Surfski Knowledge Base

lori & beau whitehead
04/14/19 #24679

Great race across the Pailolo Channel yesterday. Not really a race for me, my number one goal was to finish, my second goal was to go under 3 hours. I won’t bore you with too many tales like the pounding shore break we had to get through to get to the start line (not much training for that in Bellingham.) Watching the first wave of women, relays and OC2 head out, there was about a 30% failure rate resulting in full yard sales of bodies and equipment unceremoniously being washed back up on shore.
Somehow I made it out first try… step one complete.

Actually step one for me was probably overcoming my gut feeling to pull-out and not even race. The forecast was for 20-30mph and 20-30’ seas. Plus the race committee sending out emails all week warning you should only do this race if you are VERY experienced.
Start was between 2 buoys a quarter mile outside the surf zone… I think about 160 solo male skis and oc’s lined up. And boom we were racing. First 11 miles is the shot straight across the channel against the strong north easterly swell and wind. Drop-in, surf-right, repeat a few hundred times. If you surf the direction of the swell at this point you will end up in Lanai; wrong Island. At this point my only land reference disappeared 5 miles across and I just prayed I’d hit Molokai somewhere near the right spot.

I hit the point about one mile east of where I wanted to be but it all worked out. At this point the swell wraps around and lines up perfectly for the next 15 miles to the finish. Where earlier I averaged 7-8 mph on the cross swell, now I was seeing my gps hit 12-14mph and even two 16mph rides. My average for this section was 9.1mph.

And that’s really the meat of it. I flipped once, drained my 1.5 liters of water with about 3 miles left to go, and sprinted all out with another paddler to the upwind finish line into Molokai pier. I ended at 3:07 and averaged a paltry 8.2 mph.

I did have to laugh a little, remembering Carters safety speech before last years Gorge race… at one point he said the Gorge water is more dangerous than the Hawaii water, and that just because you are from Hawaii, the Gorge is a different beast. Well, that’s s good story and all, but the Gorge is easy-cheesy compared to what I saw yesterday. On an exponential scale. The level of exposure out there was awe inspiring and I fought with myself many times to not think about what would happen if my canoe broke.

Side note: Pat Dolan edged Austin in 2:19! Pat paddled the new Kai Wa’a Vega Ski. All the PNW paddlers finished in one piece including our own Dan Mosely. The 2 hour boat ride home in a 26’ motor boat going against the now 40+ wind is a completely separate story. That was almost more epic than the paddle.

Paul Reavley
04/14/19 #24681

Thanks for the race recap and congratulations on your success/survival, Beau. Clearly an epic trip that I have no real frame of reference to imagine.

And congratulations to all of our locals who took on this challenge. Any other race tales?

results:
https://racehubhq.com/races/MPH2019MAUItoMOLOKAIM2MENTRIESandWAITLIST/results

Larry Bussinger
04/14/19 #24683

And I thought the Race on the Rez (Hale Passage) was tough. Wow. I see where Barton, Putnam, and Klein did the race. How about some more reports.

Larry Bussinger

lori & beau whitehead
04/14/19 #24685

I saw Bob at the start and it looks like he had a good race. On the boat ride back I chatted with a South African bloke (from San Fran now) who said he was staying at the same house with Bob and that they’d done a million downwinders this last week….

James Klein

04/14/19 #24687

Beau summed it up perfectly! Definitely all inspiring and tricky picking the line as Molokai was not really visible at the start due to clouds. I played it conservative for the channel crossing, but once I felt I had enough left in the tank for the last 15 it became the fastest downwind I’ve ever done. Incredible Warm! Blue water and fish flying! 15 miles of swell city with better spacing, at one point I forgot all about racing. I got caught by a breaking wave a mile from finish and dumped which I think cost me about 3 minutes judging by my other mile times… but I’ll take that any day over getting dumped in the channel!

And yes the ride back was crazy! We were in a 22 foot boat. These Hawaiians know how to drive some boat! Gabe Newton made the trip with me. He’s inspiring to say the least

Aloha
Jamie Klein

lori & beau whitehead
04/14/19 #24688

Winning surfski. 26 miles in 2:19. Pat Dolan.

waterbornewarrior
04/14/19 #24689

Oh geez, they’re probably already loading the container for all the B’ham orders!

Don

David Scherrer

04/14/19 #24690

I dunno, at 16-1/2 inches wide, crossing the channel or heading up the Gorge could be a bit challenging for most of us….Interested to see what wider ski they may come up eventually. (if at all).

D

David Scherrer

04/14/19 #24692

Correct that, the Vega is actually 16 and 13/16 inches wide.

Duncan Howat
04/15/19 #24694

Speaking of the Vega, I understand that 2 more models will be coming along, each a inch or so wider than the other. Mmm a 18 pound 19 inch wide boat.D

David Scherrer
04/15/19 #24695

Now your talking……….

Carter Johnson
04/17/19 #24702

OH.. I need to work on my articulation. The below is the Exact Opposite of what I meant. PLEASE READ as it is important that you know just because you can surf the Gorge does not at all mean you are ready to safely crush massive offshore conditions.

The Gorge is downwind 101 for the masses, Steep 1 dimensional corduroyed waves where the world can come and successfully surf and have the time of their life in warm water conditions with shore near by and no Great White below. Having traveled the world looking for Downwinds, I have yet to find a better place to learn downwind skill than the Gorge.

The Gorge IT IS NOT Deep Offshore conditions. Being able to surf the gorge in even 20mph of wind is radically different then off shore conditions where you get Gorge size waves on top of 20+ foot swell inter mixed with Shore break and Cliff Reverb complexity. While the Gorge is a great learning playground and will ramp you up very fast to be ready for offshore, Offshore and the Gorge are totally different beast in regards to wave complexity, exposure and consequence.

The sentiment in my pre-race talk was for Safety boats, not paddlers. The waves in the Gorge are 3 to 4 times closer together (Short Period) than the big offshore Waves. This makes them steep and easy to surf (Ie fun) but also makes a safety boat bounce up and down faster, which makes loading a craft onto them nearly impossible in bigger conditions. The Safety boats in Hawaii are also retro fitted to carry ocs/skis while the safety boats in the gorge are fishing boats with no such racks further making loading abandoned ocs/skis on to them difficult.

Any how. All I was trying to articulate to the Hawaii boys in the pre race meeting is something like this. Yes, I know you can load boats in big Hawaii water on to Safety boats and do it often, and yes our conditions are tame in comparison but because we have fishing boats (vs purpose built offshore vessels retrofitted for oc/skis carrying with captains that are trained for it) that are bouncing all over the place in short period steep waves it is nearly impossible to retrieve a boat from the water in larger Gorge Conditions. For this reason, it will be extremely unlikely that we can save your boat if you cannot remount it and paddle it to shore.

Hope this helps.

On a side note. M2M was Medium this year during the race and grew to the Smaller of the Large size after the race was over with. To give some perspective, in 2014 and 2015 OC’s were getting the Amas ripped off of them and skis that were not pealing off un-surfable waves were burrying the bows so fast the pressure change was bursting the seams. 😊

Here is a photo of a 6 foot foam wall barreling and overtaking an OC in 2014. This was a top paddler and he did get wiped out. These are the type of waves that you need to anticipant and peel off before they break.

Carter