“People don’t realize how much hard work and how many setbacks there are before you reach success.”

“Winning the race is the goal. But most important is the path you take to get there.”

“The most important thing in life is to enjoy what you’re doing.”

1/5/2024 Greg Barton Interview about his career (Kenny Howell interviewer)

TCSurfski interview with Greg Barton

Basic Strategy

• Much basic strategy should become obvious with a little experience.
  • Races almost always start at speeds that few can maintain for the whole race. If drafting is allowed try to spot paddlers you know you can keep up with or are not too fast to draft and get close to them before the race starts. Then get on their draft and try to hang on until the pace drops to something sane.
  • One of the primary aspects of downwind racing is jumping and recovery. You should experiment with how many waves you can jump until you need to recover while you are still able to sit on a wave without losing it. Race course strategy may make a difference also if course conditions tend to be predictable. Where in the course is it harder or easier for you to jump waves? Can you work harder on a slower stretch then recover in a stretch where you can rely on waves that will maintain your speed better while you recover?
  • Is local knowledge available about where in a course favorable and unfavorable conditions tend to occur (wind shadow, eddies, currents, chop, rebound), and/or can you do your own pre-race scouting/trial runs?
  • Give rowers a wide berth . Similarly, even if drafting out of class is allowed, you may still find that SUPs and Va'as not having rudders, sway from side to side so much that you will not want to draft them or at least not be particularly close on their sides.
  • Choosing the right surfski for the race
    • "Boat fatigue" using a too unstable surfski for a longer race

Learn from Others

• Read Old Race Reports
• Search sites like surfski.info for race strategy discussions.

Learn from Top Racers

• Ana Swetish Race Video This is a training video for novice racers doing the last stage of a multi-stage relay race. So there is no mass start for the boaters (nor advice about). But otherwise the advice is excellent for novices about pacing yourself, awareness of your course and course start, and finishing with a beach run.
• Read racer's blogs: Depending on your level of skill you may or may not get much useful advice this way, but they are often at least entertaining
  • Austin Kieffer's Blog
  • Macca Hynard's LAME Series
• Jasper Mocke Interview 1 hr 18 minutes - lots of subject matter, includes racing experiences and strategies. Jasper starts talking at 5 min 50 sec and starts talking about racing at 18 min 35 sec
• Danny Ching Interview 1 hr 2 minutes has raced SUPs, OCs, K1s, Surfskis, etc. etc. Link starts in interview where he starts to talk about strategy - lots of good stuff, particularly for ocean racing.
• …

See Training for Races

Triathlons

There is a recent trend, possibly more common in colder climates, for triathlons to be offered that replace swimming legs with paddling legs.

• Kayak Triathlon List in the Michigan Area TCSurfski

Multisport/Adventure Races

It's quite common for these kinds of races to include paddling legs

• Examples
  • Bellingham WA, USA Ski2Sea 7 leg race that finishes on Bay with kayak leg - all the fastest use surfskis
• …