| Date |
Event |
Location |
Distance |
| April 7 |
1st Tuesday Night Race |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| April 14 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| April 21 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| April 28 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| April 30 |
1st Big Chop (West Side Loop) |
Vanier Park |
7 km |
| May 5 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| May 12 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| May 14 |
Big Chop (Back Side Loop) |
Vanier Park |
8 km |
| May 19 |
TNR Criterium |
Deep Cove |
|
| May 26 |
TNR Twin Island Race |
Deep Cove |
|
| May 28 |
Big Chop (Surfer’s Route) |
Vanier Park |
8 km |
| June 2 |
TNR Pre-Round Bowen Taper Race |
Deep Cove |
|
| June 9 |
TNR Super Hero Night |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| June 11 |
Big Chop (West Side Loop) |
Vanier Park |
8 km |
| June 16 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| June 23 |
TNR Lesser Kayak Swap |
Deep Cove |
|
| June 25 |
Big Chop (Back Side Loop) |
Vanier Park |
9 km |
| June 30 |
TNR Magnum PI Night |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| July 7 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| July 9 |
Big Chop (Surfer’s Route) |
Vanier Park |
8 km |
| July 14 |
TNR Great Kayak Swap |
Deep Cove |
|
| July 21 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| July 23 |
Big Chop (West Side Loop) |
Vanier Park |
7 km |
| July 28 |
TNR Maple Beach Multisport Night |
Deep Cove |
|
| August 4 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| August 6 |
Big Chop (Back Side Loop) |
Vanier Park |
9 km |
| August 11 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| August 18 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| August 20 |
Big Chop (Surfer’s Route) |
Vanier Park |
8 km |
| August 25 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| Sept. 1 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| Sept. 3 |
Big Chop (finale) |
Vanier Park |
6.5 km |
| Sept. 8 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
| Sept. 15 |
TNR |
Deep Cove |
4-10 km |
Pierre said
Hi! I would like more info on the January Jericho and February Nanaimo events, please, including contact numbers…
Thanks,
Pierre
bckcrainbow said
Pierre, links to the race organizers for those events have been added to the 2009 Events page…at this time the event details have not been posted but if you want the information now you can try contacting the event organizers directly…see their websites for contact info.
marty said
Is there a Canadian Surf Ski championships? Should there be one? Would Victoria be a good place to host one? Our WestShore facility at Royal Roads University is the perfect venue…Baech launch, straight out into the Strait on Juan de Fuca…can get some good water going…we can also do a sheltered course for the newbies/novices/juniors.
thoughts please..
Thnaks
kathleen petereit said
Hi Marty,
We have a race planned in Nanaimo on July 25th 2008. The city of Nanaimo wants us to host a championship race and are working with us. NCKC is also involved. We already have some cash for prize money and a rough water long course as well as a shorter course for novice paddlers. So far we have just called this the Canadian paddling champs. I was thinking maybe we should call it the Pacific Northwest Champs as half our racers are from across the border. It would be great to have a big race at your end as well. Maybe at the beginning of summer or after the USSSC near the end of September or early Oct ?
Kathleen
marty said
Kathleen,
I was thinking the same weekend as the National Outrigger small boat champs(August 16th)..which we are also hosting. It would be a week before US Nationals..just some thoughts going on, have had some converstaion with a major sponsor already….If we kept them a month or so apart I dont think they would interfere…
lets keep the thread going
Shane said
Cool to see that someone is taking the initiative in getting a regional surfski championship going. Bummer about the choice of weekends though. It’ll be a much smaller Howe Sound Downwind Run without the surfskis.
Any chance of running the champs on the Sunday? That way our friends from south of the border could do the downwind run then pop over to Nanaimo for the big race on Sunday. Two races, one weekend (kinda like the Tour de Indian Arm / Lake Whatcom weekend).
Just a thought.
kathleen petereit said
Shane,
I already thought about that but they run the Bathtub race on sunday and there would be too much conflict. We did discuss it as I had the same thought as you, do two races in one weekend. We had planned this for the Bathtub weekend last year but cancelled because we didn’t want to conflict with the Howe Sound race. The city of Nanaimo wants to promote this race to tie it in with the Marine Festival that weekend. They are going to give us big media coverage helping to promote the sport. I sent an email to FRCC some time ago letting them know our plans and the date hoping maybe their race could move to the sunday. Is that a possibility ?
Kathleen
bckcrainbow said
Marty, a surfski race in the location you described would be awesome…even if the wind didn’t blow, the islands and currents in that area would make for very interesting and challenging racing.
I suspect such an event would attract plenty of surfskiers regardless of what the event were to be titled: Canadian Surfski Champs, BC Surfski Champs, GoRowandPaddle Surfski Champs, Sponsor Name Surfski Champs, etc.
The 2007 and 2008 editions of CORA’s Gibsons Outrigger event held a long course surfski race on the same course and concurrent with the OC-6’s…the 5 or 10 minute delay given to the surfski race start seemed to work fairly well.
kathleen said
I agree with Jeff about racing alongside the OC 6’s. Larry my doubles partner and I had so much fun trying to catch the big boats and got pretty excited when we would pass one. It made for a more interesting race.
Kathleen
marty said
another idea that we are toying with, is for us to increase the length of our Brotchie race and include a surf ski section. We would start on the inside at Gorge then race to V21 marker , to brotchie, then keep going to clover point and then return the same way. It would be 20km in total. We would run that on saturday May 2nd with the surf ski’s and the competitive OC6 groups. The recreational teams would paddle the shorter course (12km) to Brotchie and return. Then on the Sunday we would run strictly small boats ont he shorter course.
Thoughts? would people be interested at this time of year?
bckcrainbow said
Marty, the course sounds like it would be awesome for surfskis. The biggest issue with May 2 is overlap with a fairly popular event in Bellingham, the Lake Whatcom Classic. This event has a fairly established history, pretty much all of the Washington State surfskiers take part in that event, and usually many of BC’s racers cross the border for this event too. Another thing to think about is that based on past years May 3 will likely be the date for the Tour de Indian Arm which tends to be another favourite of many surfskiers. Perhaps Bob can confirm when will be the date for Tour de Indian Arm.
When adding new races it would probably be optimal if we can avoid overlapping dates as much as possible. Nanaimo’s July 25 event is unfortunately scheduled on the same date as FCRCC’s Howe Sound Downwind Run…it is unclear at this time what will be the reaction of this to the various surfski communities.
Marty said
thanks for the input. The race weekend is a traditional weekend for that event…it seems that starting i April/May the calendar starts to get full…I certainly dont want to compete with these other races and I dont want to take away from them either…The rcae that we hold on the first wekend in May is scheduled through CORA as an outrigger event. We will relook at see what we can come up with
thanks!
Marty said
we have added another event for the 2nd weekend in November. We have called it the Outrageous Outrigger Odyssey (sorry for the aliteration). It will be a weekend event big boats/smal boats and will run through the Gorge up into the poratge inlet..be about 10km – 12km..( i beleive the wekend is Nov 14/15th..check http://www.gorowandpaddle.org for exact info.
bckcrainbow said
Marty, I did notice the new race in November listed on CORA’s site. To be honest I intentionally left that event off the SurfskiBC Events list…the event name gives the impression of quite specifically serving the outrigger community.
As a rule I do not include every paddling event on the SurfskiBC Events page. I focus on events that I know are popular with the surfski community and events intent on holding quality races for surfskiers that I feel should be supported by the various major local surfski groups: Bellingham surfskiers, mainland surfskiers and island surfskiers.
For example there are a few CORA small boat events in the Okanagan that have the potential to be fun races, but they have proven to be poorly supported by their local surfskiers and some that have exhibited questionable organization so I no longer include a few of them in the list. I try to minimize having folks read about an event here then travel to a race only to be dissappointed with very poor turnout, or other issues making for a poor surfski race.
Also, if there are 2 events on the same date, I will advertise the event that is more surfski specific. One of the objectives of this site is to help develop our surfski racing scene. A big part of this is to get more racers taking part in events. In general, races with greater numbers of participants have the potential to be ‘better’ for racers, part in due to the fact that it increases the opportunity to have more competitors of similar levels (speed) to race against.
Of course I will always add a race to the Events page if I can be convinced it is deserving of the support of the surfski racing community.
marty said
our small boat races are extremely popular with the surf ski community (Victoria) and if there is no other event that interferes then we would hope there could be an influx on mainlanders wanting to join us. We encourage participation of all small baots in all of our arces, and as mentioned with the likes of some of our surf ski people here we do take “care” of them.
marty said
Upcoming event. 9km or 3 x 3km relay or both. Gorge Rowing and Paddling Centre in Victoria. Saturday January 10th Long race starts at 1000am, relay race starts at 1130am. $15.00 entry fee refreshemnt and lunch provided.
check out our website for further details and map of the course
http://www.gorowandpaddle.org
thanks
marty
marty said
Hey, after talking to a lot of you ’ski-ers” it sounds as though you need more races…hows about we look at doing either 1) the Vancouver Island Championship or 2) do the Vancouver Island race series. for the series we would have 3 to 4 races in different locales, different types of courses, include them with existing events or invent brand new ones…and yes we could invite the mainlanders and our friends form the south as well…
thoughts?
Marty
bckcrainbow said
Marty, there was a posting on August 25, 2008 titled ‘Surfski Racing in BC…Where are we going and how do we get there?’ that reflects on data from the 2008 surfski racing season…might be some info that pertains to the question of ‘what races our surfski community needs more of?’, the comments to the article are very much worth reading too.
I would certainly agree that additional races on Vancouver Island could be fantastic for our sport.
Alan Clark said
Hello all, Is there going to be a Length of the Lake race this year?
Jeff said
Supposed to be…haven’t heard anything to the contrary…last year the race info didn’t get posted until late in the summer…may have been early September.
Sean Gibson said
I believe its the 26th of September
Alan Clark said
Jeff and Sean,
Thanks for the info. I’m trying to get back into shape again after a two year layoff. I used to do the Wavechaser races in CA. It looks like there is a lot going on up here.
Alan
jasonbenn said
Jeff, is the Canadian open water paddling champs in Nanaimo (that was july 25) now scrapped? and when do you think we might hear more about the venue for national small boats in Victoria?
bckcrainbow said
Jason, yeah…unfortunately the organizers were unable to overcome insurances issues with holding the event so it has been scrapped.
I’ve not yet seen anything posted regarding the August 16 race in Victoria…will probably come out by end of July.
Craig Bosenberg said
HI,
After the US champs this week, and following this thread, it would be great to have a Canadian championship somewhere here either the week before or after the US event. This could likely attract some of the Big names in the sport- if you are going to travel for 36hours from SA or Oz, it makes sense to stick around for an extra week and pick up another race.
This in turn might be the excitement our sport needs to generate more interest and take it to the next level.
All the venues mentioned would be great, I think however that as a first event, a good consistent downwind run is essential as part of the course.
All that is needed is for all the people on this thread to get together, pool our resources and enthusiasm and work out how to run this thing.
The other “event” I think might be quite interesting is a multi day race from Nanaimo to Victoria. Or Sydney to Victoria (single day), Sooke to Victoria (downwind leg). ALthough in these waters, safety and organization might be a slightly bigger issue than in SA where these kinds of races are quite common (the PE to EL, Scottburgh to Brighton and Cape point challenge to name a few).