King of the Harbour by Roger Gocking

A Report on New Zealand’s Premier Ocean Surf Ski Race

The second dumping was unexpected. The first had come when I lost my balance reaching for a Gu that seemed permanently stuck to the side of the cockpit. On the second occasion it must have been the more confused water between Rangitoto Island and North Head that I had been warned about, or perhaps an even more than usual bouncy beam wave from one of the many power boats crisscrossing the race course that was my undoing. I knew I was no good at remounting because I had never practiced this in the chilly water of Auckland Harbour, and once again depended on the nearby chase boat for assistance. Practice was making perfect and I was soon back in,but apart from feeling quite chilled my vision seemed awfully blurred. I wondered if I was having some kind of epileptic fit from the worry of staying upright in an unfamiliar surf ski in decidedly confused water. There was a simpler explanation: I had lost a lens from my glasses and was going to be reduced to groping along like a one-eyed cyclops. It was obviously time to bag it and I happily accepted a boat ride back to the finish line at Viaduct Harbour, still about four miles away.

The King of the Harbour is New Zealand’s annual ocean surf ski championship and takes place in Auckland=s magnificent natural harbor. This year’s event, the 11^th running of the race on Saturday, 31 March, came with an unusual twist. The organizers were determined to make it a downwind event. They selected four possible courses for the race and just before the event took place they were going to pick the one that would ensure downwind conditions for as much of the race as possible. Competitors with their skis and SUPs (the race was also billed as the New Zealand Stand Up Paddle Board Championships) would either start from the Viaduct Harbour Marina on the edge of Auckland’s central business district and paddle out to an island in the main harbor anywhere from 22-30 kilometers away, or reverse this course if the wind was blowing in a more opposite direction. Central to the race’s organization was a ferry boat that would either carry skis, SUPs and competitors to the start of the race or bring them back at the end of the race to the Viaduct Marina, where the race’s organizational center.

The promise of downwind conditions and the race’s inclusion as the fourth of the Oceanpaddlers World Series Races for 2012 was more than enough to attract a field that included some of the best surf ski paddlers from the Sunshine and Gold Coast of Australia as well as an equally well-tanned contingent from Tahiti. I was touted as a US entrant but felt more like a gate-crasher among the likes of Jeremy Cotter, who was second in the Perth Doctor in 2010 and third in the USA Surf Ski Championships in the same year and was in sizzling form with his recent victory in the Bridge to Bridge Race in Sydney. There was even talk that the legendary Dean Gardiner was going to join the fray but unfortunately he did not make it to the start line.

A few days before race day the wind set up from the south east and Terry Newsome, the race organizer, settled on a course from Waiheke Island to Viaduct Harbour, which would be about 22 kilometers (13.6 miles). It meant that skis and SUPs had to be loaded onto the ferry two hours before the start of the race for the trip to Matiatia Harbour on Waiheke Island. The trip out provided the unusual opportunity to preview the course and to become familiar with the various buoys competitors had to keep to their left. In addition, it was an opportunity to get an up close and in person appreciation of the wave conditions generated by a wind that was anywhere from 15 to 20 knots. There were a number of channels between the various islands the course would pass and it was quite obvious that as the wind and incoming tide joined forces in these locations that the seas became distinctly more confused and bouncy. Auckland Harbour is also a Mecca for power boat enthusiasts and by midday on a warm sunny Saturday their wakes crisscrossed the race course and added another dimension to the sloppy nature of the sea.

My host in Auckland, Robbie Ford, who had come 12^th in the US Surf Ski Champs last year, lamented that there was not enough wind and too much sun. He is downwind specialist and likes to point that prow down waves the steeper the better. In contrast, being more of a flat water paddler, I felt there was more than enough wind and rather shortsightedly welcomed the warm sun as a distinct improvement on the cold stormy weather I had experienced so much of during my time Down Under.Those crisscrossing waves, like their counterparts in Gloucester Harbor, have also been something of nightmare for me when finishing the Blackburn Challenge. In reality, drizzly, foggy days are to me a blessing as they keep the Asunshine@ sailors in port.

Matiatia Harbour, where the ferry docked on Waiheke Island, was the calm before the storm. It is a well-sheltered bay with a gently sloping beach ideal for launching skis and paddle boards. Over 30 of the latter went off pretty promptly at noon. These guys and gals were obviously elite stand-up-paddlers and were obviously moving. By the time a straggling line up of over 60 skis started the SUPswere already fast disappearing in the distance. Normally I have no difficulty catching these beach boy surfers, but on this occasion it looked like it might be different.

I already knew from the two brief paddles in my rented Think Eze that hammering away from the start was not in the cards. I had not paddled all winter and never attempted a race in a surf ski under any conditions. Embarrassingly, quickly I found myself at the back of the pack with one other surf ski. Even he would catch the waves that quickly formed as we left the calm harbor and shoot pass me only to get knocked of his ski by another set. Plugging along behind I would catch up and pass only to have him catch and pass before capsizing again. It went tortoise-and-hare like this for about a third of the race until I made my ill-fated reach for a GU in the somewhat more sheltered water of the lee of Montutapu Island. He got quite a jump on me as I got tangled up in my paddle leash trying to get back into the ski. He was obviously much better at doing this than I was and it seemed that he was getting a bit more of his sea legs as the race went on and capsizing less. He too began to pass into the distance. But as they say Athe race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…but to he that endures to the end.@ I planned to endure but this was not to be the case..However willing the spirit might have been with my second immersion and with one of my lens from my glasses presumably at the bottom of the Auckland Harbor my endurance quickly evaporated.

Jeremy Cotter, as most people expected, had no difficulty winning the race going away in the time of 1:25.42, and was followed by his fellow Aussies Paul Green and Mark Andersen. Travis Mitchell, the first Kiwi, was fourth and Leopold Tepa in seventh was the first Tahitian. My host, Robbie Ford, who was suffering from tennis elbow, which had limited his training, was 22. He had gone out too hard and had been passed off Devonport, where he lives, by Aussie Ryan Moffet. He should have taken some consolation from the fact that this was none other than the current world surf ski champ whose 21^st place insured that he continued as number one in the world surf ski rankings even though he had been so far behind Jeremy Cotter. Obviously chuffed by his victory, Cotter confirmed to me at the award ceremony in the evening that this was not going to last for long. He was particularly dismissive of the older Jewish journalist from Brooklyn,who currently claims second place in the world rankings, as he was soon going to be history.Such is the ultra-competitive nature of this sport!

The SUPers were equally impressive and no doubt equally competitive. The winner, Jeremy Stephensen was only 40 minutes behind Cotter and in second place was Annabel Andersen one of the most accomplished female stand-up-paddlers in the world. This Kiwi sensation was a scant 5 minutes behind the winner. Paddling in a fetching bikini she had many of the male surf skiers debating whether they really wanted to pass her when they caught up.

However, the biggest surprise of all was the text message Robbie received as we were driving back to his home. Amazingly, the women in the chase boat had found my missing lens which somehow had not gone to the bottom of the Auckland harbor, but had ended up in the bottom of their boat. That evening at the awards dinner they passed it on to me, no worse the wear, and with a piece of wire Robbie had given me I jerry-rigged it back into my glasses frame. I could not but wonder that with luck like this I might have been better of (financially?) if I had spent the day playing Blackjack in Auckland’s Sky City Casino.