Narrabeen Downwind Race ReportWritten by Jamie Stewart "Mate, those were the best north east runs I've ever raced in on the Northern Beaches". Sounds like a big call, but when it's coming from one of Sydney's most experienced paddlers, Dave Kissane, you know that it's not being said lightly.
The conditions for Race 4 in the Bing Lee, LG, Epic Kayaks Oceanseries, the Narrabeen Downwind, were near perfect. Unfortunately race favourite Tim Jacobs was away, but he would have had his work cut out for him this weekend with local boy Murray Stewart breaking the previous race record by a full seven minutes. Despite a serious challenge from two of Southern Sydney's finest, Muzz managed to edge out Nathan Smith and Tony Schumacher for the win ...follow the wind...The Narrabeen Downwind runs between Station Beach in Pittwater - an increasingly popular starting point for surfski races due to the sheltered waters and ample space for registration - to Fisherman's Beach at Long Reef. The deceptive thing about racing from Station Beach in a nor-easter is that you have to endure a kilometre of headwind (around Barrenjoey Headland), and another 3 kilometres of side chop (to Whale Beach) before the runs line up - past Whale Beach though is a totally different story. If you had drawn a line between Whaley headland and Fisherman's, it wouldn't have been much straighter than the angle of the runs on Saturday. No GPS needed, leave the compass at home, all you had to do was follow the wind, surfing slightly to the left every second run or so, and you'd get to the finish. With relatively little effort you could link up sections for hundreds of metres without missing a run. The quickest way from A to B ...As is often the case with downwind paddling, the quickest way from A to B isn't in a straight line. As soon as the pack passed Whale Beach, everyone split up like birdshot coming out of a barrel. There were paddlers in yellow and orange singlets all over the ocean. Some made the mistake of cutting Newport Reef too fine, but most just picked a line and lost themselves in downwind heaven. In a perfect illustration of how taking different lines doesn't always have to mean different speed, fourth, fifth and sixth places (Mark Anderson, Nick Holt and Dave Kissane) all came in to the finish from completely different directions. Ando had gone deep, Dave went close to the beach and Holty was somewhere in the middle - but all three converged at the finish only seven seconds apart!
Surfing the runs (Pic: Rambo) Good conditions were unexpectedWe certainly didn't expect good conditions when we woke up on Saturday morning. In the preceding days, the wind had swung from a stiff easterly to a southerly. Both ‘Windguru' and ‘Seabreeze' promised it would swing again to north east, but only about 6 - 10 knots, and only hours after the proposed race start time. It looked like the race itself would be flat at best, so we weren't exactly filled with confidence driving to the race start. The surfski gods were smiling on us though; bad traffic on the way to Station Beach caused the organisers to delay the start by half an hour. That proved just enough time for the wind to start blowing. As the mob at the start felt the wind pick up, the mood began to change - from wary anticipation of a 20km slog, to serious excitement at the prospect of 90 minutes of fun surfing runs. As usual, the pace off the start could have easily been mistaken for a 200 metre national sprint trial. Former Olympian Sasa Vujanic led from the start and hung on right up to Whale Beach, with Queenslander Dane Sloss in tow. Sasa, looking fit and sporting a cropped goatee (for intimidation purposes on the start line perhaps?), has featured prominently in the Oceanseries this year. Like many of the flatwater paddlers, Sasa's downwind skills are improving - not enough to hold the lead the whole way just yet, but enough to hang on to a top ten finish. Slossy was also unable to hang on, hitting a wall and finishing one spot ahead of Sasa in 9th.
Waiting for the Start (Pic: Rambo) Ironmen v sprintersThis week, the ironmen were represented by Nathan Smith, the flatwater/lifesaving guys by Murray Stewart and Tony Schumacher (among others). Nathan, a former Australian ironman champion and five times NSW ironman champ, started the 2009 Oceanseries on his lifesaving spec ski, as training for the Coolangatta Gold, and turned heads with some impressive results against the lighter, faster ocean skis. Then some bright spark (Tony King) gave him a V10, and three weeks later he's on the podium! Apparently the race conditions closely resembled the friendly ironman's training ground in Cronulla, on Sydney's Southern beaches. The resemblance wasn't lost on fellow Cronulla boy, and Beijing Olympian, Tony Schumacher, who continued his improvement on the ocean ski with a third place finish. After passing Sasa four kilometres into the race, Nathan and Murray swapped the lead a number of times, zigzagging across each other's path following the runs. By the time the red tent and finishing flags became clear, the two were in line with each other. "Murray was just too strong" over the last kilometre, and Nathan had to settle for second, just over half a minute behind. "Nathan paddled really well and I just managed to get him at the end" said Murray. Second to eighth spots were separated by less than a minute, and the top 20 paddlers all broke the previous race record; once again illustrating the depth of the field in these races. Kirsty Holmes dominant againKirsty Holmes once again demonstrated her formidable strength in the women's race, beating Kelly Jury and Mel Pelly, and coming in 33rd overall. Kirsty is making a habit of commuting down to Sydney for a race, winning it and racing off to the airport for a flight the same evening. This weekend she even had to work a shift at the fire station in Queensland only hours after the race! It seems to be working for her though, and it's going to be very interesting seeing her pitted against the top international ladies in Dubai. Seventeen year old Tim Kirkby, once again riding Tim Jacob's training ski, took out the juniors, with Mark Stowe and Tim's brother Ben just over two minutes behind.
Tim Kirkby (Pic: Rambo)
Next race is the Wharf Bar King of the Harbour on 28 November. Now, if only the wind gods will smile on us again ... ResultsClick here for the full results
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