Mother Nature rinses, washes and spins brave Wall and Back race four paddlers

A SMALL yet determined field of brave ocean racers tackled the testing conditions on Friday evening’s fourth race of the six-leg 2016 Illovo Suncoast Pirates Wall and Back Surfski Series at Suncoast Pirates Lifesaving Club on Durban’s beachfront.

With the vast majority of KwaZulu-Natal’s elite racers and socially competitive stalwarts having made the pilgrimage down to the Eastern Cape for the weekend’s 2016 South African Surfski Championships at the Pete Marlin Surfski Race, the door was opened for some of the province’s hardy-annuals to claim a rare podium finish.

While names such as Hank McGregor, Matt Bouman, Luke Nisbet, Barry Lewin and Steve Woods are synonymous with the sharp end of competitive surfski contests in and around Durban, the likes of Matt Carlisle, Alan Hold, Lance Howarth, Lee Muir and Malcolm Pitt remain regular age group and doubles contenders but seldom enjoy a share of the limelight.

On Friday, KZN’s cluster of wise men of the sport took up the challenge wholeheartedly, eager to enjoy the unusual opportunity to lead proceedings outright as well as taking on the challenge of the renowned Suncoast Pirates surf.

In the end, Carlisle charged home to clinch the individual line honours while a dramatic final few hundred metres – which included swims for both contenders – eventually saw Hold and his teammate Geoff Thompson narrowly edge out Howarth and Muir in a foot race up the beach to the finish line.

Three extraordinarily brave souls – Savannah van Rooyen, Siobhan Sharp and Thea van der Westhuizen – received much praise upon the race’s completion as the three lone ladies took on and successfully conquered the daunting task.

While Van Rooyen and Sharp combined in the doubles division and their effort from the backline to the finish line was deemed the ‘Wave of the Day’ by many onlookers, Van der Westhuizen was the first individual woman home and, in the process, narrowly missed out on becoming the only paddler in the field to successfully make it to shore without falling out in the troublesome surf.

This week’s penultimate race of the six-race 2016 Illovo Suncoast Pirates Wall and Back Surfski Series takes place on Friday, 11 November at 5.30pm and with the absence of some of the sport’s big names again due to the Dragon Run Surfski Race in Hong Kong, Carlisle, Van der Westhuyzen and others will be licking their lips at the possibility of again challenging for their share of the spoils.

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