Jeremy Cotter wins the 2009 Epic Kayaks 20 Beaches

Written by Jamie Stewart

Wednesday, 23 December 2009

Young Cooper Cotter missed seeing his dad win one of the most competitive ski races ever this weekend, but then he is only ten days old and dad did have to get special dispensation to get away from Queensland for the day!

Jeremy Cotter has capped off his incredible 2009 streak, winning the Epic Kayaks 20 Beaches in great conditions, ahead of a talented field. Jeremy hasn’t placed lower than 2nd in a race he’s finished this year: 2nd in Perth, Bridge to Beach and Hong Kong, 1st in San Francisco, Fenn Cups 1 & 2, and now 1st in the Epic Kayaks 20 Beaches. Last year’s winner, Murray Stewart, took out a hard-fought 2nd place this year, which was enough to win him the 2009 Bing Lee LG Epic Kayaks Ocean Series (plus a massive plasma TV and flights to Molokai 2010). Tony Schumacher, who has performed consistently throughout the series all year was 3rd.

Race Start - no wind

Five minutes before 1pm (the designated race start time), there wasn’t a breath of wind and you’ve never seen 220 more restless paddlers: Oscar was strutting around proclaiming how much better conditions are in Durban, Ando was rolling chicken bones and praying to the sea Gods, and Slossy was telling everyone “I’m ready anyway, but it’d be more fun with wind”. The organisers had chosen to run the race from Manly to Palm Beach, in anticipation of the South Easter that was meant to hit early on Saturday afternoon. However just before the start of the race, with no wind in sight, the forecast models appeared to have been deceptive. Just when all hope was lost and we had started getting our heads around 2 hours of flatwater torture, someone spotted the breeze. Slight at first, far out to sea, but picking up rapidly, the South Easter arrived in the nick of time.

The late arrival of the wind, of course, created a strategic puzzle: do you go deep early, hoping to pick up the best angle of the bigger runs out to sea? Or do you take a straight line to Long Reef, surfing at an angle across the breeze, and hope that there isn’t too much East in the wind to mess up your runs back to Palmy?

As it turned out, the narrow line was quicker (as Oscar Chalupsky reminded me constantly after the race. The Big O has now learned his lesson that following a writer’s line in a race isn’t such a great idea). The 10-15knot wind, with no groundswell, kicked up decent sized runs out to sea that could best be classified as “weird”. They were fun, and they were very easy to catch, but they were only going at about 16kph and they were difficult to punch through. This meant that the guys on a deep line were essentially limited in their speed. You could catch every run available and still not go all that fast. A fun Saturday afternoon paddle? Yes. A great race strategy? No.

So, 220 paddlers lined up in front of a massive crowd (by surfski standards), on a perfect summer’s afternoon, in crystal clear water off Manly Beach. Jeremy got off to a flying start and, the fitness machine that he is, didn’t slow down til he hit the finish! The chase pack included Tony Schumacher, Dave Kissane, Murray Stewart, Tim Jacobs, Pete Scott, David Smith David Rhodes and Dane Sloss (i.e. 4 Olympians, 3 former 20 Beaches winners and a fuzzy haired Queenslander with an affinity for controversial blogging). Slossy took a wider line, and lead the race up to Long Reef, where he fell victim to the slower runs further out. The other guys, including Jeremy, took a straight line to Long Reef, cutting the point almost fine enough to touch it, and proceeded just as straight to Whale Beach before turning into Palmy. The runs on the inside were big enough to catch, but small and technical enough to slice through and keep up boatspeed.

For more than 20km, the top ten or so paddlers remained within spitting distance of each other, only a few hundred metres behind Jezza. There was no washriding involved – each guy was catching runs on his own line – but no-one was giving an inch. At Whale Beach, however, with the finish line within sniffing distance, Murray Stewart turned on the afterburners and Tony Schumacher followed. Muzz, who has focussed his training back on kayaking since the Dubai Shamaal earlier this month, took a position in front of the other chasers and started to close the gap between himself and Jez. Jeremy, no stranger to the course, and no stranger to digging deep late in the race, hung on and managed to hit the idyllic Palm Beach in first, twenty three seconds ahead.

The composition of the top 10, all of whom finished within 2 minutes of each other, is very interesting – 6 surf ski / kayak sprinters and 4 current / former ironmen. This included a few names that will be unfamiliar to international long distance surfski circles, but which are well known at home (e.g. Pete Scott, Mike Murray and David Rhodes). Many of these guys prove that sprinters with a surf background should never be discounted in a long race, especially in small runs. The ever-tough grinder Dave Kissane finished in 8th – good enough to get him 3rd overall in the Oceanseries. Unfortunately, pre-race favourite Tim Jacobs was ill in the week preceding the race and just couldn’t hang on in the final kilometres, limping home in 13th. Usual top-ten suspects including Mark Anderson, Slossy, Tommy Woodruff and Michael Locke had to settle for top 20 this weekend, whilst the South African hopeful (the Big O) ended up 29th. This just goes to show how ridiculously competitive the Sydney paddling scene has become, and how sought-after a top 20 guernsy now is (see full series placings below).

The women’s race wasn’t without controversy. Hawaiian Lauren Bartlett took an inside line, whilst Queenslander Kirsty Holmes went deeper. Kirsty has won every Oceanseries race she’s entered this year and dominated the Caribbean series as well. Lauren is an absolute machine who has won Molokai on both OC1 and surfski, and represented the US at the Olympics in kayaking. At South Palm Beach, Lauren was in the lead, clear of Kirsty and looking certain to take out the women’s title. Then, inexplicably, she stopped 25m short of the beach, in line with a big purple buoy that paddlers had to go around. She turned around to see Kirsty coming home strong: “I saw t*ts and a hat and thought ‘gotta go’!”. Kirsty ended up hitting the beach in front by a hair’s breadth, leaving a confused Lauren to work out what had happened. Queensland ironwoman Jasmin Kelly, who was 3rd in the Dubai Shamaal, finished in 3rd.

Brothers Ben & Tim Kirkby once again fought out the juniors, with older brother Ben taking out the 20 Beaches (by 19 seconds), and Tim winning the overall series pointscore. Being the kind younger brother, I’m guessing Tim will let Ben share the LCD TV he won for the series.

Most Competitive Race Ever?

How do you classify ‘the most competitive race ever’? Is it by the strength of the field that lines up? Is it by the recent results of the winner? Or by how close the top 10 or 20 paddlers are? Regardless of the criteria, it’s not hard to argue that the 2009 Epic Kayaks 20 Beaches was the most competitive race ever seen in Sydney, if not in Australia, if not the world. Big call, but hear me out:

220 paddlers lined up for the start, including almost every Aussie paddler who has performed at international races this year. With the exception of the Perth boys and a few star Queenslanders, everyone was there. There were busloads from the North coast, busloads from down South, a handful of Hawaiins, and a big red-headed South African. We had multiple Australian surf ski champions, six Olympians, four former race winners, the race record holder, and the back-to-back Dubai Shamaal champ. On paper, I’m not sure how much better the field could get.
Undoubtedly, Jeremy Cotter’s results in 2009 put him up there as one of the best paddlers in the world at the moment. Only two people have beaten him this year, and they were both Australian. In addition, Jeremy’s time this weekend was only three minutes off the race record, which was set in massive Southerly swell and has stood for seven years.
If that’s not enough, here’s the kicker: The top ten paddlers were separated by only 2 minutes, the top twenty by only 4 minutes. Think about that for a second. That means that over a 90-odd minute race, the top 10 were within 97.87% of the winner’s time, using the South African method of [1 – ( winning margin / winner’s time)]. The top 20 were within 95.73% of the winner’s time. No other international race in 2009 has seen even 10th place get within 95% of the winner’s time, let alone 20th! In Dubai, which was 20 mins shorter, 10th was 94.71% of the winner’s time, or a full four minutes behind.

The 2009 Epic Kayaks 20 Beaches was great fun, and a fitting end to what has certainly been a fantastic series. The setting for the race couldn’t have been better – start at Manly and finish/presentation at the incredible surf club (i.e. country club) that is Palm Beach. Thanks to all the sponsors and organisers of the 2009 Bing Lee LG Epic Kayaks Oceanseries. It’s been a great year and is just another marker of the meteoric rise in surfski paddling in Australia.