DUBAI SHAMAAL 2007: Big, Bigger, Best (The Glickman Race Report) ** video **
Written by Joe Glickman
Wednesday, 05 December 2007
Head down, his ski facing the wrong way moments before the start of the richest ocean kayak race in history, last year's Dubai winner Dawid Mocke was trying to plug the bung on Ken Wallace's ski with a packet of gel when the gun sounded.
Wallace, an Aussie who finished 4th at the Worlds this September in Hungry in the K1 1000, was at least headed in the right direction. Mocke had to spin completely around - 136th and last for a few moments at least - before giving chase to the mob disappearing under the concrete bridge on their way out to sea.
Carnage
Before Mocke reached the red buoy rocking in the swell just outside the break water, Tahiti's Lewis Laughlin was hit broadside by a capsized ski and forced to stop. Known more for his strength and stamina than speed, the 2007 Molokai and US Surf Ski Champ lost contact with the eight-man lead pack, each straining to be the first to the $1,000 Fenn Hot Spot 1000 meters into the 20 km course.
Dubai Shamaal 2007 Start (Pic: Wouter Kingma)
In the rear the carnage was even more severe. By the time I'd reached the bobbing yellow Hot Spot buoy, I'd clashed boats and paddles with so many competitors that I was ready to hire a lawyer. Still I was surprised when someone tumbled into my actual lap, taking the Lord's name in vain. Luckily for me, he slipped off (with only a bit of assistance from my Epic mid-wing blade) and I wobbled on. According to course safety official Anton Erasmus, halfway into the 8 km upwind leg, 17 paddlers had retired or been pulled from the course. In the end there would be roughly 40 DNFs, including a double ski that split and sank, three single skis abandoned at sea and another sheared in two by a fishing boat.
Welcome to the 2007 Dubai Shamaal.
Last year the inaugural event featured 20 international paddlers in a field of 50. The race sported a total purse of $10,000 with five grand for first. The 20-km race began at 9 a.m., hours before the predictable wind blows across the Persian Gulf. Six kilometers into the glassy-flat race, Mocke surged and only Hank McGregor and Daryl Bartho hung on. In the last few kilometers, however, the wind picked up, Oscar Chalupsky sniffed out the bumps and joined the fray. Mocke held off a hard-charging Oscar; Bartho finished third, McGregor fourth.
This year, a handful of South African ex-pats in the Dubai Surfski and Kayak Club (DSKC) decided to raise the bar, Dubai style. This, remember, is a club in an oil-rich city that features the world's largest indoor ski slope, the world's tallest building and the Burj Al-Arab, the only "seven-star" hotel on the planet. I learned about their grand plans this May in Hawaii when I met Gavin Dickinson, a zealous media man from Dubai by way of East London who was in town to do his first Molokai. When the lanky, loquacious lad wasn't looking for his wallet, camera, cell phone, hotel or cars keys, or fretting about the flat conditions predicted for the channel on race day, he was talking up his event like a politician seeking reelection.
$53,000 Prize Money
By late September, he and club mate Ian Kingon had recruited most of the top dogs in the sport and were still working it hard at the US Ski Champs in San Francisco. Incredibly, the boys had assembled a purse of $53,000 - the richest in the history of the sport. First paid $20,000, and there would be three $1,000 Fenn Hot Spots. And, to add to the fun, they planed to start in the afternoon when the famed shamaal (desert storm) kicked up sweet runs. When we parted at the bar many hours and beers after the race Gavin put in one last plug, grabbing my shoulder for emphasis. "It will be classic!" he said.
It worked. I arrived Tuesday night three days before the race. I'd heard a lot about the bedazzling Cinderella story that is Dubai - the world's fastest growing boom town when it comes to construction, business and tourism. I knew we'd be racing alongside the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made palm-tree-shaped island that will feature 30 five-star hotels. Further out in the Gulf there's the World, an archipelago of hundreds of artificial islands arranged like a flattened map of the Earth. According to an article in The New York Times the city needs a monthly influx of 5,000 new residents to sustain its economic growth.
Still, until I arrived I was unable to comprehend the scale of development on what only two decades ago was little more than a sprawling, vertically challenged town built on sand. Forty-story buildings sprouted up like stalks of corn. Think Las Vegas, Disney and Miami Beach on steroids, with mosques anywhere you looked. What was even more surprising, after hearing how flat the Gulf had been last year, was the raucous sea I encountered paddling out of the protected marina on Wednesday; it reminded me of the Molokai Channel. At the pre-race briefing on Friday afternoon, Anton Erasmus reported that conditions were "hectic". I paddled to the start with all the confidence of someone driving through Baghdad with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on their car.
Dawid sprints to catch up
At 3:30 p.m. the gun sounded. Once he was moving in the right direction, Dawid Mocke sprinted out of the cove, caught a rebounding wave off one of the concrete pillars on the bridge and wended his way through a field with 70 international paddlers up along the wall of rip-rap rock that surrounds the Palm. Four kilometers into the upwind leg - the second Fenn Hot Spot -- Mocke rejoined the leaders and took the first pull on his drinking tube. Hank McGregor, who'd won the first hot spot, surged again and pocketed another grand. Glued to his stern were Aussies Ken Wallace and Tim Jacobs, and the Durban mob, Daryl Bartho, Bevan Manson, and the Chalupsky brothers, with Barry Lewin trailing slightly behind.
First Fenn Hotspot (Pic: Wouter Kingma)
The general consensus before the race was that the fastest three into the wind would be McGregor, Mocke and Jacobs. Barry Lewin called Jacobs the "danger man" upwind. "The first man around the buoy has a big advantage," Lewin said. His aim, he said, was to sit with them - or at least keep the leaders in sight on the upwind leg - and hope he had the right stuff to get away on the downwind leg. "The runs will make the leg home quite fast," he said. He predicted a close finish. "The guys willing to hurt the most will do the best."
Daryl Bartho grinds upwind (Pic: Wouter Kingma)
Brutal Upwind
In the days leading up to the race, Oscar said he was fit and had no doubt he'd be able to sit with the trio of younger paddlers. In fact he was able to hang with them into the wind. Where he slightly miscalculated was how fast they'd be heading back downwind. Herman Chalupsky, who'd done less training than Oscar in the months before the race, told me afterwards that the pace upwind was brutal. "Miss a stroke in those conditions," he said, "and it takes you 20 to catch back up." Standing poolside just before the award ceremonies, Herman sucked back his third free beer and said: "When we rounded the turn buoy my battery lights were flashing low."
Daryl Bartho dices upwind with Tim Jacobs (Pic: Wouter Kingma)
While Herman needed recharging as he neared the turn buoy, McGregor, arguably the best all-around paddler on the planet, surged again, nailing down the third and final $1,000 prize. To claim the "champagne win" - $23K and prestigious bragging rights - all he had to do was hold off Mocke, Jacobs, the Chalupsky boys and Daryl Bartho.
Easier said than done.
Lead pack were flying
Back in the field I battled in the confused swells alongside former South African Olympian Alan van Coller and Rene Appel, the Olympic wind surfing coach of Hong Kong. I'd fallen in once and got air several times when my ski launched over a frothy wave. When I spotted the turn buoy for the first time the lead pack of Mocke, McGregor and Jacobs, in that order, passed just to my right like geese in formation. Their faces fixed in concentration, they were within spitting distance of each other and flying.
Aussie Michael 'Gollum' Baker paddled with no steering for most of the race (Pic: Wouter Kingma)
Trailing slightly behind on the same line, Herman and Daryl Bartho gave chase. Off to my left and out of my field of vision, Oscar eyed the 12 km of runs that stretched out towards a towering skyline and felt good about his chances. He'd hunted down Hank McGregor at the harbour mouth at the end of the World Cup in Durban this June and claimed several Molokai crowns with late race comebacks. In training he'd felt that the fastest line was further away from the sloppy water rebounding off the Palm. Though he'd finished third behind Mocke and Lewis Laughlin the week before at the Dragon Run in Hong Kong, he'd been fast all week in training and, as always, figured he was the man to beat downwind.
Predictions
Had a bookie offered me good odds right then and there I'd have bet a Dirham (that's US$3.69) that the finish would be a virtual replica of the duel Oscar and Hank waged in Durban this June. Considering that Mocke had expended massive amounts of energy recovering from that disastrous start and that Jacobs was likely the "weakest" surfer of the four left standing, I figured the order of finish would be: McGregor, Oscar, Mocke and Jacobs.
Wrong on four counts. My only excuse is I'd been rooming with Oscar much of the week. Here's how the front runners actually sorted themselves out:
Hank rounded the turn buoy just ahead of Tim Jacobs with Dawid tight on T.J.'s tail. McGregor opened a 50-meter gap on Jacobs and Mocke. Briefly, however, he hit a "bad patch" and Mocke and Jacobs surged ahead on the same run. Afterwards Hank said: "I recovered a bit in the runs and got everything back together and pulled even again."
Oscar Chalupsky's GPS Track - Dubai Shamaal 2007
Dicing side by side
The three diced side by side towards the bright yellow buoys swaying like flimsy goal posts in the wind and waves. Jacobs, who missed a few runs, dropped back. Hank and Dawid split the uprights literally side by side. "Had the buoys been the finish line," McGregor said, "they'd have needed a photo finish to determine the winner." Said Mocke: "I was aware of Hank and Tim but focused instead on catching runs. I just told myself to trust my stuff."
Roughly a minute back, Oscar, Herman and Jacobs cruised through the buoys together, arriving like arrows shot from three separate angles. With 5 km to the finish, the three of them were now fighting for the last step on the podium.
At the 2006 World Cup in Durban, Mocke had raced to the front from the gun and stayed away from the heavy hitting chase pack until Hank sprinted off the front and gobbled him up in the last few kilometers. That was on flat water; on a rough day that reminded Mocke of a typical run from Fish Hoek to Miller's Rock in Cape Town, he was giving notice to those who said he was mostly a potent grinder. "I've been working on my downwind paddling and logging my fastest times ever so I know I'm good in the runs," he said. "The perception is that I can't go with the good guys downwind is rubbish."
Five hundred meters from the entrance of the marina a fleet of powerboats came hustling past the two tapped-out leaders. Mocke reacted quicker, swung wide, latched onto a run and opened a 60-meter gap on McGregor who'd floundered momentarily in the chop.
Winner likely to be the man willing to hurt the most
As Barry lewin told me that morning, the winner was likely the man willing to hurt the most. Mocke put his head down and paddled towards the finish as if chased by a hungry wolf. "I had goose bumps all up and down my arms," he said afterwards of his end sprint. "I could hardly lift my arms."
Barry Lewin airborne (Pic Wouter Kingma)
McGregor closed the gap to less than 40 meters but "ran out of water." Tim Jacobs, back on his surf ski after chasing his Olympic dream as a member of the Aussie Sprint Team, surged ahead of a "buggered" Herman Chalupsky, who finished with Oscar on his wash. Later Oscar admitted: "I took the wrong line."
A devout Christian as comfortable quoting scripture as he is books on sports psychology, Mocke tipped his head to the heavens and pointed skyward as he glided under the finishing banner. Behind him the rays of the setting sun shone through the massive circle in the middle of Sol Kerzner's Atlantis, a hulking pyramid-shaped hotel that sits like a fortress at the top of the Palm. For Hank the second-place finish was bittersweet. In May he'd finished second to Lewis Laughlin at Molokai; in June he'd seemingly had the World Cup in the bag until a passing freighter forced him to stop and Oscar snatched the win. And now at the richest event in the sports history, he finished second again, 17 seconds and $14k short of the grand prize. "Three seconds to three different winners," he said, offering no excuses, disappointed but resigned.
Dawid crosses the finish line (Pic: Wouter Kingma)
It's not about the money
Sitting off to the side as the party raged on around us, Hank pointed out that the night before the race he and Dawid had had diner together. It's not about the money, they had agreed. "For years," he said, "we raced for no money and went just as hard or harder." With virtually all the top paddlers in the world in attendance, the title was what motivated them most, he said.
Hank was heading home to try to win another Dusi title. Then at the end of December he was keen to win his first Cape Point Challenge singles title (he won the double ski title there with his father Lee). "Dawid's been concentrating on ski paddling," he said. "I can't be disappointed because it's not been my entire focus. Next year you'll see a different story."
Subscribe to this comment's feed
