hong kong

Hong Kong – With less than a month to go before launch, the Steelcase Hong Kong Dragon Run is preparing to greet some of the surfski community’s superb usual suspects as well as a wide range of local paddlers angling to take home some of the event’s largest-ever purse offerings.

Some real downwind ski-porn here as the Think Team paddles the Dragon Run before the 2017 ICF Ocean Racing World Championships in Hong Kong a few weeks ago.

A grinding upwind into steep chop; a side-on, 2m diagonally-side-on swell that needed huge power to catch, and some smooth, clean runs to the finish… 

After the disappointing weather for the women’s championship on Saturday, the NE monsoon delivered – in spades – on Sunday, 19 Nov for the men’s event of the third ICF Ocean Racing World Championships. 

After a week of monsoon winds and rough seas, race day arrived with the worst possible conditions for the 3^rd ICF Ocean Racing World Championships – windless, flat and muggy… Capricious Mother Nature!  But in racing, you work with what you get, and at least the flat seas offered some reassurance to the less experienced among the competitors.

Here are some basic facts that’ll help you to visualise what’s going down on Saturday and Sunday in Hong Kong, when the women’s and men’s ICF Ocean Racing World Championships take place.

“The Steelcase Dragon Run” in 2013 will take place in Hong Kong on Saturday November 16.

This year we will be running 2 races for surf skis and OCs – the “normal” long course race and an out- and- back short course race. In conjunction with the 2 surf ski/OC races, we will be running short course and long course races for SUPs.

The Dragon Run (this year sponsored by Steelcase) has been on my wish list since it first ran in 2007.  Now that I’ve done it, it’s still on my wish list – only more so!

[Editor: Last year the Aussies made a clean sweep of the podium, Shannon Eckstein winning his first ever international long distance surfski race and Jeremy Cotter and Tim Jacobs coming 2nd and 3rd respectively.  A full house of South African paddlers will be there in November to prevent this happening again!]

The 4th edition of “The Dragon Run” will take place in Hong Kong on Saturday November 27, 2010.

"The first year we had 48 paddlers, including 6-7 ‘elite' guys," said race organizer Andy Orr. "Last year we had 86 paddlers including about 15 guys who fall into the elite category.

 "This year we think we'll have 130 doing the long course and 30 doing the short course. You have seen our paddler list, and it looks like we will have around 30 elite level paddlers."

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