Kai Sal­las : photo Credit: © ASP/ CI/ Robert­son via Getty Images

Oxbow World Long­board Tour

ASP WLT Mens event
Pasta Point, Mal­dives
26 — 31 Octo­bre 2009

Live Cov­er­age  |  Results/Photos/Videos etc

Hawaii’s Kai Sal­las wins Oxbow World Long­board Tour Mal­dives   |  fran­cais

Surfersvil­lage Global Surf News, 30 Octo­ber, 2009 : — - Pasta Point Mal­dives — The Asso­ci­a­tion of Surf­ing Pro­fes­sion­als (ASP) Oxbow World Long­board Tour Mal­dives event today crowned two cham­pi­ons – Harley Ingeby (Aus­tralia) as the ASP 2009 World Long­board Cham­pion and Kai Sal­las (Hawaii) as the inau­gural Oxbow Mal­dives event champion.

Sal­las (Oahu Island Hawaii) won the event, surf­ing clean 3 feet (1 meter) surf at Pasta Point defeat­ing Australasia’s Harley Ingelby in a high scor­ing final that saw Sal­las take the win with a com­bined two wave tally of 15.65 to Ingelby on 14.00. Ingeby’s sec­ond plac­ing in today’s final event on the two event ASP 2009 World Long­board Tour secured him the ASP World Long­board Title.

“I’m so stoked to win this event, the waves have been super fun all week and to beat Harley in the final capped off a per­fect week for me” said Sal­las.“ I started well with 7.65 on my first ride and felt con­fi­dent that I could back that ride up and take the win, Ingelby came at me hard in the final few min­utes but my best ride was my final one and it’s great to win and actu­ally beat the cur­rent world cham­pion as well!”

The ASP World Long­board Cham­pion is decided across the rat­ings from  two events and Ingelby’s 1^st plac­ing in the season’s open­ing event in Japan along with his 2^nd place here in the Mal­dives see’s him take the first ASP World Title for the 2009 sea­son. “It’s the best day of my life” said 26 year old Ingelby after the final.

Kai Sal­las : photo Credit: © ASP/ CI/ Robert­son via Getty Images

“I’ve been close to win­ning in the past and always felt I could win the title but I’ve also seen many great surfers not win world titles and I was wary that the oppor­tu­nity could slip – It’s a huge weight off my shoul­ders and right now the feel­ing is unbe­liev­able.” Ingelby secured the world title early in the day when he defeated Brazil­ian Phil Ratz­man in a very close see-sawing quar­ter final.

“It would have been great to take the event win as well as the world title but full marks to Sal­las, he surfed a great final and he deserved the win as he’s been a stand­out all week.” “I really left my run in the final late, I don’t think I had one decent score in the first 20 min­utes, when I did get that 8 point ride late in the final I was a real chance but sim­ply could not find a wave to deliver a decent sec­ond score” added Ingelby.

Today’s Semi Finals were both tightly fought out with Sal­las defeat­ing fel­low Hawai­ian Ned Snow while Ingelby sur­vived a late chal­lenge in his semi final from French surfer Antoine Delpero win­ning on a score-line of 14.80 to Delpero on 14.35. With excel­lent surf through­out the event all surfers enjoyed a great week and it was a fit­ting finale to the ASP Oxbow Long­board World Tour for 2009.

Harley Ingleby : photo Credit: © ASP/ CI/ Robert­son via Getty Images

OXBOW ASP WORLD LONGBOARD TOUR MALDIVES QUARTER FINALS
Heat 1: Kai Sal­las (HAW)12.00 V Eduardo Bagé (BRA)11.85
Heat 2: Ned Snow (HAW) 15.75D Ben Skin­ner (GBR)11.75
Heat 3: Harley Ingleby (AUS)14.00 D Phil Rajz­man (BRA) 13.55
Heat 4: Antoine Delpero (FRA) 13.50 D Remi Arauzo (FRA) 12.00

OXBOW ASP WORLD LONGBOARD TOUR MALDIVES SEMI FINALS
Heat 1: Kai Sal­las (HAW) 14.50 D Ned Snow (HAW) 13.45
Heat 2: Harley Ingelby (AUS) 14.80 D Antoine Delpero (FRA) 14.35

FINAL
Kai Sal­las (HAW) 15.65 d Harley Ingelby (AUS) 14.00

Check the Full Results

:: Overview ::

WASHINGTON — The clock­wise round­ing of Mer­cer Island, the 1^st Annual Round The Rock SUP Race, got under­way at 9:45 under gor­geous sunny skies, fol­low­ing a few first-time event delays. Roughly 75 pad­dlers were on the start­ing line for the Full Course of 13 miles. The race saw most pad­dlers stay in a large group for the major­ity of the down­wind East chan­nel run.  The fastest pad­dlers made the turn at the south end of the island slightly ahead of the main group, how­ever they quickly built a lead which served them well as these lead­ers saw slightly bet­ter con­di­tions before the winds and waves kicked up later in the day. The north bound leg on the west side of the island saw large waves and swells, dri­ven by a steady north-northwest wind and lots of motor­ized boat traf­fic. Pad­dlers saw dif­fi­cult con­di­tions par­tic­u­larly north of the I-90 bridge as the pad­dlers were near­ing the ten mile mark in the race. The win­ning time was 2 hours and 35 min­utes (plus change). There was also a 2 1/2 mile short course which attracted over 50 participants.

(Exact num­bers can be found at http://www.roundtherock.com/)

Raf­fle Win­ner // Loot

Terry Dur­fee // Laird RH 11’6″ Softop and ST Ven­ture Pad­dle 82″

Con­tent cour­tesy of:
Jim Ramey
www.tsunamisalesandmarketing.com

Jamie Mitchell crosses over to take out the 2^nd Annual Bat­tle of the Paddle!

DANA POINT, CA. – (Octo­ber 3, 2009) — Aus­tralian Jaime Mitchell is the reign­ing eight time champ of the gru­el­ing Molokai to Oahu Pad­dle­board Race held every July. Known in elite pad­dle­board cir­cles for his prone pad­dling prowess, Mitchell recently took his pad­dling act to his feet at Doheny Beach, Cal­i­for­nia for Rain­bow San­dals’ 2^nd Annual Bat­tle of the Pad­dle, the world’s largest Stand Up Pad­dle (SUP) race.

2009 Rain­bow San­dals BOP Champion!

“Mitchell is more suited for the races in Hawai’i than in Cal­i­for­nia”, “…a fast prone pad­dler, but he won’t hang with the top guys in stand up”, was the online chat­ter posted on mes­sage boards before Octo­ber 3^rd, 2009. Accused of being a one-dimensional ath­lete, Mitchell sur­prised all with a stun­ning win, a full 4 min­utes and 39 sec­onds ahead of water­man Chuck Patterson’s win­ning time at the pre­vi­ous year’s event.

The morn­ing after Mitchell’s glo­ri­ous vic­tory, crit­ics ate their words and Wheaties in stunned silence. Mitchell’s magic for­mula: sheer ath­letic abil­ity and a unique SUP race board designed with sim­i­lar fea­tures to his Molokai to Oahu prone race board.

For stand up paddling’s elite, the Bat­tle of the Pad­dle rep­re­sents the world’s largest and most com­pet­i­tive race. A “motocross” style course has par­tic­i­pants zig-zagging in and out of the break­ing surf. It’s a chal­lenge that tests the endurance and surf­ing skills of the world’s best water­men and women. Ath­letes fly in from around the world to com­pete for the cov­eted Bat­tle of the Pad­dle crown and a cash purse of $25,000.

Doheny Beach resem­bled a NASCAR event last Sat­ur­day morn­ing with dozens of ven­dors show­ing off their lat­est speed machines. With its fes­tive atmos­phere and a jubi­lant throng of onlook­ers stak­ing out view­ing spots on the sand, the salt air was buzzing with antic­i­pa­tion. As the sun rose that morn­ing, no one could have antic­i­pated what was in store. Mitchell had never com­peted in a stand up pad­dle race in the USA before.

Start­ing Line

Could the suc­cess he’s enjoyed in tra­di­tional “prone” pad­dle races be his in an SUP event? Dozens of rivals were there to take on the chal­lenge. The sud­den pop­u­lar­ity of SUP in the fit­ness, kayak­ing and surf worlds has fueled fierce com­pe­ti­tion amongst ath­letes, board design­ers and shapers. Every inno­va­tor, huck­ster, fit­ness guru and expe­ri­enced board and boat builder is climb­ing on the SUP bandwagon.

With a build­ing swell and increas­ing onshore winds, this year’s race was to be far more chal­leng­ing than the last. Mid-way into the first of four laps, and near­ing the lead, Mitchell’s hopes were nearly dashed when he fell, loos­ing his board. Caught in white water, the board arrived almost back to shore with­out him. Swim­ming to recover it, Mitchell got back on course. The mishap had cost him approx­i­mately eight places.

Jamie extends his lead

Now in tenth place, he sum­moned his inner war­rior to make up the lost time. When he over­took young phe­nom Slater Trout and Andrew Logreco to take the lead with a nice mar­gin, the win­ner was clearly “MITCHO!”, a first time BOP com­peti­tor. “After the wipe­out at the south buoy, I just put my head down and told myself that I wasn’t going to make any more mis­takes” com­mented Mitchell.

Indeed, his remain­ing three laps were aided by surf skills honed in Aus­tralia and Hawai’i. Mitchell, per­fectly posi­tioned, surfed sev­eral set waves which extended his lead. Jamie com­pleted the 5 mile course with a record time of 1:07:45. The ever so hum­ble “Mitcho” gave credit for his win to his board design­ers, and added, “I’ve been busy trav­el­ing and work­ing with my surf school back home so we didn’t really have much time to train before com­ing out to California.”

Just days prior to the Bat­tle of the Pad­dle, Mitchell and a tight knit crew of fel­low Aussies were up in San Fran­cisco for the Hen­nessey Inter­na­tional Pad­dle­board­ing Cham­pi­onships. Mitchell was there to defend his title in the Unlim­ited (prone pad­dle) Class. Vic­tory was his when he won that race with more than a three minute lead.

By about 2:30 in the after­noon on Sat­ur­day, Mitcho’s lead at Doheny had left lit­tle doubt who’s board was the fastest! Mitchell’s uncon­ven­tional SUP board has a unique con­cave bot­tom, chine rails and con­sis­tent thick­ness flow from nose to tail. A stark con­trast to the major­ity of rac­ing boards in the water, Mitchell’s board was designed by Lahui Kai, the Aus­tralian part­ner­ship of Adrian Birse and Mick Di Betta. The “Mitcho”, Jamie Mitchell’s 12’6″ model rac­ing SUP board will be man­u­fac­tured by Surftech, the inno­v­a­tive Santa Cruz, Cal­i­for­nia com­pany known for bring­ing exclu­sive shapes by elite design­ers to mar­ket. Surftech’s unique pro­pri­etary con­struc­tion makes their boards both hi-performance and ultra-durable. Fast, sta­ble & light, the 12’6″ Mitcho is a great board for rac­ing or cruis­ing on a long pad­dle. It’s a solid and proven per­former, even in windy or bumpy con­di­tions. Look for Surftech’s Mitcho in stores world­wide by Spring 2010.

Con­grats Mate!!

Our newest Inter­na­tional Team Rider, Guil­laume Bourligueux, pad­dlesurf­ing Sap­i­nus in Tahiti to a win on his Lopez SUP … his first ses­sions on the board ever!

(click to enlarge)

South­east SUP Cham­pi­onship 2009 from Coastal Urge on Vimeo.

(user sub­mit­ted)

Last week­end Mette and I were in south­ern WV  for the Gauley Fest (an annual white­wa­ter river fes­ti­val).  Every fall the Army Corp of Engi­neers draws down Sum­mersville lake to its win­ter level and as a result for 6 weeks in the fall the Gauley river has con­sis­tent flows that make for some world class whitewater.

We decided to skip the crowds on the river on Sat­ur­day and spend a relax­ing day pad­dling the 14′ Bark and 10’6 Pear­son Arrow Laird around Sum­mersville lake.   This is an amaz­ing lake that is absolutely beau­ti­ful and great for SUP.  If you are ever in the area make sure to check it out.

Here are a few pics from the day.

Enjoy,

Joe Mos­quera

We will be in front of the King Kame­hameha Kona Beach Hotel from 9am to 12pm on Octo­ber 12^th. Plenty of demos will be hand as will Surftech’s Endurance Team. Come by, con­grat­u­late them on a great race and pad­dle the best SUPs on the water with the best ath­letes in the world.