The Brain Worm
Well I can’t remember when the hair-brain scheme for the First ever Canadian Surfski Champs took a hold of me. It was sometime around last October. Somewhere between the Epic Dealer Conference and the Hong Kong Dragon Run. I believe that Daryl Remmler of Think Kayaks used some Voodoo spell to implant the idea in my brain, but once something like this possess me there’s only one thing to do and that is “run with it”
http://canadiansurfskichamps.com/
Daryl, Sean,Kenny(photo credit Vivane Nishikiori)
Getting the Athletes to Come
We had to assemble a cast of players. 1st was Ian Lowe of the Squamish Paddling Club. Young, keen and gullible, with super organizational skills, I knew he could be easily tricked. Sara Hamilton also joined the party with her quite competence. Vince Bechet of Epic Kayaks stepped up to the plate with Oscar and Greg’s blessing as a key sponsor, with Epic we now had Team Epic with some of the best paddlers in the world. With Think comes the likes of Sean and Kenny Rice.
Kenny Rice, 6th place and only 18.(photo credit Vivani Nishikiori)
Raising the Cash
Next we needed a prize purse, about $12,000. When I walked into the meeting with Stewart Shearar, who is an old friend and partner in CMW Insurance, the first thing that came out of his mouth in his booming voice was, “The only way I’ll do this is if we are the title sponsor” Stewart is a South African ex-pat, and a paddler so he understands the sport. Haywood Securities made nice contribution and my company Deep Cove Outdoors covered many of the smaller expenses. After that there were several generous local paddlers who contributed funds adding up to almost half of the required purse. I was paddling with a customer / friend who happens to be a managing director of one of Canada’s largest ad agencies. As we know carpenters bang nails, and welders stick pieces of steel together, so after telling him about the event his first question was, “how are you going to promote this?” He then said, “I’ll get my publicist to call you.” Sweet!
Thanks to all the Sponsors!(photo credit Gus Oliveria)
As winter rolled into spring, what initially was a fantasy was now starting to take shape. Oh No! What have I taken on! With more and more super stars signing up it was getting really exciting. Vince Bechet of Epic, “I’m pretty sure Clint will come.” Bob, “Clint Robinison!!!” OMG
Picking a Date
What was really working in our favour was going back to back weekends with the US Surfski Champs. There was a hole in the schedule with the Chicago Shoreline Race gone. I planned my family vacation around The Gorge Wildside Relay and then continued to USSSC. Maybe not the smartest thing to do, being out of town 2 weeks before the biggest event you have ever organized. But it was great to see how these two well established events ran.
A week before the event the big guns start to roll into town. I was working in my office, and looked up to see Hank McGregor standing in the doorway! Stumbling like a star struck teenager, “duh, you’re Hank McGregor” One day at Deep Cove Kayak it was like the Who’s Who of surfski racing. ‘Oh there’s Oscar Chalupsky” “Is that Sean Rice” “There’s Clint Robinson” “And Hank McGregor is sitting on the sea wall”
Doubles partner Benard from Haywood(sponsor)/Oscar
The one big ingredient you can’t control is weather. The name Squamish comes from the Coast Salish language and translates to “Mother of the Wind”, and Squamish is a popular kiteboarding area. This past summer I have paddled the Howe Sound Downwind course more than ever before. Most of the times it was average, and one time it was awesome. I was becoming worried that the winds would not produce. On the Thursday before the event, Road Warrior, Kenny Howell of California Canoe & Kayak took some boats up for Hank, Norton Bros and others. “World Class” were the words from Kenny’s mouth. Winds were pumping, waves were rolling. After that I wasn’t worried what the conditions produced on race day, at least some of the best in the world saw that this course could produce some fun downwind paddling. I was also consoled by Hank McGregor’s words when he said, “Every time I’ve competed at Molokai its been flat!” So if Hawaii can strike out, I shouldn’t feel too bad about Squamish winds hitting a foul ball. The nice thing about this course is that while it will never be a San Francisco with conditions to challenge the elite, it can offer some fun downwind attainable for intermediate paddlers like 70 year old Gary Coulter who took the last spot. It was a challenge for him and he stepped up.
The Race
The start area was from a sheltered bay, and we had chosen to start the race from the top of a 30 metre cliff over looking the bay. I had recently participated in some international races and knew that the starts could be unruly. The last thing racers wanted to do was to wait around for you to blow the start horn. I made a brief announcement after which racers started to go! I yelled stop and by now the front line of racers was 20 metres ahead of the official start line. Clint Robinson was a victim of this as he expected me to call everybody back. I made the 5 minute to start call and the line started to creep. Minutes seemed like hours and after about 2 minutes I heard somebody yell, “start the race!!” I called 1 minute, and it was game on, I blew the siren. This caught a bunch of people of guard, including the photography boat which had to ski-daddle out of the path of charging thoroughbreds. Clint was 12th to round the Think Hot Spot mark. Sorry Clint!
Start Line(photo Vivane Nishikiori)
Sean Rice taking the Hot Spot! (photo Vivane Nishikiori)
The Think Hot Spot mark was another challenge, Daryl was in charge of finding the underwater mountain peak that was 200 feet below the surface. Everywhere else it is 1000 ft deep! We and determined from charts that this peak was around 1.7 km from shore. So together with boater Andrew Dickau and a really good depth finder Daryl and Andrew anchored the buoy.
Sean took the hotspot and never looked back. In a herculean effort Clint managed to claw his way back to the main group. Can you imagine how hard he must have been working to close the gap on the fastest paddlers in the world, who were undoubtably paddling as fast as they can??!! This surely cost him, but he was back in the lead pack with Hank, Sam Norton, Sean and Kenny Rice. Eventually 18 year old Kenny Rice cracked, and about 5 km out Sean put the hammer down, Clint went with him and they dropped Hank and Sam.
Meanwhile at the finish line one of the two large orange finish line marks had blown away. Racers were looking for two marks and there happened to be a small white mark which confused the top paddlers who had been told to pass between two buoys. This could have been disastrous as Clint went for the closer white buoy and Sean went for the further orange buoy, but Sean put such a strong push there was no question. The 9 second gap to Clint’s time is a bit longer than it really was.
Race Results:
http://www.webscorer.com/racedetails?raceid=27128&did=32060
Sean and Clint at finish(photo credit Ben Lypka/Chief)
Race day was a blur. Each hurdle we leapt was a small victory.
Check-in….done!
Shuttle to Start….done!
Race start….a little messy, but…done!
Timing…..not a glitch!
Beer…..Cold!
Food…Excellent!
Awards, Darn near seamless.
Sean, Clint(left),Hank(right) (photo credit Gus Olivera)
Heather Nelson(2rd), Michele Eray(Winner), Georgia Laird(3nd)(photo credit Gus Olivera)
For every thank you I received I need to pass it along double to Ian Lowe, Sara Hamilton, the Stew at CMW Insurance, Bernard at Haywood, Daryl at Think, Vince, Oscar and Greg at Epic
and thanks to all the volunteers from Squamish Paddling Club and Deep Cove Outdoors.
Many Links below to various articles and pictures.
https://www.facebook.com/canadiansurfskichamps
Video in Vancouver Sun of Start of the Race.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Canadian+Surfski+Championships+Squamish/10145387/story.html
Article in SquamishChief
http://www.squamishchief.com/sports/video-rice-rides-waves-to-victory-1.1326457
Petra Walter’s Gallery
http://www.petrawalter.com/galleries.html
Gus Olivera’s Album
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152367219918386.1073741835.694143385&type=1
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