Surfski Knowledge Base

Brandon Nelson <brandon@…>
12/11/10 #9761

The weather calmed back down in a big way, and it blue skies for today’s race out of Lanikai – the 18th Annual Coldpack Classic! (The entry fee is $20 and a 12-pack of your favorite bevvy).

What a venue and race course! Start and finish right off the golden sandy beach in the heart of Lanikai, and follow almost the exact same course I took on my storm outing I wrote about last time: South to Smith Point, out through the Mokes, around Flat Island, and back to the beach. 5.5 miles total.

The first thing we noticed pre-race is that surfskiing plays second fiddle here to OC-1’s and 2’s. In Heather’s race, there was only 1 other woman on a surfski in a field of about 40 boats. (We dropped in on Bob Twogood yesterday and asked him about the local surfski scene, and his quote was, “Surfskiing is on life support here. Everybody paddles outrigger.”)

At any rate, Heather got off the line and pulled into an early lead. She’d been nervous about navigating the course without anyone to follow, and her fears were justified. As she neared the Mokes, the support boat yelled something she heard as “Blah blah blah Mokes blah blah blah Flat Island.” She charged on through and kept cranking.

As it turned out, what they’d said was, “The swell’s too big to go through the Mokes. It just closed out across the channel. Just head to Flat Island.”

Every other racer took the shortcut while Heather entered the “funnest stretch of the race” in her words. Next thing she knew she was passing women on OC-1’s and 2’s, clawing her way back to the front. With ¼ mile to the finish line she put the last racer behind her, and won by close to a minute to cheers from the beach.

Next it was my turn. I adjusted the footplate out on the V10 and lined up with 60 or 70 other boats, this time there was at least a surfski class – there were 4 of us. The safety boat cruised along the line-up and announced that we WOULD be going through the Mokes, no matter what. And with a horn-blast we were off.

I had an awesome race – for about 3 minutes. Then the right-hand pedal on my ski came apart with a loud crack. The inside corner had separated from the shaft that holds both pedals in place. I could still steer, though, so I just kept cranking. Two of the other skis and I had pulled ahead, and they’d taken off so hard I figured they’d fade pretty quickly, and sure enough they started to. I figured I’d just nurse the pedal and hang with them, and try to walk away in the calm last stretch.

It wasn’t to be. Within a minute of the first crack, the pedal broke clean off and my boat swerved to the left as I stopped.

Now: If I’d rigged our borrowed boat with the infamous rudder repair gizmo, I’d have lost 20 seconds and would’ve been right back in the race. Duh!!! But I hadn’t rigged it.

I tried putting the string through my toes (seems like I’d heard Joost or someone did that and finished a race. But I admit whole-heartedly that I am not tough enough for that. It felt like a very effective interrogation technique, and I would’ve happily spilled the beans to stop the pain.) As an army of outriggers passed me, I overlapped the bottom of the pedal onto the footplate by an inch or so and regained steerage that way in 5-minute chunks before it’d slip back off. I limped around the course and finished not dead last. The two other skis had taken 1st and 2nd.

Oh well! It didn’t stop us from hanging with the great group of paddlers for the post-race feast of BBQ’d chicken, salad and rice, and an entire OC-6 filled with ice cold drinks of every flavor. Dave and Meg Chun from Kialoa, who we’d last seen at the Paddle Grand Prix in B’ham, were there, Karel Tresnak Jr., race director Jim Foti – one of the most enthusiastic and renowned family names in the Hawaiian paddling scene, and a lot of new friends we met during and after the race, all made it a super enjoyable, very “SoundRowers-esque” event. Alan and Jill, a TON of people send you a big Hello from Lanikai!!!

If you’re ever on Oahu in mid-December, definitely check it out. You’ll feel right at home.

Re: Oahu Race Report…
allipp01
12/11/10 #9762

Too bad about the rudder pedal….good to hear that you had a good time despite the problem.

Do they still throw the winner in the canoe full of ice and beer?

Re: Oahu Race Report…
Brandon Nelson <brandon@…>
12/12/10 #9763

Hey Al,

Yeah, the winner got dunked and a cooler full of ice dumped over him. I didn’t catch his name, a kid out of San Diego, and they made a pretty big deal about him beating Karel Jr. There are some photos on the new post on www.Chargelife.com.

Back to wind and rain again today, it looks like. I think it’ll be a SUP day… no pedals to break. J

Aloha,

B

Re: Oahu Race Report…
allipp01
12/12/10 #9764

. I got dunked and beat Karel back in 97…they made a pretty big deal about how close to us older guys a then 16 year old Karel was….one and a half years later he was Molokai champ.