Newsflash: Australian Canoeing Endorses Ocean Racing Series

The big news in ocean racing in Australia is the official endorsement of by Australian Canoeing (AC) of ocean racing as a sport discipline under the AC banner.

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Ocean racing will join the likes of sprint and marathon with an official series which will decide the first ever ocean racing national champions.

Technical Committee

As part of this an ocean racing technical committee has been set up to guide the sport and with the assistance of the AC infrastructure.

The committee is:

• Dean Gardiner (Chair)
• Dave Kissane (Athlete Liaison)
• Jamie Stewart (NSW)
• Ash Nesbit (WA)
• Don Marsh (TAS)
• Wade Vaultier (VIC)
• Steve Dalton (SA)
• Kirk Jarrott (QLD)
• Sampson Hollywood 

• Yanda Nossiter (Secretary)
• Ian Dewey (AC - Safety)
• Sam Lyons (AC - Support)

National Surfski Series

The national series will kick off on September 25 with the first event being the Fenn Cup in NSW. The series is to be made up of 10 events with competitors taking their best 6 results to decide the National champion in the various categories.

The events are

• Sep 26 Fenn Cup 1 NSW
• Oct 31 Fenn Cup 2 NSW
• Nov 7 King of the Cape WA
• Jan 2 Fenn Cup 3 NSW
• Jan 3 the Twist NSW
• Jan 9 Outlaw Race Vic
• Jan 16 the Doctor WA
• Jan 17 the Doctor WA
• Jan 24 TBN Mooloolaba QLD
• Mar Bridge to Beach NSW

Points

All races will award equal points with the exception of ‘The Doctor" which will be worth double points on both days.

The committee is currently in negotiation with various companies to act as an umbrella sponsor for the series. It is hoped that sponsorship will be in place by the first event in September.

Categories

The categories for the series will be as follows.

• Both genders
• Open
• Over 40
• Over 50
• Under 20

Rules

Rules for the series will be in place by the first event.

Doubles

Doubles will also become part of this series. Due to the limited time available ‘The Twist" event on January 3 will be used as the National Double Ski Championship.

Australian Canoeing

Australian Canoeing are very excited about bringing the fastest growing paddle sport in the country under the AC framework and believe both the sport and AC will benefit from the relationship.

Australian Canoeing CEO Greg Doyle stated that:

 "AC is delighted to co-operatively work with the industry to develop and support a national ocean racing series."

 "This series will come under the national Paddling Australia framework that aims to develop a structure for the industry that supports and more effectively services the countless thousands of Australians participating in healthy, fun and organised physical activity via paddling."

Ocean racing Chairman Dean Gardiner believes this is a positive step for the sport "We see this as becoming bit of a model for other countries to follow to get the relationship between the sport and the body in place," said Gardiner. "This concept has been bandied around forever with both sides talking about the idea but neither getting it together.

"After several recent discussions with AC we now see a very positive outcome being delivered for the sport by cementing this relationship" he said.

Gardiner is the pioneer of the sport in this country so was the obvious choice for the chairman position. The state representatives all have involvement in their particular states events so are already well aware of how the events are managed.

International Competitors Welcome

The national series is open to international competitors also and the committee expects to see quite few of the top ocean racers coming to compete over the summer months.