Latest News
On Training: Orientation and Pattern Recognition
Your nemesis is two kilometers of confused water where the swell from the south meets a cross-chop off the eastern point of land. You've paddled it dozens of times. For most of those sessions it's just been noise. Water moving in competing directions, and the mission was to react to each [...]
On Training: Attention and Its Limits
The paddler to your right has been pushing the pace for the last few minutes, and you've been tracking them. Watching their rhythm, watching the gap, watching whether they're going to open it further. Somewhere to your left, a run has been developing for the last few seconds. It would have [...]
On Training: Seeing the Water
The first time something catches your eye before you understand what it means, you almost dismiss it. A change in texture fifty meters ahead, a slight darkening of the surface, the way another paddler two boats over suddenly lifts their pace before you've registered anything worth responding to. It registers briefly [...]
National Series Notebook: A Loaded July
Patrick Dolan flew 5,000 miles from Hawaii to Massachusetts and won the 2026 USA COR National Championships on a grueling open water course against a stacked field of athletes. Five days later, Austin Kieffer won the showcase race at the Gorge Downwind Championships paddlesports festival in the biggest conditions the event [...]
On Training: Physical Integration
The race was two-thirds over and the aerobic system was still running cleanly. Breathing had stayed in control, the stroke hadn't collapsed, and the pace was within the range that should have been sustainable. But something had shifted in the last thirty minutes. A shoulder carrying something separate from the general [...]
On Downwinding: Leveraging Energy
The difference between flatwater paddling and downwinding isn't subtle. Grinding a flat stretch is the opposite: all work and no rest, every foot of distance earned stroke by stroke with nothing free about it. Catching a wave takes a handful of hard strokes, sometimes just one, and then the boat rides [...]
Surfski Reviews
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Nelo 550 Surfski Review
My Search of the "Perfect" Surfski My search since 2003 for the "Perfect" surfski has gotten easier with so many surfskis brought to the market since then, most notably in the last two years. Before 2003, I paddled and raced sea kayaks since 1993. My surfski experience started off with [...]
Stellar SR Surfski Review
https://picasaweb.google.com/Surfski14/StellarSRSurfski# (Disclaimer: I am the Northeast Surfski Rep for Stellar). The best way to decide on any ski is to gather as much information as possible from paddlers, manufacturers, websites, then paddle all the skis [...]
Think Evo 3 Ultimate Surfski Review
Think about it! I did my first review of the original Evo review in 2009, my review of the Think Evo 2 back in June, 2014 which you can see at the end of this review. 2009 Evo Review In 2017 the Think Evo 3, (Length: 20′ 6″ (625 cm), [...]
2020 Surfski Reviews: Part One-Stellar Skis
Introduction On February 2, I kicked off my "on season" training plan for the upcoming year that I look forward to every year. That was delayed three weeks later due to the flu, not the coronavirus. I did get my flu shot but with only 45% efficacy due to a [...]
Ted Van Dusen’s Mohican, My Thoughts
Ted and Graeme. Credit Donna Lind Ted Van Dusen, famous Olympic Kayak and Rowing Shell designer living in Concord, Massachusetts, wanted a flat water boat that was comfortable, safe, stable and fast to suit his paddling needs. Ted came up with the Mohican in 2006 that fit the [...]