Well After having this race postponed from last weekend due to rough conditions on the Harbour it was perfectly flat conditions for thsi race on Sat 14th May. (I would have been quite happy racing in last weekends wind and chop, this slows up the K1 paddlers and sorts things out a bit!) The Race was 10km and Doubled as the Otago 10km Champs. It consisted of three laps in the harbour Basin followed by the last leg down to finish at the Vaxuhall Yach Club. With just under 40 boats there were 3 categories - Recreational, Competitive, and High Performance. I entered into High Performance which is basically K1 race boats, Racing Ski's and Top End Multisport Boats. My Trusty JKK UFO slips through the water nicely but there is certainly some hard work needed to stick with the K1 Boats and some very sharp surf club paddlers. 
There were a lot of boats similar to mine that were racing competitive instead of HP category so it was up to me and a couple of other
Multisport paddlers to give this category a good nudge. The distance was short enough to hammer things from start to finish. I went out hard form the start sticking with a bunch for as long as it all held together and then it was just a matter of working hard and maintaining a high cadence and ripping the blades through the water until the end!! I finished up catching all of the rec grade and many of the competitive grade as it was a delayed start between grades. My final time was 53min40sec which i think ended up 9th fastest time across all paddlers. A solid start to the series. The next race is in 3 weeks down at Careys Bay, so hoping for a bit of a chop and breeze to whizz things up a bit!
Multisport paddlers to give this category a good nudge. The distance was short enough to hammer things from start to finish. I went out hard form the start sticking with a bunch for as long as it all held together and then it was just a matter of working hard and maintaining a high cadence and ripping the blades through the water until the end!! I finished up catching all of the rec grade and many of the competitive grade as it was a delayed start between grades. My final time was 53min40sec which i think ended up 9th fastest time across all paddlers. A solid start to the series. The next race is in 3 weeks down at Careys Bay, so hoping for a bit of a chop and breeze to whizz things up a bit!
