Cold water does not simply raise the stakes. It changes how decisions are made. The physics of the run may look familiar, but perception, timing, and tolerance for error shift in ways that are easy to underestimate if you focus only on conditions above the surface. In warmer months, small [...]
Downwind runs push a paddler several miles offshore. Training sessions run the same distances in the other direction. Racing happens in conditions that include the real possibility of multiple capsizes, and the conditions that flip a surfski tend to be the same conditions that make swimming uncomfortable. In that context, [...]
Somewhere in the second hour, the adjustments stop clearing. Not all at once, and not in a way that announces itself. A brief effort to close a small gap, the kind of effort you've made fifty times already, and then the effort is over but the cost isn't. Ten strokes [...]
Editors Note: 2026 Nationals is hosted in collaboration with the Blackburn Challenge. Register today at capeannrowingclub.com! Every edition of Nationals is a distinct test, shaped by its own water, its own wind, its own current. No two competitions are the same, even at the same venue. One year the wind [...]
Most paddlers arrive on race day with a reasonably-informed view of the conditions. They’ve checked forecasts, studied wind direction, and looked at tide charts. All of that is useful—until the horn sounds. Once the race begins, conditions stop being information and start being experience. What matters then is not what [...]
