leash

Extreme sports and 100% safety are incompatible. When you go to sea in gale-force downwind conditions, sometimes shit will happen. And it’s then that your safety gear and your preparedness in using it become vital…

“We have multiple reports of a surfski washing ashore without the paddler,” said NSRI Simon’s Town Station Commander Darren Zimmerman. “We’re activating.  Can you please try to find out who it might be?”

Accessorize your Surfski

Where to put, how to attach, what to do… courtesy of Dawid Mocke and  www.surfskischool.com

There are 6 surfski accessories that you should find with every surfskier. In order of importance.

1. A pfd
2. A leash
3. A cell phone pouch
4. A flare
5. Juice
6. GPS

All of the above are part of the kit that make your action man status a bit more complete. Also, without the above you’re putting yourself at risk.

Port Elizabeth, 24 June, 2006. Surf-skier rescued after going missing at sea has been taken directly to hospital for treatment for hypothermia aboard an SA Air Force helicopter.  

 

Ian Gray, NSRI Port Elizabeth Station Commander said: "At 15h20 NSRI Port Elizabeth were activated to a report of 2 surf-skier's suspected to be missing at sea during the surf-ski event the "Sportsworld Downwind Winter Series Race 3", between Sardinia Bay and Noordhoek near Port Elizabeth.

 

[Editor: Vineet Buch shared this story of a leash-less adventure in strong winds on the surfski newsgroup. I felt it worth sharing with a wider community, so here it is...]

 

 I went out solo from Redwood City Harbor Sunday, 2/25 morning ~9:30am in my Huki S1-A surfski; the forecast called for strong gusty southeast (onshore) winds, but it was calm when I started, and I changed my original plan of staying in the Redwood City sloughs and instead paddled southeast out of the harbor in the open San Francisco Bay to the Dumbarton Bridge.