SurfSkiRacing.com – Page 68 – #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

Fifth Annual Mayors Cup Race, 2010 – by Mark Ceconi

When the first large barge came through, we were concentrating on staying upright; nothing was predictable, and all that lovely forward momentum we had so enjoyed up until that point had packed its bags and decided to take leave. The Coast Guard safety boat came over the bullhorn, and sounded almost [...]

Mayors Cup 2010 – by Gary Williams

The Achilles International Kayak Program has participated in the Mayor’s Cup practically since the start of the event. In the last couple of years the team has grown, but in 2008 and 2009 we suffered the wrath of the weather gods along with everyone else. This resulted in only our most [...]

The 2010 Nahant Bay Race – by Wesley Echols

So Many Races in August!! Nahant Race, One of Many and a local Favorite! Today, here in New England there were three races within New England. The 3rd Nahant Race was in Swampscott, Massachusetts right outside of Boston of which there were 15 paddlers. There was the New England Flatwater Championships in New Hampshire [...]

Milford ECORA Race 2010 – by Mark Ceconi

“Hut!” “Hut!” “WHOAAA!” (Splash!’‘Splash!’) erupted from my right, as a banana shaped ama lifted high at right angles to the water like a garden pergola, framing momentarily two legs and a random arm sticking out of the water. The blue OC-2 I had just passed at the turn buoy had gone [...]

2010 Jamestown ‘Double Beaver’ – by Mark Ceconi

Rounding the clanging, green buoy can off Beavertail Point under the watchful rotating beacon of its lighthouse perched on the cliffs marking the ‘single’ half of the ‘Double’ Beaver, I was so looking forward to a slight break from the jouncy conditions behind. Maybe a sweet run or two on the [...]

Blackburn 2010 – Blistered and Skegless – by Wayne Lysobey

Rich K had warned of sandbars when he gave the Captains’ meeting at 7:00 am. The Blackburn usually goes off at a higher tide then this year. Still, I hadn't really expected to find a bar in the middle of the Annisquam, dead on my GPS course. My first clue was [...]