The 2010 Nelo Summer Challenge set a new benchmark in terms of live coverage – in spite of battling with technology that collapsed under the weight of the sheer number of viewers…
Day 1 – 10km downwind sprint
Tim Jacobs walked away with the Euro3,500, beating a truly astonishing array of paddling talent – Olympian sprinters were two a penny and much of the current European marathon talent was there too.
The course comprised a 3km leg out from the beach into the wind, followed by 6km downwind and a final 1km sprint into the finish. The mixture of a shore break and flat water paddlers made a highly entertaining spectacle for the crowd…
The top six results were:
Tim Jacobs (Aus) 41:26
Ken Wallace (Aus) 42:11
David Smith (Aus) 42:21
Jacob Clear (Aus) 42:26
Jasper Mocke (SA) 42:59
Barry Lewin (SA) 43:32
In the women’s race, Michele Eray (SA) took the win.
(The other results are on the summerchallenge.nelo.eu website. It’s still down as I write this but will no doubt be up again before too long.)
Video
Day 2 – surf lifesaving style knock-out
The course for the knockout was a 400m paddle out from the beach, around two cans and then back in again. Nelo provided identical spec skis for all competitors.
A total of 19 heats decided who would be in the 20-place men’s and women’s finals…
The women’s event was taken by Bridgitte Hartley (SA) with Lani Belcher (UK) and Michele Eray (SA) second and third.
After a disappointing 10km race, Jasper Mocke was stoked to win the round the cans event – the South African has been selected to captain his team in the World Surf Lifesaving Championships later this year in Egypt. David Smith (Aus) and Jacob Clear (Aus) came second and third.
Video
Live Coverage
Nelo provided live coverage of both events – on the first day showing commentary, a GPS track of the leaders and live streaming video. They were clearly bedevilled by the technology and the streaming video shut down after a few minutes, while the commentator seemed overwhelmed by the speed of the race! (Having been in a similar situation – surfski.info crashed just after the finish of the 2007 Dubai Shmaal – I really felt for them.)
But in my opinion they showed the way forward – we need exactly this kind of coverage to take surfski racing to the next level.
I watched the live video/commentary of the round the cans final and it was a truly compelling experience – the race was shown from start to finish, the prize-giving was then held on camera within a few minutes of the end of the race. Awesome!
With Kristyl Smith and Kirsty Holmes busy with the surf IronWoman races, and last year’s winner Michele Eray looking into her crystal ball and foreseeing a headwind, this year was perfectly set up for local Ruth Highman to take her first ‘Doctor’ title.
Perth, Australia: The famed Fremantle sea breeze delivered on the second day of the Doctor Festival of Paddle Sports in Perth today and it was the South African flag that flew high.
Perth, Australia: Freshwater's Tim Jacobs today became the first man to win back-to-back Doctor ocean ski events in hot, flat, unforgiving conditions in Perth [Editor: actually the second: Oscar Chalupsky won in 2005 and 2006!].
Transcribe the accumulated wisdom of two of the best surfski paddlers in the world, add some truly stunning photographs, and in case that’s not enough, make things even more clear with beautifully executed diagrams. That’s SURFSKI with the Pros in a nutshell.
When Mario Graziani called to say that there was an Allwave CX surfski in Cape Town and would I like to try it, I leapt at the chance. At the same time I was a little apprehensive – what could Italians possibly know about making surfskis?!
“Ok, let’s sprint to the other side of the harbor,” I said. Issuing a challenge like that to my training partner Dale Lippstreu always results in a ball-bursting, neck and neck, 110% redline effort. This time though he just disappeared (behind me) and 200m later I looked back to see him paddling backwards. “I thought I had something on the rudder,” he said. Nah. We did it again and the same thing happened. I was on an Carbonology Sport Atom – and on flat water it made me look like a paddling super-hero.
Let’s start by clarifying that this is an independent product review. Secondly, I have won numerous national kayak titles in both sprint and marathon, and was selected to represent Australia at the World Cup and other International Events. I have also competed in surfski events at state and national levels in surf lifesaving. Summary – independent and qualified advice on craft.
A year ago, Kayakpro released an updated version of their Speedstroke kayak ergometer. In an effort to be on the leading edge of the indoor paddling world, I made the switch from their older model, the Speedstroke which was introduced in 2001, to their newer model, the GYM, one year ago. KayakPro is owned and operated by British ex-Olympian and World Champion Grayson Bourne.
Richard Kohler, attempting to circumnavigate the SA coastline for charity, has been hammered for the third time by the unforgiving KwaZulu-Natal conditions.
The email was brief: “Newsflash - Richard was attacked by a shark. He is safe, but his surfski is seriously damaged (entire rudder system trashed).” Later came an update: “Richard is safe, though he had to stop 3 times on his paddle today to empty his boat. “
A solo Cape Town paddler is braving the entire South African coastline on a kayak, a first-ever attempt, to raise awareness and funds for children born with cleft lips and palates.
Imagine taking ten days out of your life to paddle with (and be coached by) two of the best surfski exponents ever… In 2012, you have three opportunities to take a spectacular trip to some of the most remote and beautiful parts of the Western Australian coast with Dean Gardiner and Oscar Chalupsky.
[Editor: When Jean Mars Tavignot tried out his new Red7 Surf 70 Pro in downwind conditions, he was not pleased; his 10 year old Fenn Millenium handled the short steep Mediterranean waves better! Nothing daunted, he took out his toolbox…]
I have always wanted to fit an elliptical rudder to a Fenn, particularly a Mako 6 as it is my favourite ski. I can paddle an Elite but I prefer the 6 for all round stability and performance particularly in chop. Its main weakness is that the shark fin loses bite because of the ski's rocker and the fin's proximity to the tail causes the odd broach particularly in big swells.
"Life's too short to learn from our own experience, instead, learn from others and save the expense..."
I recently hurt my back and was forced to stop training in my kayak and ski for six weeks. In the process of repair I found some amazing things I’ve been doing wrong for at least eighteen months, and thought surfski.info readers might benefit from my mistakes.
Rudders are a critical part of any boat’s design – and in my opinion many of the rudders on surfskis are sub-optimal, to put it mildly. But at last a manufacturer has got off their butt to offer a wide range of rudders for different conditions.
OK, so we all know that paddling in shallow water is a pain. You trim aggressively bow down to keep from experiencing that "sinking feeling" in the stern, and paddle like there's no tomorrow. Yet when you hit the shallows it still feels like you've hit a wall. Waves become steeper; your hull speed fulls. And heaven forbid if you're on someone's inside as you enter a shallow water turn. Hello, shoreline!
