A Midwestern Perspective on the US Surfski Championships by Zach Handler

Wednesday Wavechaser Race

Last year, in my first US Surfski Championships, I made the mistake of racing my guts out in the Wednesday Wavechaser race. I placed really well against international superstars (who were treating the even like a warm up), but then felt flat when the real race rolled around three days later. This year I resolved to control my effort on Wednesday and focus instead on dusting the cobwebs off my surf skills. It has been a tough year for training in Minnesota. We’ve had little wind, and a wake ban on local lakes, meant to protect shoreline from record high water levels, prevented us from honing our skills the usual way in a cloud of outboard motor exhaust.
The Wednesday race is a great time to sort out any issues with equipment. I discovered that the flight from the Twin Cities had somehow drained the batteries in both my Garmin and my GoPro. I also found the seat pad I had hastily fashioned the previous night was too thick, and the foot board of the rented V10 ultra, without any wax or padding, was very slippery under my bare feet. After the race Oscar Chalupsky looked at my boat and then at my feet and said bluntly “What are doing? You can’t paddle like that. Go get yourself some surf wax or some booties”. He also told me that he’d already had two beers, a slice of pizza, and a shower by the time I got off the water – not a man known for his subtle tact!
The Wednesday race had the exciting feel of a family reunion. Without any pressure to perform, I could really enjoyed catching up with paddlers I only see once or twice a year. I also took special pleasure in finally meeting the east coast racers I only knew from reading Wesley’s website.
Despite being a warm up event, the race went out quite fast from Coyote Point. It’s amazing how quickly the professional paddlers reach the horizon! Conditions were disappointingly small at first, but as we approached the San Mateo Bridge, the waves started to build due to the opposing current. There were some sizeable rollers, maybe in the 6-8 foot range, and really steep due to the tide. It was in this section that I caught sight of Borys Markin. I managed to catch and pass him by temporarily suspending my previous vow to not paddle hard. My presence must have woken him from some daydream, as the next time I looked up he was 100 meters ahead and getting smaller.
The next racer ahead of Borys was Greg Barton. Greg came to the first in a series of massive channel markers, made a hard right, and started heading for shore. Borys followed. I felt this was a wrong turn, and it actually occurred to me in that moment that a recurrent line in surfskiracing.org race reports is “then Borys Markin went off course again”. Nevertheless, Borys was following royalty, and is himself at least a lesser noble, so I followed the two of them. I made it about half way to the dead end slough they were aiming for when I lost confidence and turned around. I intercepted Shane Martin of Vancouver, who also should have known better, but was now following me. We abandoned the Markin-Barton trajectory. Our race was over, so we just paddled the rest of the way to the finish at fast but conversational pace.

Zach on Wednesday’s Race, Zach placed 26th on Saturday’s Champs race in 1:46:19 (photo WaveChaser)

Singles Championships

For the actual championship on Saturday, I fashioned a thinner seat pad and borrowed some surf wax from Kenny Howell, who had rented me the surfski. The wax came out of his little black bag that seems to contain everything a surfskier could possibly need in a last minute panic before a race. Kenny is talented paddler and an amazing resource for an out of town racer. He freely shares his local knowledge of the course, the tides, the best strategies, and even where to go on the off days to avoid the crush of summer tourists.
Saturday’s race was delayed by about an hour, so there was plenty of time for racers to mill about the beach sucking nervously on camelbacks and looking for places to pee. I ended up chatting for quite a while with a very polite young woman from New Zealand named Teneale Hatton. I was too clueless to recognize, and she too modest to mention, that just two weeks prior she had broken the K1 1000m record in Moscow!
For all my prior anxieties about getting through the shore break, it was kind of an anticlimax. The only strange thing was that I did a flying cowboy entry into the ski. I have never attempted (or even contemplated attempting) that before and have no idea why my body did that. Adrenaline is a funny thing.
The race start itself was clean and uneventful, in contrast to last year’s collision filled opening mile. Two distinct lines formed, one taking a shorter route close to shore and the other heading further out in search of stronger currents. I was relieved to spot the bright yellow Huki of Dave Jenson (Bay area paddling star and USSC organizer) and followed him on the deep line out to sea.
The next 5 miles or so was fairly chaotic chop rebounding off the vertical cliffs of the Marin Headlands. I had to brace a few times. As we approached the golden gate the currents had an increasing effect on the water. At one point I saw a line of three-foot haystacks spitting water and hissing audibly. I had no idea what was causing this and simply had to figure it out. I sprinted over to investigate. My boat was instantly spun 90 degrees by what I then recognized to be a violent eddy line a mile or so from shore. We zoomed under the center span of the Golden Gate Bridge on a tidal conveyor belt, holding nearly 12 mph on flat water. I was thankful the shipping lane was empty at that moment. From there to Angel Island there were catchable waves, but not many would allow paddles down surfing.
As I approached the obligatory Angel island buoy, about eight paddlers, half of them Tahitian, suddenly converged from unexpected angles. Previously we had been scattered perhaps a half-mile apart side-to-side, oblivious to the fact that we were actually in a “pack” as far as the stopwatch was concerned. From the buoy to the finish was pure downwind paddling, and I anticipated a beat down at the hands of these skilled pacific islanders. But I also felt fresh, in fact so fresh that I wondered if I had been going too easy the previous ten miles. I resolved to paddle like a man possessed and feel maximal pain all the way to the finish. The plan worked. I held pace with the Tahitians, and finished in the middle of their pack, 26th overall and 9th among Americans. It was a big improvement from last year, and I was thrilled with my result.

Doubles Championship

The final race, and really the highlight of the trip for me, was the doubles championship. I paddled with my long time training partner from Minneapolis, Jon Sanborn. We had only attempted to paddle downwind in a double once before, and that outing was an unmitigated disaster. We could barely catch a single wave, never mind link multiple waves, came out of the boat multiple times, and finished the day so tired we could barely lift our arms. Surfing a double seemed impossible! But, we had already signed up and paid our money, so we decided to just try to have fun and hopefully not come in last.
Thus it was with high trepidation and low expectations that we lined up with our rented Fenn Elite Double at the Fort Baker starting area. Neither of us had ever sat in a Fenn before. The bucket felt different and I couldn’t seem to find the correct leg length, adding to my unease.
As it turned out our fears were not warranted. The race was fantastic. The boat was perfect. It never felt tippy once, not even in the slop splashing off the Golden Gate bridge abutments. And once the surfing started the boat was a magic carpet ride in the clean and well-organized rollers. I actually enjoyed some of my best and longest rides ever. Which is not to say that we were great at surfing.
We only had to look to our side to be reminded of that. We diced the entire way from start to finish against Patrick Hemens and Sarah Waterman, and every time I looked at them, they were just sitting there motionless like a couple of mannequins in a surfski display window. Jon and I in contrast were working our tails off. I was in front imposing my rather labor intensive brand of downwind paddling on Jon, who had no choice but to try to match my epileptic bursts of activity. He tried his best to coach me into surfing the waves in a more sensible manner, but I was too obsessed with jumping waves to back off and do the job right. Patrick and Sarah ended up beating us by a boat length through their use of about one third as many paddle strokes. Jon and I didn’t care though. We ended up 12th out of 19 teams, and were elated that the race had gone so unexpectedly well. Doubles racing, as it turns out, is a ton of fun. Surfing alone is a thrill, but to share the moment with one of your best friends in the same boat is really something special. Next year though, I will put Jon in the front seat.

Should You Go?

I would encourage most Midwest and East Coast paddlers who are contemplating a trip to USSC to go for it. The races are a blast, demo day and the clinics are great, and in 5 days or a week you can get in as much downwind paddling as the rest of the year combined. You do have to be competent (though certainly not expert) in confused water and waves. To put things in some perspective, in my 2 years and 5 races in San Francisco, I have not seen any conditions trickier than what a stiff autumn breeze brings to Minnesota’s Lake Mille Lacs with its 15 to 20 mile fetch. If you have any uncertainty about the conditions then rent a more stable ski and remember the option of racing the more protected short course.

Zach 2013 US Champs(photo Barbara Kossy)