Rob Mousley

Hong Kong – With less than a month to go before launch, the Steelcase Hong Kong Dragon Run is preparing to greet some of the surfski community’s superb usual suspects as well as a wide range of local paddlers angling to take home some of the event’s largest-ever purse offerings.

As the avalanche of water broke over him, smashing him off his surfski, Killian Marzin felt an agonizing pain shoot through his shoulder.  He knew he was badly hurt – and the next wave in the set was roaring in towards him…

“All I remember is that it felt like being hit by a truck,” said Andy Wheatley.  “The crunch was pretty impressive!” 

Flung violently off his surfski and into the water, Wheatley’s “first thought was to get back on and go!”

In a desperate all-out, red-lining sprint, the two paddlers put everything they had into the last 300m to the finish.  50m to go and Noé Pelizza surged forward, …but the nose of his black surfski ramped up the back of the next wave and he slowed – just as Esteban Medina, nose down, accelerated onto the run behind him…

Yet another one of Sharon's Durban adventures...  Make sure it's switched to 1080p for best results - and if this doesn't get you leaning forward and backwards as you watch it, nothing will...

[Editor: Knysna Racing Kayaks released the Lee McGregor-designed Classic and Rhythm surfskis in 2017.  Contributor and passionate surfski paddler Erik Borgnes has been paddling both them; here's what he thinks of these "short" boats...]

With eight km to go, Sean Rice decided to accelerate.  “There were three of us at that point and I felt I could do a burn to get rid of one of them,” he said.  To his surprise, both Cory Hill and Gordan Harbrecht dropped back.  But the race wasn’t over yet…

Downwind fiend and avid surfski videographer Sharon Armstrong does it again - and produces a video that is a Master Class in how to get through monster surf.   Watch and learn!

…and most of the world’s best surfski paddlers, both men and women, are in Ireland to take part.  Here’s what you need to know about the world’s richest surfski race.

Sam Mayhew might have left it too late in the race to try to catch the eventual winner, Aussie Sam Djoden, but he did experience a proper adrenalin spike when a breaching orca landed right next to him…  The 2018 Zest Brokers Poor Knights Crossing lived up to the paddlers’ expectations – wildlife, exquisite scenery and hard racing…