Soon after landing in O'Hare the evening before the Chicago Shoreline Marathon, I heard the news: 35 knot NW winds + 8-to-12 foot seas + five fisherman swept off a pier = No race!

Two more races down - the Norweigen ASKR race and the US Surfski Champs...  Jasper Mocke beat Sean Rice to take the ASKR event, while Dawid Mocke dominated in San Francisco.

As they raced under the Golden Gate Bridge, Dawid Mocke and Simon van Gysen were neck and neck, charging towards the Fenn Hotspot and its $1,000 reward.  The last time they’d raced, in Spain, van Gysen had pulled away and won.

San Francisco: 96 athletes from 11 countries will line up later today to race the new US Surfski Championships course, among them a fair selection of the best surfski paddlers in the world today.

Dawid Mocke extended his lead in the Oceanpaddler Surfski World Series to 19 points with an outstanding win in Mauritius against Jeremy Cotter, his closest rival at the top of the rankings.  Action now moves from the tropics to the frigid waters of the Arctic - the ASKC takes place at the end of the month in Norway.

For 10 years, the US Surfski Championships has been held in the spectacularly windy waters of San Francisco Bay. From the very first event, it was clear to anyone that followed surfski paddling that was world-class venue, with all the ingredients necessary to entice international competitors and local aficionados alike.

“Whoa, Mocke’s on a tiger line,” yelled race director Anton Erasmus as he watched Dawid Mocke come in through the Le Morne pass. “If he doesn’t catch this one, he’s going to get taken out…”

As I watched the white-haired paddler surf away, paddles down for the nth time I grimaced.  I consider myself to be a pretty competent downwind paddler – but he was putting half the effort in that I was and I just couldn’t catch him.

Four weeks to go to one of the premier events on the Oceanpaddler World Series calendar… the 4th Mauritius Ocean Classic.  And an awesome line-up of the world's top surfski paddlers will be there.

Although Dawid Mocke had a disappointing race at EuroChallenge, his result was enough to springboard him to the top of the Oceanpaddler World Rankings.  Jeremy Cotter (Aus) lies only a few points back...  all eyes will be on the upcoming Mauritius Ocean Classic at the end of June.