Racing!

My first race since the Outdoors, Inc. event in Memphis was the Gorge Outrigger and surf ski event in Stevenson, WA. I paddled the 6 man outrigger (OC-6) event with the Sail Sand Point team from Seattle. My teammates were Alan Goto, Eric Gerstl, Jordan Malloch, Kevin McHugh, and Jeremy Cole. It was really fun because the wind opposes the current in the Columbia River gorge, creating good sized, surfable waves. The race consisted of 2 laps, starting into the wind, turning and surfing downwind past the start, the pounding back through the waves to the start/finish. Off the start, we trailed the False Creek (Vancouver, BC) team into the first turn. After a great first turn and catching some nice runs downwind, we pulled into the lead and never looked back. Jeremy did a great job of steering and keeping us on the runs.

The next day, I raced the surf ski event, but unfortunately during the wind was not as the previous day at race time. While we still had some waves to surf, they were smaller. While the previous days waves were travelling faster than we paddled, the smaller waves on this day were slightly slower than our surf ski paddling speed. This required a different method of surfing. In these conditions, surf on a wave, but then keep looking for the wave in front to drop down, and an opportunity to sprint over the top of the wave in front of your boat. This is in contrast to classic downwind surfing where the waves are travelling fast and you’re simply trying to keep up with them. I won the ski class with former Olympian and World Champion John Mooney finishing 2nd.

The following weekend, I traveled north of Vancouver, BC Canada to race the Howe Sound Downwind event. As we arrived at the start, it appeared we’d have a disappointing race, as the water was flat with no “downwind” to be found. Then just before the start, the wind started blowing and by mid race, we had nice 3’ to 4’ waves to surf. This was a fun event in a beautiful part of the world.

Next was the Seattle Grind, an OC-6 outrigger event on the Puget Sound in West Seattle. There was minimal wind or waves, so it was literally a grind in flat water.

Finally, it was time again for the US Surf Ski Championships in San Francisco. The course was changed this year. It started at Fort Baker, just inside the Golden Gate bridge, headed out under the bridge, past Point Bonita and around a buoy offshore. However, instead of turning and paddling up the coast as in previous years, we did a 180 around the buoy and then surfed all the way to the Berkeley Marina. This was the most competitive US Champs ever with a very strong international contingent led by Dawid Mocke, Dean Gardiner and Jeremy Cotter.

At the start, I made the mistake of lining up too far to the outside while the lead pack shot off from the line on the inside further out of the opposing current. The front back quickly pulled away, while I was in another group of paddlers in approximately 11-18 position. At Point Bonita, I was trading places with French Olympic Medalist and former World Champion Philippe Boccara. During the downwind portion, I pulled away from Philippe only to be caught by a hard charging group of paddlers. In 14th place overall, I managed to hold some of them off at the finish, while Noah Hawke crossed 3 seconds ahead of me in 13th place as the first American finisher.

Up front Jeremy Cotter paddled an incredible race to beat Dawid Mocke, while Dean Gardiner finished an impressive 3rd against the younger and stronger competition.

Click here for Rob Mousley's full report, photos and results.

The following day I jumped into a double ski with Tracy Landboe, finishing a close 2nd to Patrick & DeAnne Hemmens in the mixed class and 6th overall out of 22 double skis. This is by far the largest doubles turnout that I’ve seen in the US. Thanks to Patrick & DeAnne for loaning us the ski!

Next week, I’ll be heading over to our factory in China again, returning just in time for the West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium September 25-27. I’ll be teaching several classes at the event and look forward to seeing many paddlers there.

After that, it will be off to the New York Mayor’s Cup for my final race of the season.