#1 in Surfski News and Reviews2026-07-21T11:02:44-04:00
  • National Series Notebook: A Red-Hot October

    The USA Surfski leaderboard grew to 203 paddlers this week, with seven new names added in five days. Kieffer now sits just ahead of Wilson Reavley (A26), whose 1,959 points represent a full season of [...]

  • On Downwinding: Crosswind and Mixed Days

    From the parking lot the water looks like nothing worth the drive. Wind chop runs in from the southwest, a leftover groundswell rolls in from the southeast, and where the two meet the surface has [...]

  • 2026 Great Stone Dam Race

    By Wesley Echols I really enjoyed myself today at the Great Stone Dam Classic, an 8.14 mile race in Lawrence, MA hosted by Shawn Burke, and Francisco. It was a perfect day New England day [...]

  • On Training: Decision and Commitment

    A runner lifts behind you, and for half a second you know exactly what to do. Then the half second passes, and you're still thinking about it. The gap between the boat and the swell [...]

  • On Training: Orientation and Pattern Recognition

    Your nemesis is two kilometers of confused water where the swell from the south meets a cross-chop off the eastern point of land. You've paddled it dozens of times. For most of those sessions it's [...]

  • On Downwinding: Leveraging Energy

    The difference between flatwater paddling and downwinding isn't subtle. Grinding a flat stretch is the opposite: all work and no rest, every foot of distance earned stroke by stroke with nothing free about it.  Catching [...]

  • 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 [...]

Latest News

2009 Double Beaver Race: ‘The Year of the Weebles’ – by Mark Ceconi

‘Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down,’ or hopefully, in, as the situation may warrant. This was the catchphrase of the day for the 2009 running of the infamous ‘Double Beaver’ Race, innocently named for the out and back course that twice rounds Beavertail Lighthouse in historic Jamestown, RI, just a [...]

The 2009 Blackburn – by Bill Kuklinkski, Race Committee / Surfski Paddler

The major thought I have about this year's event is the remarkable level of participant support and assistance exhibited throughout the race. I personally saw Bill Baker, an FSK entry and a SK entry (regrettably I don't know their names or remember their numbers) helping a surf ski paddler to remount [...]

Blackburn 2009 Wrap up – by Dana Gaines

2009 would be my 18th consecutive Blackburn; twelve of them had been oar-powered and this would be my sixth time around facing forwards, having paddled Touring Doubles with Tom Mailhot in 1998, 2006 (fog- shortened course) and 2008, Double Surfski with Pam Browning in 2003, and Touring Single in 1999. That [...]

Blackburn 2009: Through Fog but no Perfect Storm – by Roger Gocking

As I was driving to Gloucester from my home in Ossining I kept peering through the misty windscreen to see how much motion there was in the trees in the woods along Highway 84. In spite of the predictions for stormy conditions Mother Nature’s weather vanes seemed to standing perfectly at [...]

Bill’s Most Excellent Blackburn – by Wayne Lysobey

Gil and I had Bill out for his first row outside the harbor. By the time we got to the end of Sheffield Island the SW wind was kicking up the waves up to two feet. Bill was a sailor. He had seen waves before. Never rowed in them though. I [...]

The Blackburn 2009: The Breakfast Perspective – by Mark Ceconi

‘The Blackburn Challenge.’ The very name never fails to send a shiver of anticipation down my spine. This would be my fifth running of the Blackburn, and the forecast did not look sympathetic: ‘small craft advisory, winds out of the SE at 10-15 kts., gusting to 20, potential thunderstorms, and light [...]

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