The wind just doesn’t want to stop blowing this year!

For 8 out of the last 9 weeks we’ve had solid wind and great downwinding conditions in Cape Town, South Africa, for the PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash race series. Tonight we were greeted by 20-30knots of steady SE wind with a tinge of South – perfect angle for a straight 10km run up to Big Bay. Great turn-out as well with 44 surfskis and 39 SUPs.

The first starting group saw a few casualties in the 1 metre surf, including Guy Bubb who delayed his departure after a couple of dismounts.. The second start group, which included the Elite paddlers, also faced a nice little set on the way out, which kept things interesting. It was impressive to see the big wave boys Chris Bertish, Greg Bertish, Francois Frick and James Taylor making it out the back first – they just put their heads down and punched through the waves, while others deliberated and got left behind.

Chris Bertish was on a mission to seal the series overall win and he was very fast out of the gate. If he had been a roadrunner the “meep meep” sound would have sprung to mind. The pursuit team consisting of Colin Heckroodt, Ivan van Vuuren and Greg Bertish were battling to keep up and it was only at the halfway mark that Colin Heckroodt started making some inroads. Colin was paddling like a man possessed, pure power and grit – I estimate that the kW output he was producing would have lit up a small city had he been hooked up to the grid…

So I can only imagine his despair when he finally caught up to Chris and all he heard was another “meep meep” as Chris put the hammer down and left him standing once more.

Chris then cruised onto victory while Ivan van Vuuren once again took a very wide line, which paid dividends coming into Small Bay. He caught and passed Colin and actually made the beach first – but Ivan had come in on the wrong side of the finish buoy and had to run back out to get around it the right way, and in doing so, just allowed Colin to sneak past with 2 seconds to spare to take second. Chris’ brother Greg Bertish came in 4th – which now sees him take over Dylan Frick’s 2nd place in the overall series rankings. Dylan tried a different board tonight which didn’t work out for him and he had to settle for 8th in this race, which wasn’t bad considering he stopped and did a board swap with his dad at the halfway mark!

In the ladies section Brigette van Aswegen and Mishka Steyn continued their total domination with 1st and 2nd while Tammy Robarts managed to take a fine 3rd. In the juniors Joshua Robertson very nearly got the better of series leader Ethan Koopmans, but in the end Ethan did just enough to sneak ahead to take 1st while Matthew Maxwell once again came third.

Next week is the final edition of this year’s PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series – wind forecast is currently looking promising so lets see if we can make it 9 out of 10!

We’ll have a x-mas theme for our last race, so we encourage everyone to dress up in a x-massy fashion + we’ll have a massive prize-giving with trophies for our winners + some surprise awards + a big raffle for some great SUP and Ski paddles – all monies collected will go to support Richards Kohlers charity in conjunction with Paddling for Smiles.

So not only do we encourage you to dress up and take part next week – we insist you stay on for the prize-giving – it’s going to be huge! After next week we take a break and then we resume on the 9th of Jan until 13th March with another 10x races for the PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series 2013!

– Peter

PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series – LEADERBOARD

 

PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series – Race #8 RESULTS

Date: 5th December, 2012
Wind: SSE 20-30 knots
Swell: 1 metre
Course: 10.1km
Sponsors: PRIMI, Naish, SUPHQ, Vitaminwater, Coreban/Xpression, SWOX, BulkSMS, Buchulife, Watersports Warehouse

#	Name	Time	Class	Division	% of 1st	Grade	km/h	min/km	Board
1	Chris Bertish	0:49:36	14'	Open	100.00	Elite	12.22	0:04:55	Naish 14 Glide
2	Colin Heckroodt	0:50:21	14'	Open	98.51	Elite	12.04	0:04:59	Starboard 14' OO
3	Ivan van Vuuren	0:50:23	14'	Masters	98.45	Elite	12.03	0:04:59	Coreban 14 Dart
4	Greg Bertish	0:51:41	14'	Open	95.97	Elite	11.73	0:05:07	Coreban 14' Dart
5	Andrew Cillie	0:52:35	14'	Open	94.33	A	11.52	0:05:12	Starboard 14' Ace
6	Peter Petersen	0:53:11	14'	Masters	93.26	A	11.39	0:05:16	Naish 14 Glide
7	Pietro Muscas	0:53:42	14'	Masters	92.36	A	11.28	0:05:19	Naish 14 Glide
8	Dylan Frick	0:54:05	14'	Open	91.71	A	11.20	0:05:21	Starboard 14' Ace Pro
9	Brad Adams	0:54:53	14'	Open	90.37	A	11.04	0:05:26	Fanatic Falcon 14'
10	Nicky Carstens	0:55:15	14'	Masters	89.77	B	10.97	0:05:28	Carstens Custom 14'
11	Francois Frick	0:55:35	14'	Open	89.24	B	10.90	0:05:30	Starboard 14' Ace Pro
12	James Taylor	0:55:56	14'	Open	88.68	B	10.83	0:05:32	Naish 14 Glide
13	Ethan Koopmans	0:56:05	14'	Junior	88.44	B	10.81	0:05:33	Naish 14 Glide
14	Joshua Robertson	0:56:42	14'	Junior	87.48	B	10.69	0:05:37	Fanatic 14 Falcon
15	Matthew v d Linden	0:56:47	14'	Open	87.35	B	10.67	0:05:37	Naish 14 Glide AST
16	Nico Pfitzenmaier	0:57:39	14'	Open	86.04	B	10.51	0:05:42	Naish 14 Glide AST
17	Tyran Cooper	0:59:23	14'	Open	83.53	C	10.20	0:05:53	Coreban 14 Dart
18	Gavin Dace	0:59:51	14'	Open	82.87	C	10.13	0:05:56	Naish 14 Glide AST
19	Rob Munro	1:00:12	14'	Masters	82.39	C	10.07	0:05:58	Fanatic 14 OO
20	Brigette van Aswegen	1:00:15	14'	Women's	82.32	C	10.06	0:05:58	Starboard 14' Ace Pro
21	Michael Fiet	1:00:47	14'	Open	81.60	C	9.97	0:06:01	Coreban 14' Dart
22	Dawid de Villiers	1:02:16	14'	Open	79.66	D	9.73	0:06:10	Naish 14 Glide AST
23	Neal Esterhuyse	1:03:12	14'	Open	78.48	D	9.59	0:06:15	Halo Custom 14'
24	Guy Bubb	1:03:34	14'	Open	78.03	D	9.53	0:06:18	Coreban 14 Dart
25	Dave Maxwell	1:03:53	14'	Masters	77.64	D	9.49	0:06:20	Naish 14 Glide
26	Matthew Maxwell	1:03:59	14'	Junior	77.52	D	9.47	0:06:20	Naish 14 Glide AST
27	Francois Ferrera	1:04:08	14'	Open	77.34	D	9.45	0:06:21	Naish 14 Glide AST
28	Jimmy Pappas	1:04:58	14'	Open	76.35	D	9.33	0:06:26	Coreban 14 Dart
29	Mishka Steyn	1:05:27	14'	Jnr women's	75.78	D	9.26	0:06:29	Starboard 14' OO
30	Bruce Tedder	1:07:21	14'	Masters	73.65	D	9.00	0:06:40	Coreban 14 Dart
31	Rory Smith	1:07:27	14'	Open	73.54	D	8.98	0:06:41	Starboard 14' Ace Pro
32	Tammy Robarts	1:07:33	14'	Women's	73.43	D	8.97	0:06:41	Fanatic 14 Fly
33	Steve Tripney	1:08:07	14'	Masters	72.82	D	8.90	0:06:45	Coreban 14 Dart
34	Monika Wohlgemuth	1:08:07	14'	Women's	72.82	D	8.90	0:06:45	Naish 14 Glide
35	Wayne Robertson	1:10:14	14'	Open	70.62	D	8.63	0:06:57	Coreban 14 Dart
36	Roland Kugelman	1:17:46	14'	Open	63.78	D	7.79	0:07:42	Naish 14 Glide AST
37	Craig Girdlestone	1:20:06	14'	Open	61.92	D	7.57	0:07:56	Naish 14 Glide AST
38	Matthew Bloemberg	1:23:42	14'	Women's	59.26	D	7.24	0:08:17	Naish 14 Glide
39	Oliver Potgieter	1:26:42	14'	Women's	57.21	D	6.99	0:08:35	Naish 14 Glide AST