Durban World Cup Interviews and Stunning Pics

Monday, 30 June 2008  |  Written by Rob Mousley

Come on in for some great race interviews and phenomenal photos taken on the water by Anthony Grote...

Tim Jacobs (Pic: www.anthonygrote.com)

Technology

We had a lot of fun with technology in Durban...

Pre-race Interviews

I had a little Flip video camera that was just great for capturing interviews with the paddlers.

Dean Gardiner - just before the race (Pic: Rob Mousley)

Click here for the pre-race interviews

Check who's totally relaxed - and who's jumpy before the start!

And... after the race, we spoke to Dean, Katie, Jeremy Cotter and Hank McGregor

Click here for the post-race interviews

Anthony Grote's photos (www.anthonygrote.com)

• 08h41 B-Grade Start 08h41 B-Grade Start
• 08h46 Hank McGregor leads the A-batch start 08h46 Hank McGregor leads the A-batch start
• 08h46 Oscar Chalupsky 08h46 Oscar Chalupsky
• 09h04 Dawid Mocke 09h04 Dawid Mocke
• 09h04 Dawid Mocke 09h04 Dawid Mocke
• 09h05 Dawid Mocke 09h05 Dawid Mocke
• 09h20 Clint Pretorius 09h20 Clint Pretorius
• 09h24 Hank McGregor 09h24 Hank McGregor
• 09h30 Jeremy Cotter 09h30 Jeremy Cotter
• 09h32 Hank McGregor 09h32 Hank McGregor
• 09h33 Hank McGregor 09h33 Hank McGregor
• 09h43 Tim Jacobs 09h43 Tim Jacobs
• 09h47 Oscar Chalupsky 09h47 Oscar Chalupsky
• 09h58 Dawid Mocke 09h58 Dawid Mocke
• 09h59 Dawid Mocke 09h59 Dawid Mocke
• 10h05 Dawid Mocke 10h05 Dawid Mocke
• 
•  

Championchip

And of course we had the Championchip GPS Tracking Units on most of the elite paddlers' boats. 

Click here to replay the race.

Note that the race only starts some ten minutes after the start of the recording - you can drag the slider at the top of the screen along to hurry things up a bit - and you can replay the race at up to 10x speed.

The moving dots on the display are the escort boats.

Positions about 1 1/2 hours into the race

The Ladies' Race

Try re-running the race with all the boats switched off - except for the three women, Alexa Cole, Tiffany Kruger and Katie Pocock.  Notice how Alexa and Katie took a very similar line in the race; watching them live on the big screen, we thought they were paddling more or less together but after the race Katie said that she never saw Alexa the entire time...

Men's Race

Some striking points about the men's race are:

• Hank McGregor took an inside line from the start. He said afterwards that he knew that while he might not get the same size waves initially, he would get to them a few kilometers after the start - and would then be on a better line.
• Dawid Mocke took the opposite strategy and went deep. Towards the end of the race, he was on his own with no other skis nearby.
• Oscar Chalupsky started to come inshore, but then changed his mind and went out again to cover Dawid Mocke when he heard from the press boat that Dawid appeared to be ahead.

Directing the Press Boat

Boat #1 was the Press Boat - and we were in contact with them by cell phone.  The idea was that we'd call them to get comments on the conditions during the race - and this we did for our text commentary. 

But then we found ourselves giving them information instead - they were struggling to find skis in the big waves and we were able to vector them to paddlers that they wanted to find - like Dawid Mocke on his own out to sea.  We could then direct them back in again to find the inshore group.  Cool technology!

Sponsors and Winners: Keith Fenn, Clint Pretorius (2nd), Hank McGregor (1st), Dawid Mocke (3rd), Charles Brand (Epic Kayaks)