't see how there could be any benefit to being stronger or able to train harder than anyone else if you can't ride chop. So while I think they're a problem, I don't think they're a problem in our sport and if you keep the style of the races the way that we want them to be, and downwind out in the chop, then I think the chances of drugs creating a problem and winners is a lot less than, say, paddling on flat water."
Greg: "I think there's some truth in what Dean says, our sport is a combination of skills, endurance and other factors. That being said, with the prize money continuing to grow, maybe you'll get people going head to head and thinking maybe if I take this I'll be twenty seconds ahead tomorrow. At some point we may have to look at that and see if there has to be some sort of drug testing in the sport. I hope that the sport remains clean, but we don't need to see people winning because they've taken some substance that has given them some sort of advantage."
What is the place for Ultra-marathon style races in our sport?
Dean: "yeah, I think there are some freaks out there who are into that kind of stuff. But it's not mass participation type of stuff. But yeah, I believe there's a place for those kinds of events."
Greg: "I don't think there's such a thing as a bad race. But I think the bread & butter of our sport is probably in the one to three hour race, probably one to two for most of the races with perhaps one or two championship races from two to three hours. I think if you have a 1 ½ hour race and a five hour race - you'll see the same kind of people finishing at the top - but they'd all be a lot more tired, so why not get it all over with sooner!"
Why should guys in Dubai go to Perth - you came here, why should they go there?
Dean: "I believe that the Perth race is the best on our calendar. The reason for that is that it's all downwind, not an ounce of anything but downwind in it. But the whole concept of paddling from one place to another creates that feeling of a challenge. For a lot of people the challenge of paddling across a channel or around a point captures the imagination, and that's what we hope to do with this event.
"This year will be a little more laid back than it has been in the past - we've had to take a step back to take a step forward, but I think we've done the right thing and that it'll be as big in the future as this event here."
And one final thing: You guys have been in this sport since around the 1800s. What do you know now that you wish you'd known then?
Oscar: "No regrets. I wish the boats had been as fast, light and adjustable as we've got them now. This is a great sport and we should have been doing it years ago. The ironic thing is that by the time the money gets really good, I'll be in a wheelchair!"
Dean: "One of the things that I'll take from this is that I've got to race against guys I admire and like as friends and like as rivals so when I decide to hang up the paddle at some point, I've had the opportunity to race against some of the legends in the sport and there's been no regrets from my perspective in jumping into this. I'll be doing this as long as I can."
Greg: "My main regret is that I didn't grow up on the ocean like Oscar & Dean and I haven't developed the surf skills at age 3 like they have. I think I'll start when I'm 53 and maybe when I'm 70 I'll be beating these guys!
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