King of the Harbour - Race Report

Some of the world's best surfski paddlers descended upon Auckland's North Shore this weekend for the 2008 King of the Harbour Surfski World Series Ocean paddling race on Saturday 29th March.

Most Competitive Field 

With the event attracting 17 international paddlers, this year's field was the most competitive assembled to date. International paddlers arrived from countries as far a field as Spain, France, Hungary and South Africa, along with a strong contingent from Tahiti and Australia, to compete in what proved to be a fantastic day's ocean racing on the Hauraki Gulf.

Paddlers began to gather at the Wakatere Boating Club at Narrowneck Beach from 9am to prepare for the 28km paddle around Rangitoto Island. The course was announced at the race briefing on the day by race director Kirsty Elmiger and Course Judge Ian Ferguson, taking into consideration the prevailing weather conditions on the day. The race course was to take an anti-clockwise direction around Rangitoto Island on the incoming tide so as to time the high tide at the island transition between Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands, and to take advantage of the prevailing 10-15knot Northerly wind that would make for a great downwind stretch over the final 10km of the race back to the finish on Narrowneck Beach.

Warm up 

Activity started to mount on Narrowneck Beach as around 60 paddlers took to the water around 11.15am for a warm up, along with a couple of media and support boats and Surf Lifesaving New Zealand's event services team of 6 IRB rescue crews and land based team leader. Weather conditions were ideal with a steady swell developing across the channel and a perfect Northerly wind picking up for some superb downwind paddling on the homeward stretch. Along with some of the worlds best surfski ocean racing paddlers, the event attracted about 5 sea kayakers for the first time taking on the challenge of either the full 28km long course, or the newly introduced 8km short course for recreational paddlers.

Self seeding

Paddlers self-seeded themselves with sportsmanship-like finesse out on the water and lined up between two Fergs Kayaks buoys about 50 yards offshore shortly before midday. Course judge Ian Ferguson couldn't have been a more qualified race starter as he lined up a perfect water start with ease. With a start line including Surfski World series women's number one Katie Pocock, World Series number two Lewis Laughlin from Tahiti, World Series no 5 Ian Gray from South Africa, World Series no 9 Tim Jacobs from Australia, along with Beijing bound flat-water sprint kayaker Mike Walker, things were set for an electric start. Just before midday and they were off!

Leading pack 

A group of eight paddlers surged together at the start, with New Zealand's  Mike Walker and Australia's Jeremy Cotter leading the charge. They were followed by fellow Aussies Caine Eckstein and Tim Jacobs, along with South Africa's world series number 5 Ian Gray and current world series number 2 , Tahitian legend Lewis Laughlin. The leading pack then began to disperse somewhat over the 10km leg across the channel charging hard into the wind with a slight side chop. The paddlers then worked their way around the city side of Rangitoto toward the island transition between Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands. The lead group reached the transition faster than anticipated and the tide had not yet drawn in sufficient water to enable paddlers to get through without the resulting unexpected 300m portage. Mike Walker, Jeremy Cotter, Tim Jacobs and Caine Eckstein were first at the transition and wasted no time getting out their boats and scrambling across the short portage at impressive speeds, boat on shoulder and paddles in hand. In retrospect even the top ranked paddlers were in no way troubled by the short portage, much to the race directors relief, as they later told the race director that it was in fact a welcome opportunity to stretch their legs before commencing the last challenging paddle home.

Front group out of reach 

Nearing the transition, South Africa's Ian Gray drew up alongside Tahitian paddling legend Lewis Laughlin, who looked very composed as he prepared to make up some ground on the leading pack of sprinters ahead. This was not to be however, as by the time the two paddlers put back onto the water at the other side of the portage, the group of 4 Aussies and 1 Kiwi were just too far out of reach.

On the outside of the transition and short portage, the race course took a final straight back into the wind up to two small islands just out to the right of the small channel between the two islands, before turning almost 180 degrees into the last downwind leg. A channel no more than 3 metres wide with a shallow rocky ledge beneath made for a careful navigation section.

Downwind to the finish

Closely knitted swell made for a quick change of pace at the turn as paddlers took off with lighting speed with at least a 15knot wind behind them, picking up some much appreciated downwind gusts as they rounded the lighthouse on the final stretch of water across the channel back to the finish line. Tim Jacobs, Jeremy Cotter, Caine Eckstein and Mike Walker had opened up a descent lead from the remainder of the race as they tore into each other with the downwind runs. It wasn't long before Tim Jacobs had established a comfortable lead with his wealth of experience in surf riding and it quickly became an all out Australian domination to the end as New Zealander Mike Walker battled to keep up with the trans-Tasman tri-factor leading the elite pack home. Mike put on his best pace to maintain his position at 4th place right to the finish line back at Narrowneck Beach. Aussie Tim Jacobs took out the title of King of the Harbour in the time of 1:59:59, closely followed by fellow Aussie Caine Eckstein 2:01:04, with Aussie Jeremy Cotter comfortably taking 3rd place in 2:02:02. New Zealand's Katie Pocock took the women's title in a time of 2:22:53 followed by fellow New Zealanders Tracy Wilson 2:38:17 and Dene Simpson in 2:41:40.

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Videos

Click here for video clips courtesy of www.sportzhub.com

Video clip: Post Race Interviews

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King of the Harbour - 29^th March 2008

28km Surfski World Series Results

 

Place	Name	Country	Time	Category	Ave Speed
1	Tim Jacobs	AUS	01:59:59	OPEN MEN	13.60
2	Caine Eckstein	AUS	02:01:04	OPEN MEN	13.48
3	Jeremy Cotter	AUS	02:02:02	OPEN MEN	13.37
4	Mike Walker	NZ	02:03:15	OPEN MEN	13.24
5	Nick Holt	AUS	02:03:33	OPEN MEN	13.21
6	Lewis Laughlin	TAH	02:04:42	OPEN MEN	13.09
7	Simon Mclarin	NZ	02:07:47	MASTERS MEN	12.77
8	Ian Gray	RSA	02:09:14	OPEN MEN	12.63
9	Paul Wilford	NZ	02:09:44	MASTERS MEN	12.58
10	Eric Deane	TAH	02:10:45	OPEN MEN	12.48
11	Rob Nicol	NZ	02:12:15	MASTERS MEN	12.34
12	Garren Cooper	NZ	02:12:18	MASTERS MEN	12.34
13	Tim Grammer	NZ	02:13:18	MASTERS MEN	12.24
14	Simon Greenwood	NZ	02:14:39	MASTERS MEN	12.12
15	Leopold Tepa	TAH	02:14:39	OPEN MEN	12.12
16	Robbie Ford	NZ	02:15:09	OPEN MEN	12.08
17	Teva Mooria	TAH	02:16:07	OPEN MEN	11.99
18	Tamas Pinter	NZ	02:17:02	OPEN MEN	11.91
19	Heinere Itchner	TAH	02:17:33	OPEN MEN	11.86
20	Gilles Guedikian	TAH	02:18:29	MASTERS MEN	11.78
21	Brendon Davey	NZ	02:18:54	OPEN MEN	11.75
22	Sene Gaetan	FRA	02:20:05	OPEN MEN	11.65
23	Gavin Elmiger	NZ	02:22:35	OPEN MEN	11.45
24	Katie Pocock	NZ	02:22:53	OPEN WOMEN	11.42
25	Jeremy Kuggeleijn	NZ	02:25:13	OPEN MEN	11.24
26	Bill Barff	TAH	02:25:33	MASTERS MEN	11.21
27	David Gunn	NZ	02:29:14	MASTERS MEN	10.94
28	Richard Eadie	AUS	02:30:14	MASTERS MEN	10.86
29	Rua Ivan Cole	NZ	02:30:51	OPEN MEN	10.82
30	Sven Hansen	NZ	02:31:01	MASTERS MEN	10.81
31	Filmin Temaiana	TAH	02:31:04	MASTERS MEN	10.80
32	Paul Gillard	NZ	02:31:09	MASTERS MEN	10.80
33	Rob Kaiwai	NZ	02:31:57	MASTERS MEN	10.74
34	Tom Jacka	NZ	02:32:12	JUNIOR MEN	10.72
35	Dave Chambers	NZ	02:32:59	MASTERS MEN	10.67
36	Damian Munro	NZ	02:34:42	OPEN MEN	10.55
37	Rob Neilson	NZ	02:35:57	MASTERS MEN	10.46
38	Sam Newlands	NZ	02:37:45	JUNIOR MEN	10.35
39	Tracy Wilson	NZ	02:38:17	MASTERS WOMEN	10.31
40	Craig Mcleod	NZ	02:39:25	OPEN MEN	10.24
41	John Sullivan	NZ	02:39:50	MASTERS MEN	10.21
42	Dene Simpson	NZ	02:41:40	MASTERS WOMEN	10.09
43	Andrew Czar	NZ	02:44:09	MASTERS MEN	9.94
44	Mark Van Den Anker	NZ	02:47:32	MASTERS MEN	9.74
45	Greg Allen	NZ	02:49:34	MASTERS MEN	9.62
46	David Loughlin	NZ	02:50:30	MASTERS MEN	9.57
47	Chris Piggott	NZ	02:52:36	MASTERS MEN	9.46
48	Duncan Buchanan	NZ	02:54:50	JUNIOR MEN	9.33
49	Carlos Pereda Gomez	SPA	02:56:40	MASTERS MEN	9.24
50	John Land	NZ	02:59:23	MASTERS MEN	9.10
51	Pierre Chemaly	NZ	03:02:03	MASTERS MEN	8.96
52	Rob Aitken	NZ	03:10:41	OPEN MEN	8.56
53	Ryan Castle	NZ	03:10:42	OPEN MEN	8.56

 

 

 

King of the Harbour - 29^th March 2008

28km Long Course Sea Kayak Results

 

1	LAWRENCE JOHNSON	NEW ZEALAND	3:25:32	MASTERS MEN
2	BEN DARBY	NEW ZEALAND	3:27:58	OPEN MEN

 

King of the Harbour - 29^th March 2008

8km Short Course Sea Kayak Results

 

1	JOHN SANDERSON	NEW ZEALAND	1:00:37	MASTERS MEN
2	HUBERT STRANG	NEW ZEALAND	1:04:21	MASTERS MEN
3	JAMES HAWKINS	NEW ZEALAND	1:10:51	MASTERS MEN

 

King of the Harbour is an event organised by event director Kirsty Elmiger through the Takapuna Boating Club, based at Takapuna, North Shore City. King of the Harbour was made possibly through a number of generous funding bodies and sponsors including New Zealand Community Trust, Pub Charity, Lion Foundation, Takapuna Boating Club, Fergs Kayaks, Pacific Optics and New Zealand Endurance Magazine. For a full list of sponsors, photos and information please visit http://www.kingoftheharbour.co.nz/

Story by race director Kirsty Elmiger & South African paddler Ian Gray

For images please contact Steve Knowles at http://www.sportzhub.com/ or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.