First Miller's Run

First miller's run. Had fun. Didn't die. Yet. 



"When I first discovered the magical water craft called a surfski, I was enamored and soon encountered early GoPro footage online of a legendary downwind run in South Africa called the “Miller’s Run”. It featured massive wind, rugged terrain and big big water for such skinny, feather light craft. The only problem was that even in an Epic V10 Sport I could only make it roughly 10 feet without falling in... in flat water. I am not sure that I am really cut out for paddling in the classic sense. I wasn’t brought up in a k1, whitewater, surf life saving and I don’t have particularly good balance. Truth be told maybe I like beer a little bit too much as well... but I am drawn to challenges and I don’t mind risking failure, humiliating swims or great white sharks. How fitting to make it to Africa on a whim a few years after discovering this fantastic sport and get to paddle my first Miller’s Run on a borrowed V10 Sport on a fairly burly day (for me anyway) with my very good friend @dawidmocke. I hope you have challenges and dreams that inspire you, and I hope you stick with them despite all the setbacks that life seems to bring us to make personal achievement that much sweeter..."

That sounds awesome!I Wish we had something like that on the east coast of the United States. Probably the closest we have is the Gorge downwind race on the West Coast. I'd love to test my skills on a Miller's Run someday. Thanks for the video.

I hear that the Great Lakes can get big in the winter, but no personal knowledge of a run that gets close to the scale / classic purity of the Miller's Run. I paddle the Gorge quite a bit, and while it's certainly an awesome run it's apples to oranges with the ocean swell and offshore exposure, current etc. The closest I could compare would be to imagine swell city / hatch on a big day for 8 or so miles. There is the Ghostryder Downwind Race in Santa Cruz which is a little bit closer, but the scale of landscape, the iconic roman rock lighthouse and the runs right to the beach make this pretty hard to compare. Maybe a Maliko Run in Hawaii would be a fairer comparison (that's next on the bucket list). 

The thing with Hawaii is that its really difficult to get a single swell lined up with the wind like on a Miller's run. Most of the time there are multiple swells along with the trade winds. The trade winds are also highly affected by the topography of each island, so again, its hard to get everything lined up so well for that long of a stretch.

In Kauai where I lived there were times when on the Napali run it aligned with strong trades and a N groundswell...honestly it has the potential to be the fastest run in the world when that happens, BUT it is so wild and raw with zero margin for error that it doesn't get paddled in those conditions much. Make a wrong move and you'll either get washed to the middle of nowhere or die getting bashed against cliffs with the only hope being a tour boat might see you.

I did always want to do a run on one of those days from Kauai to Niihau, but unfortunately never was able to make it happen.  Imagine 15-20 foot groundswell + 5-6 foot wind swell, backed by 25 knot steady winds!

One of my most memorable downwind paddles was from Annini Beach to Haena Beach Park with Dylan Thomas on the North shore of Kauai in a rented Stellar SE. Absolutely beautiful! Relatively benign conditions, but managed 9 miles in an hour and 15 minutes. Fantastic and highly recommended. When I win lottery will look up Rob for MIllers downwinder. In the mean time I will just have to settle for our nasty mixed up cross chop/swell down coast slop. A good challenge though!

With all due respect, I wonder how many users here contemplated poetry jokes after seeing that illustrious name.

Haha SurfskiEstonia, your Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet) reference cannot go uncited. Good one mate, very apt for what we do, frail deeds aside.