Andy Birkett praises Dusi ‘heroes’, new South Coast stars emerge
This year's race was regarded as one of the toughest ever.
EVEN seven-times winner Andy Birkett sang the praises of all fellow canoeists for just finishing what will go down as one of the most gruelling Dusi Canoe Marathons over the past 20 years.
So the South Coast can be proud of its teams that paddled across the line at Blue Lagoon in Durban on Saturday.
FLASHBACK TO 2014: When past champ Ant Stott took his mom Beth for a ‘little’ paddle
It was a race of pure guts, with water levels so low that there was probably more portaging, climbing up long, bushy and frighteningly steep hills than paddling.
The new local stars of the river turned out to be Ayrton Barron and Jean Geyer who finished in overall 151st position and 21st among the K2s.
Anyone who knows Dusi will confirm that that is no mean feat, especially for novices. These two are the paddlers to watch next year and it will be no surprise if they make it into the top 100.
Local masters of the river, Willie Kunz (229th) and Rudi Bense (258th), normally lead the locals home, but not this time.
Not only were the two old campaigners beaten by Ayrton and Jean, but also by Dylan Bense (201st) – earning his 10th Dusi Rat green sticker of honour – and Simon Heaver and Patrick McNeill (216th) who also showed them their rudders.
Nobody could be prouder of the achievements of the youngsters than Willie and Rudi.
However, Willie still earned a bronze medal in his age category.
Denzil Nicholas finished in a K1 in 276th place.
Perhaps the bravest paddlers of the race were Luke Brauteseth, Donovan Currie and Warren Fairbrother. They entered in a really heavy K3 (only one of six in the entire race), hoping that the Dusi and Umgeni rivers would be flowing.
Alas, it wasn’t to be and their ‘Noah’s Ark’ was slashed from stem to stern by the sharp rocks, without them even falling out.
WATCH: Warren and Jean got up to some crazy stunts at the Fish last year as well
They had to spend hours doing several emergency repairs on the bank every day and ended up having to lug the ‘barge’ (weighing in at close to 40kg, compared to about 18kg for a K2 and 11kg for a K1) for much of the way.
Donovan had one Dusi under the belt and both Luke and Warren were novices.
It was literally a baptism of fire with temperatures rising into the mid 40s in some places in the valley.
Their race position was 594 out of 665, but they finished!
Many others who entered just packed up after day two at Inanda Dam.
