SurfSkiRacing.com – Page 66 – #1 in Surfski News, Reviews and Used Surfskis For Sale

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 [...]

Latest News

Erging to Off Season Success-Paddlers Join the Rowers!
Gallery
Erging to Off Season Success-Paddlers Join the Rowers!

Race Reports

Erging to Off Season Success-Paddlers Join the Rowers!

For the many years in the paddling off season starting around December, I cautiously slink over to my Concept 2 Indoor Rowing Machine called the Erg. Cautiously, because like any sport, erging is sport specific. You maybe in good paddling shape, but the Erg in less than 5 minutes [...]

Molokai 2010 – by Tom Kerr
Gallery
Molokai 2010 – by Tom Kerr

Race Reports

Molokai 2010 – by Tom Kerr

My goal of doing the Molokai started in 2004 after reading an article on the race entitled “Waves the size of small houses” by Peter Gimple in Hullspeed. The article really captured the essence of the race and I must have read and reread it 20 times over the years. I was determined [...]

Irrational Obsession – Molokai 2010 – by Richard Germain
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Irrational Obsession – Molokai 2010 – by Richard Germain

Race Reports

Irrational Obsession – Molokai 2010 – by Richard Germain

Last year at the finish line at Koko Head Marina, after I completed my first Molokai, I received the warmest congratulations from Joe Glickman. He told me “Way to go! You did it buddy! Too bad you got flat conditions. You’re going to have to come back to experience the REAL channel!” I [...]

Phatwater Challenge 2010 – Coming Home! – by Wesley Echols
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Phatwater Challenge 2010 – Coming Home! – by Wesley Echols

Race Reports

Phatwater Challenge 2010 – Coming Home! – by Wesley Echols

For the past few years I wanted to do this race and after reading Joe Glickman’s account of last year’s race, I could relate only too well to his story. Why? I am from Mississippi. To be specific Starkville, MS, home of Mississippi State University. While I have lived in Rhode Island for [...]

Brian and Tracy’s Mississippi Adventure – by Brian Arnett

I'm sitting in the stern of a homemade 16' divorce boat with my girlfriend Tracy at the bow just drifting to & fro. We're in a small channel on the east side of the Mighty Mississippi surrounded by more then 100 kayaks and canoes. There are fast sleek surfskis with fast [...]

Happy as a Clam (or Oyster) at the 2010 L2L – by Mark Ceconi

‘With one deft stroke, the blade’s leading edge cleft a half moon shaped fissure along the slate gray trough; the smell of salt sea acrid in our nostrils, a trail of racers strung stern to bow in a ragtag line, breathing heavily, eyes focused hungrily on the prize…And this my friends, [...]