The Doctor Results and Report
So who better to take the prize than Travis Grant, Aussie and current world champion. It was an all Queensland affair actually, with Beau O’Brian and Lincoln Dews also standing on the podium.
For the ladies, Gold Coast girl Angie Jackson crossed the line first, followed up by Michelle English and Molly Walker, again from the Gold Coast. It must be something in the water down there!
More logical, is the intensive training and fierce competition that goes on out of the Currumbin creek. Saturday mornings down there are literally jam packed with guys and girls on stand up paddle boards. You can’t even get a carpark! These guys have also been trekking around Australia in pursuit of the stand up paddling scene, Travis Grant just won the Mandurah Duel in Perth only a few days before, so it’s no wonder everyone picked him as the favorite for taking out the race.
Fresh out of the water, SUP Racer gave Travis Grant a call to ask him about his win. Here’s what he had to say:
“Epic, tough, fast race. Wind was light at the start but then really picked up. After the first kilometre, Beau, Lincoln and myself made a jump on the others. Not long after that, Lincoln took off in the lead, but we eventually caught up and overtook him. Lots of technical downwind racing/surfing the bumps. Started feeling really good as the wind picked up. Thought I’d dropped Beau but he came back really hard towards the end and was within 30 seconds or so at the finish. Lincoln paddled very well (first time on the board he was using). I’m stoked to win!”.
One of the race favorites was Paul Jackson, unfortunately his board took on a heap of water after the start of the race, which took him from 5th place and put him way down the list.
So what’s the race all about? It’s a 27km dash from Rottnest Island off the WA coast, to Sorrento beach, but they plan to go in the other direction if they need to. That’s pretty unlikely however, due to ‘The Doctor’, or ‘Fremantle Doctor’ which blows in almost every afternoon in summer. The reliable seabreeze effect makes WA a mecca for not only stand up paddle boarders, but windsurfers and kiteboarders.
Toowoon Bay, NSW
