The APP heads to Japan this weekend (photo: Waterman League)

In brief: SUP Racer is currently off the grid (sort of) exploring Iceland in support of the Starboard.Blue initiative, but while the site will be a little quiet over the next few days, there’s still plenty of racing happening around the world this weekend.

The most elite event this week is happening just south of Tokyo: The Japan Pro-Am will feature more than a dozen top ranked young guns and a few local dark horses keen to cause an upset. This is the second of six racing events on the 2017 APP Tour following the Maui Pro-Am back in May, and you can watch it live all weekend.

Saturday is the long distance race and Sunday it’s the sprints. Tune in with commentators Anthony Vela and Beau “Golden Voice” Hodge from 10:20am each day over on appworldtour.com.

Here are the heat draw for Sunday’s sprints (expect an almost identical lineup in the long distance race). You can also follow the live scores over here.

We’ll have more coverage of the event when we return to civilisation next week.