On Downwinding: You’re Not Surfing
Most paddlers learn to think about downwind paddling in terms of waves. You catch a wave, you ride the wave, and you look for the next wave. Wash, rinse, repeat. That model works well enough [...]
On Training: Stress and Adaptation
Nothing in training happens without stress. In the absence of a stressor, our system remains exactly as it is. But stress alone is not improvement, and in an ocean environment, misunderstanding that difference is one [...]
On Racing: Starting Right
Most races are decided long before the first buoy or the first run. They begin in the final minutes before the start, when paddlers are already spending physical, mental, and emotional energy, whether they realize [...]
Blackburn Challenge to host 2026 National Championships
The American Canoe Association has selected the Cape Ann Rowing Club's Blackburn Challenge as the host venue for the 2026 USA Canoe Ocean Racing National Championships, placing one of America’s most iconic open-water races at [...]
USA Surfski Paddlers @ 2025 ICF COR World Championships
The 2025 ICF Canoe Ocean Racing (COR) World Championships were held in Durban, South Africa this past October. Worlds is the pinnacle international competition for surfski paddlers all over the world, in addition to World Cups [...]
Latest News
Bullied, Blistered, Beaten and Better For It by Tim Hudyncia
Last year around this time I was relishing in the afterglow of my world class spectatorship at the inaugural Ride the Bull race in Jamestown, Rhode Island. I was yanked from the starting line-up in 2013 because the race organizers decided that death by “Bull” would be a too kind and [...]
Ride the Bull Race 2014 Exciting, Challenging!
Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound were humming with water activity of all kinds yesterday including not only our race but a sail boat regatta, scores of divers at every point, fisherman, pleasure craft of all sorts and more. So if you were one of the 21 paddlers who showed up [...]
Essex River Race; Captain Kirk and the Cling-On by Tim Hudyncia
“Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.” ― Epicurus What is an eclectic collection of 200+ man and woman-powered watercraft in the beginning of May, dorys and work boats and [...]
Sakonnet River Race: Still Waters Run Fast by Greg Lesher
As I watched the sun rise majestically over the mild waters of the Sakonnet River (I might have arrived a little early), I could tell that the fourth donut had been a bad idea. And that it was going to be a fast day - at least for those who had [...]
Flat, Fast, Friendly, 2014 Sakonnet River Race
We had a great turn out at this year's Sakonnet Race with 27 boats including sea kayaks and double kayaks from the Achilles Team. The weather forecast was spot on with light northernly winds switching to southwest during the race to flatten the last three miles to almost glass. Caroline Pierre [...]
Ski to Sea 2014 and the Alien Within by Ken Katz
Around ten years ago I headed north from my home in the San Francisco Bay Area to race in the San Juan Challenge. Long story short, by the end of the trip wheels were in motion for my wife, Luanne and I to move to a small Canadian Island in British [...]
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