Hawaii Battle of the Paddle LIVE - 12/13 June 2010

Sorry Phil not sure who that was.

yeah, but i would think not as much as he would like because of all of his training, racing, traveling etc. if you are half serious about dw ing you won't be surfing as much as you might have been doing. still surfing anyway

Travis might be having a few beers tonight

Aaron Nepolean did well on a PSH 14 3ft is a lot of board to give away.

Naish would be pleased 3 17ft boards in the top 10 (1st, 5th and 6th).

What happened to Jamie? Did he start?

Phill

Just got off the phone to Danny. He said he thinks there were over 200 in it. Conditions were good. Pretty flat off the start and then it started building up and they had really good runs and wind down the Hawaii Kai side.

He ended up 24th in the Unlimited (10th in the Unlimited Over 40's). He said that if he would have entered in the Over 30's that would have got him 3rd..to give you young guys an idea of where you may have come !!.

He said he had a great first half of the race and was side by side with Conner Baxter, Scott Gamble and Travis. But he said he just got tired and couldn't hold that pace with them due to being under conditioned. Then he started not stepping back as far on the board, etc.

Said he and Travis both hardly used the steering systems and stood about a foot behind it or more the entire race. Said the board ran so much better being further back. They had talked about that early after learning alot at Maui last month.

He and Todd Bradley got cleaned up by a huge set at the Diamond Head lighthouse. They lost their paddles, hats etc. Said they lost about 15 places. They ended up way inside the reef at Outrigger Canoe Club near the wind sock.

Jamie was apparently way outside the lighthouse about 1/4 mile out. He ended up about 1.5 mins ahead of Danny and he thinks 6th in the 14' Class.

He said he'd love to get a board custom built more for his size if he's going to do more races over there. Something with more volume. Danny is 105 kg's on an F16 and, for example, Conner Baxter is on the same board but is about 70kg's. He reckons his board is 1 inch further down in the water then those guys.

Overall he said it was a great race !!

Hey Sue,

I agree with Danny's comments on boards. I have paddled a number of boards and at 100+ kgs there are non I have found that are competative.

In the flat I can even paddle a 25 x 12'6 and I was training on a 12 x 26 Munoz Gun but take that to the ocean and forget it.

On one of the 17fters I tired to get speed (GPS verified difference) I had to stand 12 inches forward of the steering system making it void.

I watched Danny paddle a 12 glide in the Port Phillip Cup and it was almost submerged until it was on the plane and he still ended up in the top 5.

Travis's board impressed me when I saw it as it was made with the bigger rider in mind. A scaled up 14 or 16ft I think is the go.

Conner on an f16 would be like danny on a f32

The real issue is parking boards all over the place as you cant transport them effectively in a country like Australia.

I guess the other option is move north!

Phill

SUP Surf Relay Results

1st Team Lahui Kai / 404 (Danny Ching, Travis Grant, Jamie Mitchell & Brandi Baksic)
2nd Team Bark Surftech (Slater Trout, Matt Becker, Candice Appleby & Scott Gamble)
3rd Team Hobie ( Byron Kirt, Chuck Patterson, Colin ? & Amy ?)

Then I think...
4th Team Naish (Dave Kalama, Jerry Bess & ???)
5th Team Ohana (Rob Rojas & co ?? )

Shak flew home early this morning.

He believes alot of the race boards are just too tippy. Everyone is going for speed in design but they are losing the stability in the mean time which is really needed in these conditions going in and out through the break. He said a guy on a 12' Surftech Softtop was in front of him and he couldn't catch him !!

He said the conditions are 2/3 ft with a 15-20 knot offshore wind. The Elite race starts in less than an hour. Danny is handling for Shakira. Mick DiBetta is handling for Jamie and a good Hawaiian friend of ours is handling for Travis.

Go the Aussies !!!

*That guy on a softtop was me...I won in my division (open age group - surfboard 30-39)
Was a fun race..with all with 14,16, 18 ft boards around.

Well done Hilton !! You certainly did get noticed over there. Great Race and congratulations on winning your division. And welcome to Seabreeze !!

Tell us about your race...

Oh and by the way... DJ wants to know where he can get one of those 12' Softtops ??

Great photo's of the Elite Race and our Aussie Travis Grant (No 58) and Jamie Mitchell (No 53) over on The Stand Up Zone....

www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php?topic=7622.15

Great photo's Sue ,and some interesting boards . Looks like a great event ...just to be there would of been awesome!

Did Danny take over his own board or borrow a board?

Boylos

No Danny got on a plane last Saturday wearing only a small "school sized" backpack. He went over for other reasons but how ironic that the "Battle" was on during the middle of his stay ???

He didn't even take underpants or a toothbrush let alone a paddle or board !! He "stole" Danny Chings 12'6" 404 off the beach yesterday as Travis hadn't arrived yet with the planned DC12'6" that he was going to use for the "Open Age Race".

Today he borrowed an F16 off a good female friend of ours that we have know through outrigger canoe paddling about 10 years ago. One of the "Offshore" Outrigger Canoe paddlers originally from Newport Beach !! Mahalo MJ !!

Full results of all races are now up at the "Pacific Sports Events and Timing" website. Here's the link

pseresults.com/events/recent

Hey Sue..... now that Danny has done two Battle of the Paddles which one did he think was the best .... Hawaii /California ?


Boylos

Hey Craig... I'm pretty sure I can answer that one for you. Got to be careful here though. Don't want to offend any State of the USA.

Personally Danny & I would prefer to be in Hawaii. Just with weather, lifestyle, locals, water temp, tradition etc. The weather we had in Cali was colder as the event was in October which is going into their Winter.

Danny did say the Hawaiian event and venue had more room. The stalls, expo, tents etc were all more spread out and it didn't seem as crowded getting around.

As far as conditions go...the Californian Main arena had more swell and bigger waves. Not sure if you heard Gerry Lopez's interview after the Elite Race last weekend but he was dissappointed that the Hawaiian course didn't have the bouys anchored more in the middle of the wave zone in the Elite Race so competitors had more of a chance of turning the bouy and then catching a wave straight up. This course was alot more paddling and less surfing than California but then Cali did just so happen to get that rare south swell which jacked it up on race day. The Hawaiian tides prevented Gerry from getting what he would have liked.

The Hawaiian Distance Course (Hawaii Kai run) was a better distance course as it was one way and true downwind which most enjoy more?. The Californian Distance race was 5 mile down and 5 mile back with a side wind so both directions copped it and were extremely tough. I'm not sure what their conditions are predominately. Maybe one of our International readers (of which I now see are many) could answer this and tell us what the Dana Point/San Clemente distance paddles are mostly like ?

As far as competitor numbers go...California had way more competitors in the Open Age race which is the race for "normal" paddlers like you and me. And the one most of us here would go to enter. The Hawaiian Open Age Race only attracted 125 and this even included a new category being the "normal surfboard" category which had 33 entries of the 125 total. The Californian Open Age had 311 competitors. But then racing in California for "average joe" is alot bigger and more popular than Hawaii and of course here in Oz.

The Elite Race is Invitational only so the organisers try to keep it around the 100 mark I think. Hawaii had 93 and California had 105 Elite Racers (male & female). So this will always be about the same and the competition here will always be just as spectacular to watch.

The Distance race attracted more in Hawaii maybe because it was true downwind course ? Hawaii had 200 in the distance race as compared to California which had 125. The conditions on Cali day as I said weren't great. It was overcast and cold and some may have pulled out. I know none of the Aussie did the distance last year as we couldn't get Unlimited boards and no-one wanted to punch over and back for 10 mile with a side wind and no rudder. (Sounds like last weekends Xcel on the Gold Coast?)

Accomodation wise...there is obviously more accomodation in Waikiki than in Dana Point and it's closer to the event/venue.

Hope this helps some...

On the other hand if you are taking your family then California has Disneyland and Legoland (just down the road from Dana Point) and of course Universal Studios, Hollywood etc. If you're into all those things ??

We just prefer Hawaii as we have been going there at least twice a year for the last 15 years. It's our favourite place to go on a plane !!

So much so that I just spoke to Danny is he's staying there longer [}:)]...opps did I say they out loud? I meant