Hi ,

South Africa has been credited with hosting the first ever long distance surf ski race.

In 1957 a number of the Pirates Lifesaving Club members took it upon themselves to race from the old Pirates club, at Country Club beach, to Umhlanga Rocks lighthouse and back.

Sixty six years later, the race is still an annual affair.

The very next year, one of the handful of South African iconic ski races was started, the Scottburgh to Brighton, which is also still an annual affair.

Since then, a number of other surf ski races have joined the status of iconic. Races such as the PE to East London, the Cape Point Challenge, the Pete Marlin and the Dolphin Coast spring to mind.

One other race that has recently joined the list of "must do" annual events is the Freedom Paddle.

Conceptualized by a couple of passionate paddlers, a race around Robben Island, on Freedom day. One can't get much more iconic than that.

The race was held a couple of days before the SA Sprint Championships the weekend before last.

The unpredictable weather and sea conditions in the Atlantic did not disappoint, making the trip around Madiba's prison an exciting venture.

An impressive number of surf ski's, SUP's, and prone boards took part.

The most hotly contested class were the double ski's, with almost 120 boats entered.

In the men's race, Hank McGregor and Joshua Fenn dominated by almost 3 minutes over Andy Birkett and Uli Hart, with the trusted combination of brothers Mocke bring home the last medal.

The women's race was a far closer affair. The KZN duo of Michelle Burn and Saskia Hockly were made to work hard for their 36 second win over locals, Candice Murray and Kira Bester, with Jade Wilson and Nix Birkett not far off the pace either.

Another hotly contested class was the mixed doubles, where Melanie Van Niekerk and Scheepers Schoeman brought home the bacon.

Fortunately the conditions were not so bad that the race needed to be abandoned, which was always a possibility.

Until next year.

Another iconic race was held over the weekend. The Liffey Descent in Dublin, Ireland.

The 30km race, which starts on the banks of the famous K-club golf course is renowned for the number of participants, the carnival atmosphere and the number of weirs that are required to be negotiated.

South Africans have not been strangers to the top step of the podium (even yours truly has sneaked one), and this year was no exception with a SA paddler in each of the first 2 boats. Hamish Lovemore, paddling with Ronan Foley pulled off an emphatic win, by nearly 4 minutes over world marathon champions, Andy Birkett, who had teamed up with Joe Peterson.

Hamish has now travelled to Szeged in Hungary where he will join the small SA sprint team, who are already doing battle there.

The ICF have joined a new streaming platform called "Recast". It is a "pay to view" platform.

The Szeged event is being streamed. Just google RECAST and follow the prompts.

The 5000m will be held on Sunday. A sprint race with 5 portages in only 5000m. It is going to be hectic, especially seeing that the participants will be racing in sprint spec boats (min weight 12 kgs), and that the majority of them are not seasoned portagers. It might just be worth the few SA ront to watch.

The SA marathon championships is being held in St. Francis in just over a month. It will double as the trial to select the team to represent SA at the world championships in Denmark in September. The trial to select the SA surfski team will be held on the same weekend, in St. Francis.

Usually, the nomination forms, for those who wish to make themselves available for the national teams, would have been posted on the website by now.

This has not been done because we are about to launch a new system whereby the nomination process is done during the race entry, online.

This should be up and running next week.

So, I would implore all those who are wishing to nominate themselves for the national teams to hold off on their entries for a week or so.

The Canoe Polo committee have put together an exciting plan for the next 2 years.

It has been posted on the website under the discipline.

That’s all for this week.

Your SG
Copper
1111

And the usual:
An efficiency expert concluded his lecture with a note of caution. "You don't want to try these techniques at home."
"Why not?" asked somebody from the audience.
"I watched my wife's routine at breakfast for years," the expert explained. "She made lots of trips between the refrigerator, stove, table and cabinets, often carrying a single item at a time. One day I told her, 'Hon, why don't you try carrying several things at once?'"
"Did it save time?" the person in the audience asked.
"Actually, yes," replied the expert. "It used to take her 20 minutes to make breakfast. Now I do it in seven."