Surf Ski Skills Guide

On Saturday morning, I competed in a surf life saving endurance race, paddling my surf ski over a 12km course in the ocean. There was not much swell on the day, but the night before, a good stiff wind had blown up, leaving the ocean angry on race day, frothing, and boiling in extremely choppy conditions. The chop was running in all directions with minimal consistency, varied between 0.5 and 3 metres on the faces and with a 20 knot wind to boot, it made for a very difficult race.

I’ve had it so good recently that I’d forgotten just how challenging these types of conditions are. Often you just go into survival mode, doing nothing other than trying to keep your craft upright. Having fallen off before the first turning buoy myself, I got angry. I searched my memory banks and remembered all the techniques you have to follow to be effective in these conditions. I employed these tips to immediate effect.

At the end of the day and in retrospect, it was really great having the hit-out in such difficult conditions. Once you get past the survival point, choppy water is just so good for your surf ski strength conditioning. I woke up on Sunday really sore, with a deep and satisfying muscle soreness that I hadn’t experienced for a long time.

Having returned, I reviewed Surf Ski Supremacy and added a new chapter. The new chapter covers these types of extreme ocean conditions and the 5 things you can do to move from survival mode and into competitor mode.