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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

My Take on The 2009 Blackburn – by Erik McNett

At the gun, the largest field of surfskis ever assembled at any racing event on the east coast tore away from the starting area at a high rate of speed. For such a big crowd on the water I was impressed with the degree of order with which the field moved. From [...]

The 2009 Blackburn Challenge – by Erik Borgnes

The wind and waves that could've been wasn't, and so we prepared for a long slog that morning. The start was not that fast and at mile 1, we were probably a group of 15 skis, all too close together, weaving in and out of buoys and slower boats that started [...]

2009 New England Surfski Championships – by Eric McNett

Many thanks to all the paddlers, rowers, US, Coast Guard, City of Portland, Maine, USCA and volunteers who made this day so pleasant even though the weather wasn`t. Special thanks to timer, Diane Fournier of the Mt. Ararat High School Track and Cross Country teams. Dr. Dwight Blease for pitching in [...]

2009 Sakonnet River Race – by Wesley Echols

The weather was perfect for the race, downwind at 10 knots with an outgoing tide for the 1st six mile leg. We had 23 paddlers from all over New England and as far away as Canada. We had a rolling start off McCorrie Point with Cory Lancaster leading from the start. I tried [...]

2009 Sakonnet River Race – by Mark Ceconi
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2009 Sakonnet River Race – by Mark Ceconi

NE US Surfski Race Reports - 2009

2009 Sakonnet River Race – by Mark Ceconi

Road trip. Love the sound of it. Even better if it involves traveling somewhere to race my ski, and better yet if Big Jim, Steve Del, and Dubai Tom are involved, as you're sure to have fun in the process. This day it would be Jim, Steve, and me; Tom was [...]

Different Perspective on Things from the Tail End Pig – by David Joblin – Sakonnet River Race 2009

“Tail end Charlie” was originally a WW2 British expression referring to the tail gunner in a Lancaster bomber. The Germans called theirs the “tail end pig”. I say call it how it is… Reading Mark and Wesley’s race accounts was a thrill for me because even though I was also on [...]