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"It was blood and guts at the end," said Dawid after the race. And what
a race - what a paddler. Who else could have come back from 200m
behind to win?
 Dawid wins the 2007 Dubai Shamaal (Pic: Alain Jaques)
Appaling Start
Aussie Kenny Wallace had left the beach without putting his bung in his
boat. With the kinds of seas that the guys were about to tackle
on the upwind leg, Dawid knew that Kenny would sink if something wasn't
done. So he took one of his Rocket Gel sachets and improvised a
bung, cramming it into the little hole in the foredeck.
Meanwhile, race organiser Ali Maynard had the rest of the front runners
lined up perfectly for the start. They were happy, he was happy,
no-one saw Dawid and Kenny rafted together 200m away. The hooter
sounded and the 2007 Dubai Shamaal was under way...
Except for Dawid - who was stationary, 200m away from the start, pointing the wrong way.
Catching the front runners
Dawid realised that any hope of contention for the $20,000 first prize
lay in catching the front bunch before they reached the top mark.
The first Fenn Hotspot was only 300m from the start. Hank
McGregor, who disdained the Hong Kong and Perth races specifically to
train for this event, was hot off the start and first through the
Hotspot. One down.
The next was only a kilometer away. Hank put his head down and
reached that one first too. $2000 in the bag, one to go.
Half way to the top mark, Dawid finally rejoined the group. "I
was just looking to conserve energy at that point," he said, "and I
just tried to hang on to Hank."
Extreme Conditions
But realise, the conditions were fairly extreme. The wind wasn't
too bad - considered on its own - about 20kph, but the waves were a
good 3-4ft and combined gave the paddlers a serious challenge.
"hanging on" was not wake riding on flat water.
So - 500m from the turning point and third hotspot and... "Hank surged
forward again," said Dawid. Fenn Hotspot #3 to Hank
McGregor!
"I managed to turn close to him," Dawid continued, "and then just said to myself, I can do this, I can ride runs.
"I just switched off," he said. "I didn't look left or right, I just focussed on catching the runs."
In our office in the Dubai International Marine Club tensions were
running high. We'd lost radio communications with the escort
boats almost as soon as they left shore. Frantically, we were
calling the boats using cell phones - they were finding it difficult to
keep hold of the phones, let alone talk into them.
"I can't hear you"
"Hello, I can't hear you," they'd say. "I don't care if you can't
hear me," I was yelling. "I can hear you perfectly. Just
tell me what's happening! Talk to me!" "I can't hear
you..."
As the skis turned downwind, conditions in the escort boats improved,
and our cell phone conversations became a little less frantic...
And instantly, it seemed, the Hank and Dawid had put a sizeable gap
between them and the next group... But "Oscar is closing the
gap," we were told. "He's gone off to one side..."
It was obvious that Hank and Dawid were simply flying downwind, and
were going neck and neck. The distance between them grew larger
as they separated, and then Dawid seemed to be getting ahead.
No comms
As they reached the last 5km, disaster! (From a communications
point of view!) "Ali has told us to f%*k off out the way," said
the media boat. Ali, the race director, knew that the heavy media
boat was going to push up a large wash that could interfere with the
paddlers - so they left the race, screaming into the beach where they
dropped off the cameramen before heading out again to spot the incoming
skis...
Where were the skis? Who was winning? Had Oscar caught the front runners?
The time stretched into infinity and we tried to find some small talk
to put onto the live coverage! Check the number of connections...
Jeez! Nearly 500 people from all over the world connected
simultaneously... Hope the website can cope...!
Radio Talk
As they came under the bridge, Hank put in a spurt and caught right up
to Dawid. Then some motor boats came past; Dawid caught a wave;
Hank didn't and it was game over."
Finally, John Blacklaws called on the radio from the beach... "The
first ski is around the corner," he said, "I can't make out who it
is..."
"Hello Rob," another voice broke in, "Dawid's just come around the corner."
"Yes," said John, "I can confirm that Dawid is leading by about
40m... he's about 20m from the line... 10m... yes, Dawid's across
the line and Hank is second."
Afterwards in the bar, John said to Dawid, "I saw you drop your paddle
for a second - and there was Hank catching you up! What
happened?!"
"I was stuffed!" was the reply, "It was blood and guts at the end, I was completely finished."
"All credit to Dawid," said Hank afterwards, "it was a really tough
race. On the last stretch I bounced over a wave, Daw caught it
and made 40m on me. But that's racing."
Beach Interview by Radio - and the website goes down
After interviewing Dawid on the radio, I took a deep breath, updated
the latest positions on the page then typed up the interview. I
hit Save, concious of all the people all over the globe watching our
story.
"Your account has been suspended, please call our accounts/support staff urgently."
What?! The biggest story, the most readers ever on a surf ski website and they suspend our account????????
I could NOT believe it.
Alain, our techncal guru had gone down to the finish to take
photos. "John," I radioed, "tell Alain to come back here, the
site's gone down."
Frantic phone calls to our service provider in the UK followed - it
turns out that we had so many people watching the site and refreshing
their screens that we were using 90% of the resources of the server
that the site is hosted on. "We're really sorry," the UK techies
said, "but it was either pull the plug on you guys, or 1,500 other
sites would have gone down with yours."
But that's good in a funny way
When there's so much interest in a race that the website crashes -
well, that means interest in the sport is booming. We're going to
have to move to our own server - which means money, we're going to have
to be more serious about that - but hey, what a way to go.
What a race!
Not sure just how many guys pulled out - but I believe about 20-30% of the field found the conditions too taxing.
I asked Dawid what he thought of the conditions. "You know, it's
funny," he said, "A couple of weeks ago I did a training paddle from
Fish Hoek to Millers Point and back on my own. It was almost
exactly what we had today!"
Lewis Laughlin
Lewis was noticeably absent from the front runners - right from the
begining and I asked him what had happened. Turns out that
someone fell off his ski at the turning buoy 100m from the start -
and it washed back onto Lewis at right angles to him. "Then the
guy had trouble getting on," Lewis said, "I told him, just relax, it's
ok. He finally got back on and out the way, but the gap was just
too great and I couldn't get back up to the front bunch."
Michael Baker
Gollum said he enjoyed the race. "But my rudder pedal broke on my
ski on the way out," he said. "I steered all the way back just
using my weight in the boat. It got a bit hairy on the runs,
because I didn't have much control and kept thinking I was going to hit
some of the other boats..."
I think we're going to hear a lot more about Michael Baker in the future.
Results - more to come tomorrow
21h00 Official Results
Final Ranking
| Position |
Name |
Nationality |
Ski |
| 1 |
Dawid Mocke |
RSA |
Fenn Mako Elite
|
| 2 |
Hank McGregor |
RSA |
Fenn Mako Elite |
| 3 |
Tim Jacobs |
AUS |
Epic Ultra
|
| 4 |
Herman Chalupsky |
RSA |
Epic Elite |
| 5 |
Oscar Chalupsky |
RSA |
Epic Elite |
| 6 |
Daryl Bartho |
RSA |
Fenn Mako Elite |
| 7 |
Clint Pretorius |
RSA |
Fenn Mako 6
|
| 8 |
Lewis Laughlin |
Tahiti |
Fenn Mako Elite |
| 9 |
Barry Lewin |
RSA |
Icon |
| 10 |
Dean Gardiner |
AUS |
Fenn Mako Elite |
| 11 |
Michael Baker |
AUS |
Hocho Oceans Pro
|
| 12 |
Brett Bartho |
RSA |
Fenn Mako 6 |
| 13 |
Steve Woods |
RSA |
|
| 14 |
Kenny Wallace |
AUS |
Fenn Mako 6 |
| 15 |
Bevan Manson |
RSA |
Epic Elite |
| 16 |
Greg Barton |
USA |
Epic Elite |
| 17 |
Boyan Zlatarev |
UAE |
|
| 18 |
Ian Grey |
RSA |
|
| 19 |
Billy Harker |
RSA |
Fenn Mako 6
|
| 20 |
Mark Ressel |
UK |
|
Woman's Resuts
| Position |
Name |
Nationality |
| 1 |
Katie Pocock |
NZ |
| 2 |
Abbey Miedema |
RSA |
| 3 |
Natalie Veckranges |
RSA |
| 4 |
Michelle Eder |
RSA |
| 5 |
Danica Vorster |
RSA |
| 6 |
Melissa Charles |
UK |
| 7 |
Donna Winter |
RSA |
| 8 |
Christie O'Higgens |
UAE |
Full results will be available tomorrow.
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