Rob Mousley

In what may be a world first...  we bring you photographs of the latest Fenn surfski - the Fenn SURGE. The boat was delivered to Cape Town today; local paddler Mark Keeling was the recipient and took delivery at Fish Hoek this evening.  Surfski.info was there to capture some images...

Conditions looked pretty good: South South East wind blowing 27-33kt and no big swell.  

But when we started the runs were so small, and somewhat messy that it didn't look like being a Personal Best kind of day, and I figured that I'd just take it easy and enjoy catching and working the runs as much as possible.

And that's what I was doing - my heart rate was low, I was focussed on using minimum effort to stay on the runs when...  one of my paddling buddies, Jono Niemann, came storming past as we approached the lighthouse on Roman Rock.

Jono and I have had dices before - most recently on the day a few weeks ago when I achieved my best time ever for the Miller's Run... On that occasion we'd been blasting along together when he disappeared just before Fish Hoek.  Turned out that he too was closing in on a record time, when he fell out of his boat.  He was very bleak!

In the video you can see that my heart rate (and breathing!) escalate drammatically as he comes past!  I slowed briefly to capture him on video coming past the lighthouse, but after that it was no-holds-barred!

I didn't capture it but as we came into Fish Hoek, I was just ahead... but he put a sequence together at Sunny Cove and blew past me again, so I think the honours went to him - although he peeled off to the right to land at Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club about 100m further up the beach.

But what a day.  That was my 126th Miller's Run since January last year - and it never gets boring.

"Molokai"  You just have to utter that name, and everyone in the surfski community knows what you're talking about: the 53km open ocean crossing from Molokai to Oahu across the Kaiwi Channel.  One of the oldest surfski races in the world, it was long regarded as the surfski world championships; and in the 2017 race only three of the past 43 year's winners weren't back to tackle the challenge once more.

The Kaiwi Channel has a reputation for massive downwind conditions; with a fetch of several thousand km, the NE trades can produce ferocious swell.  In 2017, however, the winds didn't arrive on the day and the paddlers faced a challenge of a different kind: heat, a head-on current, a slow heaving, seasickness inducing swell...!  (Those were the conditions I faced in 2008 - and it was one of the toughest days of my life.)

This video was released 6 months ago - but is well worth taking the time to review.  And with the Maui Jim Molokai Challenge coming up on Sunday, May 27, 2018, it's a great reminder to make your bookings and to keep on training hard...  And train for flat water, just in case.

Click here for the 2017 results

Kenny Rice and Stuart MacLaren dominated the Western Cape Double Surfski Championships in False Bay on Sunday, in perfect downwind conditions… Bianca Beavitt and Angie Austin won the Women's title.

Durban - Series pacesetters Matt Bouman and Michelle Burn took home the spoils at the Vaaka Paddle Cadence Surfski Challenge on Friday night, the eighth leg of the popular FNB Surfski Series, best mastering the demands of the onshore Easterly weather conditions.

"That was… the best fun I've had in years," said Dawid Mocke as he watched the rest of the paddlers riding the surf into the beach. "It doesn't matter who you are, you're all in with an equal chance."

Durban, South Africa: The Marine Surfski Series is an annual set of 10 surfski races that use the light of the Durban summer every Friday night from the first week of January to the middle of March.

Run by Barry Lewin at the Marine Surf Lifesaving Club in Durban, the series has been run since the 1990s and is an institution in the surfski community.

In 2018, the series has been hit with some extreme weather which sadly caused some cancellations, but it's evenings like the one in this video that make it all worthwhile.

And the quality of the video is outstanding!

Click here for the race report

Durban - Veteran ocean racing ace Matt Bouman signalled his dominance of the 2018 FNB Surfski Series when he powered away to win race seven, the Boland Surfski Challenge, presented by Marriott, and the 2018 series title in tricky conditions on Friday evening.

21 Feb, 2018 - Yeeeeha!  I turned towards the whoop to see Jono Niemann came shooting past, spray flying…  The back of my ski lifted and I took a couple of hard strokes to accelerate onto my own wave…

When we met in Fish Hoek to load the surfskis onto the Miller’s Run Taxi, it was to find a veritable sandstorm; the weather station at the club said the wind strength was averaging 30kt, gusting 40kt.  Twenty minutes earlier, it had peaked at around 48kt…

Wind strength reported at Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club We were on the water at about 16h45.

As we drove up to Miller’s Point, the sea looked wild – but in a good way; the swell wasn’t outrageously big and you could see the sets moving in lines.   In the bus, mentions of “Looking good” and “Personal Best” started to be heard.

At Miller’s Point, conditions were perfect.  As usual, the wind wasn’t as strong here – but it was still strong enough that we’d be catching good runs right from the start.

The beauty of paddling in a very strong wind is that you can push over waves that normally stop you – so you can maintain speed and create longer sequences at higher speeds than normal.

Mocke Miller’s Run of the Season

I was delighted when the competition was announced: register as many runs as possible between the beginning of November and the end of February.  Prizes for the fastest runs in each gender and age category; for the most runs; for the best video… 

The Miller’s Run (can anyone not know this?!) is a short, 11.6km-11.8km – depending on where you finish – downwind run from Miller’s Point to Fish Hoek, here in Cape Town.  Whenever the southeaster blows (and that’s probably 2 out of every 3 days in summer) the Miller’s Run beckons.

When we got together for this particular run it was in the knowledge that this was probably the last run of the competition – the forecast was for much lighter winds the next day.  So the team was amped right from the start.

And the video really speaks for itself. 

Fast Conditions

The conditions – small swell and strong wind – were ideal.  When the swell is big, it tends to become confused and it’s difficult to link runs efficiently. 

In the end nearly half the group beat their Personal Best times.  I beat mine by over half a minute. 

What a rush!

Nauticat is a steel-hulled 21m catamaran used by Drumbeat Charters to take tourists from Hout Bay to Duiker Island (aka Seal Island) to view the seal colony there.

She travels at 14-15kph and the wake that is formed by her hull runs at a flatter angle than single hulled ships - and are much easier to ride.

On this day, the ocean was relatively calm and I found myself hardly paddling at all.

My buddy made a cock-up of it as Nauticat exited the harbour; she turns sharply and you have to slow right down to stay on the wake.  He lost his balance and swam in front of the appreciative audience...!