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On Training: Efficiency and Friction
During any long session or race, most of each stroke converts cleanly into forward motion. A small fraction gets diverted into correction, stabilization, and adjustment. Some of that cost comes from outside: the ocean pushes, [...]
On Racing: Finishing Strong
Finishing well has little to do with who is most tired. Everyone is tired. What separates paddlers at the end of a race is not how much they have left, but how clearly they can [...]
On Racing: Expecting the Unexpected
The forecast you checked the night before is completely different when you wake up. The wind has increased, the swell period has changed, and there's a conversation happening near the water's edge about which direction [...]
On Downwinding: Reading Lines
The line appears before the decision to take it is fully formed. A shift in the water texture, maybe forty meters ahead, something about the way a long roller is organizing at an angle to [...]
On Training: Chain of Fools
The stroke catches and the boat runs. There is a feeling to it, a brief firmness in the water that holds long enough for the body to push through, and the boat moves with more [...]
Nationals: Meet the (Blackburn) Challenge
Every local racing community has a structure. You know who the fast paddlers are, roughly how you stack up against them, and what a good day on the water looks like for you. That knowledge [...]
18th Sakonnet River Race 2026
The 18th Sakonnet River Race went off without a hitch with a small group of New England surfski paddlers. Conditions were ideal for the 9.4 mile course. It was not the total grind up to [...]
On Racing: Current, Tide, and Timing
Current is the quiet architect of many races. Unlike wind, it rarely announces itself. There is no sound, no visible force—just the subtle difference between working hard and going nowhere, or moving efficiently with effort [...]
On Downwinding: Decision Scope
Around the ninety-minute mark, a bump builds ahead and gets left alone. Not because of anything physical. The opportunity was real. But a sprint that reads as obvious on a twenty-minute run reads differently when [...]
On Training: Recovery and Adaptation
The main concept behind "training" of any sort is that damage accumulates when work occurs, and adaptation happens during recovery. There's a well-established process at this point for optimizing our adaptation mechanism to quickly achieve [...]

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USCA Marathon Nationals
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USCA Marathon Nationals

Race Reports

USCA Marathon Nationals

USCA Marathon National Championships are Returning to New England in August 2016 Hosted by NECKRA The New England Canoe and Kayak Racing Association (NECKRA) is hosting the USCA National Championships at the Northfield Mountain Recreational and Environmental Center in Northfield, MA. Come for three days of marathon racing (August 12th-14th, [...]

Ride the Bull: Choosing Stability
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Ride the Bull: Choosing Stability

Race Reports

Ride the Bull: Choosing Stability

Wesley and Tim introduced the Ride the Bull race to the New England surfski circuit in 2013, filling a gaping mid-June hole in our calendar. Positioned early enough in the season so that we don't yet have our sea legs, but requiring that we paddle almost exclusively through pathologically disturbed waters, [...]

Sakonnet River Race: There Are No Shortcuts
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Sakonnet River Race: There Are No Shortcuts

Race Reports

Sakonnet River Race: There Are No Shortcuts

Gazing over the placid waters of the Sakonnet River, it seemed that I had been granted a reprieve. With all of my training thus far done on flatwater, I was hardly ready to compete in any significant ocean conditions - what some traditionalist sticklers might refer to as an "actual surfski [...]

2016 Sakonnet Race
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2016 Sakonnet Race

Race Reports

2016 Sakonnet Race

I always look forward to the Sakonnet River Race. It gets us off the flat water and into bay/ocean conditions. It also is a distance that you can not hide at 12.5 miles. In the eight years I have held this race, conditions have varied dramatically from glassy flat to 2/3 [...]

Essex River Race: Swimmer to Winner
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Essex River Race: Swimmer to Winner

Race Reports

Essex River Race: Swimmer to Winner

The Essex River introduced me to kayak racing in 2004, guided me through some tough times when Mary Beth and I were having trouble (deciding on cat names, mostly), and will serve as the executor of my estate once I meet my inevitable doom chainsawing an ice sculpture. After so many [...]

Run of the Charles: Victory! Moral Variety.
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Run of the Charles: Victory! Moral Variety.

Race Reports

Run of the Charles: Victory! Moral Variety.

The Run of the Charles may primarily be a punishing battle for those who want to test their mettle against 19 miles of portages, rudder-tearing shallows, and the endless meanderings of the river, but don't tell that to the 27 paddlers who instead opted for a painless 6.1 mile surfski jaunt. [...]

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You may need to turn on your brain’s synthesizer turbo boost function to follow my (somewhat convoluted) “creative rationale”:
1. This past Saturday (the day I did the editing of this video) was Mandela Day in South Africa, the day on which we recall his 67 years of public service and are encouraged to engage in 67 minutes of public service for those in need. This sets the scene with a shift in focus from ourselves, to others esp. those less fortunate than ourselves.
2. Regardless of one’s stand on religion, I believe that it is difficult to disagree with the assertion that our mission on earth (or at least, a significant part thereof), as individual human beings, is to do our best to make life on earth more like life in heaven. Where goodness, justice, mercy & love, firmly prevail over their evil counterparts.
3. Freddy: It just so happens that I have in fact heard God’s prompting, powerfully, through his music before**.
4. So, the implied question for each of us is: “What can I change in my life to bring the reality of heaven just a little bit closer to the here and now ?” ……….because, Heaven should be HERE and NOW !
5. Even if you don’t like the bigger existential assertion and personal question then, perhaps if you know Cape Town and its immeasurable physical beauty, you may agree, with my secondary, lighter, notion, that when God created Cape Town, he was experimenting with designs for heaven !

** I don’t wish to offend conservative Christians; I am not suggesting that Freddy IS a Divine messenger - I am merely asking you to imagine him as one, and with that mindset, to listen to any promptings you may hear in the song.

Music: Queen "Heaven for Everyone"

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YouTube Video UEx1eWtnNFdlNWNfQUZsT1FUT3dfc2NYeFpFSnRad3RpOC4yMkNCNDUwMTZGMzQ4NzA3

Surfski is Life HEAVEN should be HERE

SurfskiTV July 20, 2026 07:39