Ballito power couple soars at Trans Agulhas race

A fearless duo tackled the world famous five-day 700 kilometre Trans Agulhas race from Plettenberg Bay to Gordonsbay over the festive season and claimed third place.

Ballito’s inflatable power boat racers Reghard and Dagmar Muhlbauer-Roets made waves as they competed in the Pro-Stock class – known to be the most competitive category in the event.

To make their result even more impressive, Dagmar was the only woman taking part in the tough endurance race.

Reghard, or simply Reggie, said this year’s race proved to be even more hectic than usual.

“Windy weather produced some choppy seas which made for exciting racing,” said Reggie who together with his wife were known as the Atlas Copco team.

“The first day is always the hardest with a marathon 190km stage but we stuck to our game plan by starting with a consistent pace, ensuring to complete this stage without any incidents. Day one also consisted of ten compulsory beach stops with some monster surf which favoured our cautious approach as many competitors lost time due to navigational errors and equipment failure.”

The first overnight stop was at Mosselbay followed by a shorter stage where they could push harder finishing off with their first podium position as a well-deserved bonus. Every stage is followed by the Motul king of the waves in the afternoon with all the boats racing around buoys in the surf.

“As this was Dagmar’s first Trans Agulhas it was also her first taste of short circuit surf racing and despite being nervous she did very well learning how to move her weight around and keeping the boat level while jumping huge surf only an arm’s length away from other racers at times!”

The next overnight stops were Stilbaai and then Struisbaai where the long haul was not only followed by the surf race but also the customary night race.

Competitors line the beach after sunset and with the drop of a flag engines roar into life racing one lap of a 10km triangular course heading straight into the dark ocean.

“Two boats fitted with bright lights act as turning beacons with the last leg consisting of a crazy scramble to finish on the beach with co-pilots sprinting to the finish line high up on the sand. A bad start meant our boat dropped to last place but we fought our way through the field on choppy black water to finish in a close fourth position.”

Unfortunately Dagmar tore her knee ligaments in the surf race which meant Reghard had to do the running duties for the remaining two days with Dagmar gritting her teeth with a painful strapped-up leg during the remaining stages to Gansbaai and the final day to Gordonsbay.

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