Surfski Knowledge Base

Rob Mousley, 16 years experience with ocean kayaking on surfskis.

Answered Jan 4, 2018

My worst paddling experience was taking part in the 2008 Molokai Challenge in Hawaii.

The Molokai Challenge is one of the oldest ocean paddling (surfski) races in the world and was long considered the unofficial World Championships of surfski racing. It’s still held in very high regard, being the world’s longest open ocean race - 50km from Molokai to Oahu islands. Conditions can be ferocious with gale-force winds and massive, breaking ocean swells. The competitors go downwind, surfing the waves at speeds that can get up to 35kph.

In my case, a number of things went wrong from the moment I arrived.

Hawaii is 12 time-zones away from South Africa so I had the worst possible case of jet lag and felt ill for most of the week before the race.

The day after I arrived I paddled the “Makapuu run” a 30km downwind route along the coast of Oahu. Although I had been warned, I wasn’t prepared for the harshness of the saltwater in Hawaii and I ended up with painful blisters on my hands and, much worse, an area around my coccyx rubbed completely raw to the extent that I couldn’t paddle for about 5 days afterwards.

The day before the race we flew to Molokai where we stayed overnight in a decrepit semi-abandoned resort. The forecast looked bad: very little wind was predicted, which meant that we’d be paddling without assistance from wind and waves, in 30C heat.

Our boats were supposed to be delivered by our escort crew (each surfski in the race has to have its own escort - provided by local fishermen) the afternoon before the race, but they didn’t arrive until the next day. And they arrived late - a mere 30min before the race was due to start - no apologies. I had to unload the surfski and paddle it back to the beach through a big shorebreak to prepare it. As I landed on the beach, the backwash swept the ski down and I fell over it, getting coarse sand all over my sunscreen - and inside my paddling shorts.

Having strapped my juice bag and food onto the boat I relaunched and made it out through the surf. Then I had to dismount in deep water and take my clothes off to get rid of all that sand. In the process, it turned out, I washed off all the sunscreen too.

Remounting, I paddled the 1km to where the race was due to start. As I got there I heard the race director yelling at the competitors that there was 5min to go. I took a deep breath, told myself to calm down and to get ready to go. I was still 300m from the start when the race director let the fleet go - about 3min early.

So I was by far the last to start.

At first there was a little wind, and I could ride the waves kicked up by the flotilla of escort boats as they passed. But within 30min, the wind died and the sea became a glassy mess of slowly rising and falling swell.

Given that most of my training had been downwind paddling, I wasn’t properly prepared to paddle 50km of flat water and in the heat I began to feel my energy draining away. I also became very aware that my legs and arms were being burnt by the sun.

As I became dehydrated I felt more and more nauseous and I got to a point where I was hoping that I’d vomit, because that would give me an excuse to give up and get on my escort boat. At the same time, I was imagining what it would be like to be asked how it had gone and to say that I’d wimped out…

I was enduring both the actual physical pain and nausea of the paddle, along with the imagined shame of having given up… I was a mess.

As we slowly ground on towards Oahu a current started pushing the other way. Back in South Africa, my wife was watching the live tracking and could see that I was crawling along at about 5kph, instead of what would have been a reasonable 10kph.

Anyway - I eventually made it, in 5 1/2 hours instead of the 4 1/2 that had been my target. My demoralization was only offset to a certain degree by the satisfaction that I had at least made it across the channel.

But it was certainly the most challenging, least pleasant paddle of my life. I’d like to go back - but only if there were a decent chance of big winds and waves on the day. Unfortunately that seldom seems to happen and something like 8 of the last 10 races have had very little wind.