Latest News
Great Stone Dam Classic: Startled by a Turkey
When they named the Great Stone Dam Classic 10+ years ago, co-chairs Francisco Urena and Shawn Burke were taking a risk on the initial and final words. Great and Classic. OK, it's named after the Great Stone Dam on the Merrimack River. And, yeah, "classic" is sometimes used as a synonym for "race". [...]
2021 Blackburn Challenge Goes On.
Despite Covid 19 restrictions, a scaled-down version of one of the most popular races on the East Coast went off albeit at your leisure. With advertised no timing, just a safety check, the time you got on the water at the dock, and the time you got off the water, many [...]
Blackburn Challenge: Mixed Blessings
While the Olympic athletes of the world held their collective breath to see if they'd be allowed to compete in Tokyo this year, Northeast paddlers similarly awaited news of the Blackburn Challenge. Of course, there was one critical difference: In our case, half the field was praying for deliverance from the three-hour sufferfest. [...]
View from the South: 2021 Around the Cape by Sean Brennan
Not to let Rhode Island one-up the great Garden State in the first official weekend of summer, New Jersey hosted the 2021 Destanick Fountain’s “Around the Cape” on Sunday, June 25th. Formerly known as the Cape to Cape Race - before COVID put a stop to the two-state logistical challenge - [...]
Sakonnet Surfski Race: Head Start
The newly rechristened Sakonnet Surfski Race is the prescribed venue for New England paddlers to ease into the open water season. It's much like the fable in which a frog won't notice he's being boiled alive if you slowly raise the temperature. The Sakonnet is a skinny bay that might be called a [...]
Battle of the Bay: Fine Line
You might think that a race held in a gated community situated on a semi-private island within the genteel city of Newport would attract only the finest breed of paddlers - athletes with refined tastes, ivy league degrees, and the highest standards of personal hygiene. But maybe by chance you'd overhear [...]
Surfski Reviews
Looking for an ocean ski? Check out the surfski comparison chart!
Epic V10L Performance Review – by Wesley Echols
For several months I paddled a fiberglass ‘performance’ layup V10L. What immediately struck me back when I owned that boat was how comfortable the cockpit is. The bucket is very shallow compared to the other High Performance Skis (HPS), however, your feet are below your seat. Because of this, leg [...]
Fenn Spark Elite Review by Bill Lecomte
A Review of the Fenn Spark, As Compared to the Stellar SES Sept 2014 by Bill LeComte I have had the Fenn Spark/Carbon-Hybrid for about 3 weeks now. I'll start right off by saying I am very impressed with the boat. Note: I have no connection to any surfski manufacturer/seller. [...]
Fenn Elite Tandem: A “Very Cool” First Paddle with Cliff – by Susan Williams
Cliff Roach and I set out to paddle Mark Ceconi’s brand new Fenn Elite tandem surfski for the purposes of writing a review for surfskiracing.com. Clearly, Mark has been hanging out with his eternally optimistic elementary school students for too long, the poor trusting soul had no idea what we [...]
New Stellar SR
Last Sunday Tim, Bob and myself launched from Bay Voyage Inn, Jamestown, Rhode Island. We are suited up in our Kokatat Goretex Paddling Suits with a light weight base layer, mukluks, pogies, spare hat, gloves, gels, water, gps w/heart rate, phone, video camera,camera and leashes. Air temps were almost 50 [...]
Surfski Comparison Chart is Now Updated!
Check out the Comparison Chart with the numbers assigned to each ski along with the comparison Grid to get an overall visual on the relative speed vs stability. For example you can see that I rated the SR as the most stable since it at the top of the chart [...]