January 23, 2013
by Peter Petersen

2013 PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series Kicks Off In Cape Town With A “Sidewinder” Special


Boss Man’s note: The 2013 PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series has just gotten under way in South Africa. The series consists of weekly downwind races in Cape Town, which has some of the best winds (and, increasingly, the fastest Stand Up Paddlers) in the world.

We covered every race in the 2012 Downwind Dash Series, which attracted almost 100 paddlers and wrapped up just last month. The 2012 edition was won by wild man of SUP Chris Bertish and we look forward to regular updates from the 2013 Series thanks to our South African correspondent Peter Petersen of SUP Culture.

Full race recap, results and pics from race #1 of the 2013 series is below, plus I’d encourage you to go check out the overall results from the 2012 Series as well; it was fascinating to see different paddlers winning each week and where they all finished in the overall points table.

*****

2013 Downwind Dash Series South AfricaThe opening round of the 2013 PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Wednesday night SUP race series had been postponed twice, due to poor wind conditions, but thankfully the forecast for this weeks race was promising. It’s literally been windy every day lately, excepting the last two Wednesdays… and by 5pm today the wind still hadn’t filled in all the way to Big Bay.

There was still 15knots+ at the start, so we called the race on hoping for the wind to fill in along the course. It was looking all good until about halfway when the gentle push from behind was exchanged for a slight side-wind on the left cheek. This made for very testing conditions for the 30 Stand Up Paddlers as the water was extremely choppy and the runners had virtually dried up.

Dylan in white leading out

Dylan Frick excelled in these conditions as did anyone on a Starboard, as they virtually had a podium lock-out in both the men’s and ladies’. The rest of the competitors had to settle for the scraps and it took a beer or two post-race to garner some enthusiasm from the broken paddlers. Francois Frick also motored to take a fine 2nd as did Andrew Cillie (Master’s Division) who is clearly regaining his form. Times were not exciting though, with only Dylan managing to average over 10km/h.

Francois FrickBrigette van Aswegen continued her unbeaten streak, but young Mishka Steyn is edging closer every week and I expect a real challenge from her by the end of the series. Third lady home was Patricia Kohrs, somewhat further back.

The Juniors was narrowly won by Ethan Koopmans with Joshua Robertson getting very close to stealing a win, they were literally a wave apart.

Despite the race possibly qualifying as the worst downwind conditions in the history of the event, it was great to get the series off the ground and those who had been feasting on the pies over x-mas were found wanting, while it was great to see the juniors really stepping it up and put themselves into the top 6.

Squeezing runs out of such marginal conditions is a fine art and Dylan showed the field that fitness and technique will make you fly in any conditions – for the rest of the field next week can only get better and we have cooking conditions forecast for the weekend so we expect some serious training to go down!

– Peter

(all photos © Jane Amoury)

2013 PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series – Race #1 RESULTS 

Date: 23rd January 2013
Wind: 15 knots S-SW
Swell: 2m
Course: 10.1km

#NameTimeClassDivision% of 1stGradekm/hmin/kmBoard
1Dylan Frick0:59:1914'Open100.00Elite10.220:05:52Starboard 14' Ace Pro
2Francois Frick1:02:1014'Open95.42Elite9.750:06:09Starboard 14' Ace Pro
3Andrew Cillie1:02:3114'Masters94.88A9.690:06:11Starboard 14' Ace
4Sebastian Cattelan1:04:0614'Open92.54A9.450:06:21Starboard 14' OO
5Ethan Koopmans1:04:3114'Junior91.94A9.390:06:23Naish 14 Glide
6Joshua Robertson1:04:5914'Junior91.28A9.330:06:26Naish 14 LE
7Peter Petersen1:05:2214'Masters90.74A9.270:06:28Naish 14 LE
8Brad Adams1:05:5214'Open90.06A9.200:06:31Fanatic Falcon 14'
9Greg Bertish1:05:5314'Open90.03A9.200:06:31Starboard 14' Ace Pro
10Pietro Muscas1:05:5414'Masters90.01A9.200:06:31Naish 14 Glide
11Nic Muhl1:06:4514'Open88.86B9.080:06:37Naish 14 Glide AST
12Armien Wohlgemuth1:07:2414'Masters88.01B8.990:06:40Naish 14 Glide
13Nico Pfitzenmaier1:08:4214'Open86.34B8.820:06:48Naish 14 Glide AST
14Dave Maxwell1:09:2414'Masters85.47B8.730:06:52Naish 14 Glide
15Oscar Wollheim1:09:5514'Masters84.84C8.670:06:55Naish 14 Glide AST
16Brigette van Aswegen1:10:1814'Lady84.38C8.620:06:58Starboard 14' Ace Pro
17Mishka Steyn1:12:2114'Lady junior81.99C8.380:07:10Starboard 14' OO
18Mitch Wagstaff1:13:2814'Open80.74C8.250:07:16Starboard 14' OO
19Tom King1:13:5814'Open80.19C8.190:07:19Fanatic Falcon 14'
20Mike Fiet1:14:1414'Open79.91D8.160:07:21Coreban 14 Dart
21Tyran Cooper1:14:2414'Open79.73D8.150:07:22Coreban 14 Dart
22Danny Aeberli1:14:4314'Open79.39D8.110:07:24Starboard 14' OO
23Rob Munro1:15:1514'Masters78.83D8.050:07:27Fanatic 14 OO
24Patricia Kohrs1:19:2014'Lady74.77D7.640:07:51Naish 14 Glide AST
25Wayne Robertson1:19:2814'Open74.64D7.630:07:52Coreban 14 Dart
26Craig Ginsberg1:19:5114'Masters74.29D7.590:07:54Naish 14 Glide
27Steve Tripney1:19:5514'Masters74.22D7.580:07:55Coreban 14 Dart
28Monika Wohlgemuth1:20:0814'Lady74.02D7.560:07:56Naish 14 Glide
29Tammy Robarts1:25:2412'6Lady69.46D7.100:08:27Coreban 12'6 Alpha
30Calvin Ginsberg1:26:0414'Junior68.92D7.040:08:31Naish 14 Glide AST