My personal experience (from the middle of the pack) of the 2009 US Surf Ski Champs was definitely positive. It was the biggest Surf Ski race I have ever been in, maybe the biggest in the US? I had been concerned about the start as we all had to get around the North tower of the Golden Gate against a 4 knot current in the first quarter mile of the race. The closer you are to the rocks the less current you have to fight and the sooner you can turn into the eddy. Turns out it was not a problem – those guys were so fast 50-60 paddlers were already past the tower by the time I got there. The conditions were on the mild side, at least for San Francisco Bay. There was not much swell, and the wind was probably about 15 knots for the upwind leg out to Pt Bonita. This is the first year we have not gone out along the edge of the infamous “Potato Patch’, so named because it often looks like a giant is out digging up the waves. The turn at the Pt Bonita buoy was relatively tame but there was enough wind chop that you could immediately start to surf back to the bridge. I had just caught up to Craig Tanner who is having a great year (and had beat me soundly in the last two races) so I really pushed hard for the first 10-15 minutes of surfing. Craig is an expert at surfing the inner bay waves and I wanted to be as far ahead of him as possible by the time things calmed down and the waves became more regular. Kenny Howell and Paul Martin had also beaten me the previous weekend and I was hoping to get them both this time. Unbeknown st to them I had a secret weapon- I could see! I had used brown tinted polarized sunglasses in the last two races and belatedly realized that the color matched the brown waters of the inner bay so I couldn’t see enough contrast to see the troughs and know when to jump on them. Once we turned and had the light behind us I took off my glasses and could see everything I needed to. I caught up to and passed Paul but I wasn’t sure where Kenny was. Kenny knows the bay like the proverbial back of the hand and he has caught and passed me in past races, using his intimate knowledge of the currents, so I was on the look out.

The waves near Angel Island get steeper and steeper as you go towards Berkeley so the surfing got even better but also more technical. I was glad I had the longer straighter rudder on, even with the added chance of snagging and dragging eel grass. After the race, several guys said they kept broaching in the steeper stuff with their shorter rudders. After 2 hours and 17 minutes I was surfing great waves in towards the breakwater and finish line when I heard a lot of yelling from shore and one of the chase boats. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kenny coming up fast. As he pulled even with me he fell into a trough and flooded his cockpit; at the same time both my feet slipped up off the foot pedals as I applied maximum pressure. We both recovered and finished sprinting to the line with me ahead by 3 inches. Kenny later said the V12 surfed really well, never burying the bow and that’s how he caught up. Kenny is a great sportsman and was the first to congratulate me. It was a great finish on a fantastic course, the long down-wind leg was definitely worth the up current, up wind leg. It was also really impressive to be on the water with the young elite paddlers like Jeremy Cotter and Dawid Mocke and of course legends like Dean Gardiner and Greg Barton. Imagine being in a race where the talent is so deep that Greg came in 14th! I’m looking forward to next year already – for those of you interested but worried about the conditions, the short course is a great alternative in more protected water.

Mike McNulty