Tonight was the penultimate event in the 2008 MEC Big Chop Summer Paddling Series and 56 paddlers turned up for some fun on the water. Surfers Loop was the chosen course for the evening’s race, taking paddlers out to the sand barge buoy, then heading southwest to a flag near the yacht club, heading back east to a marker off dog walkers beach, back out around the sand barge buoy then running in to the start/finish.
Shortly after the start Shane (V10) found himself alone off the front with Sean (V10 Sport) leading the chase pack with Jeff (Evo) on his left slip and John (Millenium) riding stern wash. Despite Sean’s attempts at convincing Shane to slow his pace to let us catch up, Shane’s lead continued to grow throughout the race, finishing almost 2 minutes clear of the next paddlers. In the ‘chase’ pack Sean was doing a great job setting a good pace…we were doing 11.5 to 12 km/h for much of the race. At some point along the way John fell off the pace, dropping back out of the race for 2nd place. As we approached the finish Shane swung around to join us for the sprint to the line…Jeff managed to edge out Shane at the line with Sean hanging tough close behind. Shane pointed out to Sean that he doesn’t slow down to let us stay with him for just this reason…he is not certain he will be able to win the sprint. Fortunately for Shane dealing with finishing sprints hasn’t been an issue this year, when he wins it is usually by a big margin.
