SurfSkiRacing.com – Page 75 – #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

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
Gallery
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 [...]

Essex River Race 2009 – by Wesley Echols

The Essex race keeps getting bigger and bigger and better and better. Bigger in terms of more racers and better in the organization of the race by Race Director Bill Klunuski, Donna and Dave Lind and Tom Lawler. I knew it was going to be a huge crowd when Tim, Razz [...]