Firstly we are blown away by the depth of paddling in North Qld at the Moment, we never know who is going to take the top spot at each race.
With the Sealink Cape 2 Cape finishing off the 2018 Series on Sunday 9th of September we saw a great turnout to both the long and the short course options.
Long Course
was a specially chartered trip to Cape Cleveland thanks to Sealink Qld, where the skis were loaded onto the ferry and expertly maneuvered by the paddlers down from 1.5 stories high to sea level (controlled chaos was one of the terms we heard from the Skipper).
The promise of a tailwind wasn’t delivered, but as i type this report the day after the event, the wind is coming in exactly as we had predicted…to quote Maxwell Smart we “missed it by that much”
There was a little bit of bump out there if you could work it on angles but was hard going and only for around 2/3 of the journey, the last 3km from the middle reef marker seemed to be never ending, just about everyone we spoke with would agree…though i may be being optimistic with how much run was really happening perhaps just celebrating the few moments where it did line up…let us know how you went getting runs out there.
Some seriously awesome long course performances out there.It was great to have some Southerners come up and leading the charge was Matt O’Garey from Coffs Harbour who gave us a master-class in our own backyard as the only person to crack the Under 2 hour mark for the crossing.
Some close racing with only around 12 minutes seperating our top 10 Paddlers (great effort over such a distance)
Some great variations to the lines that people took too, we would love to see your GPS lines, screenshot it and post to our North Queensland Ocean Paddle Series facebook
Big Effort to Tom who once again challenged himself with a big Sup Effort
RESULTS The Long Course results are here: click for link
Thanks to the Windsurfers for coming along for a play, lets hope we have some wind for them next time.
Short Course
It’s been great having a group of short coursers rock up to races this season.The point to point Nature of the Short course this race was a great achievent for many (being their first point to point).The idea of this was to move away from the multiple laps close to shore that had been done for the rest of the season and progress to more open stretches of water.For those that have done this distance they can start to eye off the longer courses at the start of next season, of course making sure they start doing similar paddles as training over the coming months.(Make sure you follow the same safety requirements as our long course and always travel with buddies especially when learning).
Some pretty impressive first time efforts from people and a top 2 overall Womens finish (WOW SUE!) check them out below.
RESULTS the Short Course Results Tobruk to Pallarenda are here: Click for link
THE SERIES
The Series has been fun and of course a massive variety of paddles this season!
- Rough Weather at Battle the Barge
- Some almost workable runs at Pallarenda to Saunders
- Great scenery and wildlife invading the Timing tent at Etty Bay and a great ground swell to play with
- Battling the river mouth at River Rush and some perfect runs
- Reef walking on Magnetic Island on a low tide and the first ever whitewash (Kris winning all stages)
- Hot and flat slog from Cape 2 Cape thanks to Sealink
Congratulations to the Overall Series Winners & Age group Series Winners
Overall- Kris Maguire & Angela Cooper
Check out the Results for the Series here:
Leader Boards
Long Course Category Points 2018
We appreciate every one of the paddlers on each type of craft and hope the variety of craft keeps you entertained and always learning.Well done to those of you who have also experimented with trying different craft (e.g SUP,Ski Outriggers etc)
Events on the Horizon
This weekend MISSION BEACH OUTRIGGER CLUB via AOCRA is putting on a 24km paddle around Dunk Island the Saturday before the onamission multisport race. ENTER HERE and FACEBOOK EVENT HERE
October 13th- Mackay
Mackay Paddle Rush- New Adventurethon weekend (Approx 15km finishing at Surf club plus shorter events and kids events) INFO HERE and FACEBOOK EVENT HERE