Boss Man’s note: Here’s a recap of the final race from the latest Downwind Dash Series in Cape Town, South Africa, courtesy of our SA Correspondent and SUP Culture founder Peter Petersen.

The final race, and the series, were taken out by young gun Dylan Frick, a name you’d recognise if you followed our ISA World Champs coverage a couple of weeks back. Dylan took out the Bronze Medal in the Technical Course race and now has a win in his home country to add to it. So click through for results and pics of the action from South Africa…   → READ MORE

Boss Man’s note: Here’s a quick summary of the action from South Africa on Sunday, courtesy of our local correspondent, SUP Culture head honcho and accomplished SUP racer Peter Petersen.

The Cape Town area is a haven for SUP racing, especially downwinders, and the whole South African paddling scene is really starting to take off (we saw young Dylan Frick make his mark in Peru last week) so click through to check out the latest race action…   → READ MORE

Cape Town’s famous South-Easter once again produced the goods for the third race in the PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series, with a stonking 41knot max windspeed (30knots average). Windy all day meant everyone knew it was on so we had more paddlers on the runs, with 49 SUPs, 35 surfskis and 2 prone-paddlers lining up for start.

The extremely high winds caused problems for some with boards getting ripped out of paddlers hands on the start and the finish line! But no swell meant an otherwise easy start and it was a great spectacle to see all the paddlers set off into the stiff breeze. Everyone got runs today, and with 34x personal bests amongst the SUP’s, it was clearly a great day.   → READ MORE

Today was Race #2 in the 2013 PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash series and the Cape Doctor (the name of our local South East tradewind here in Cape Town) kept us waiting until 4pm before she made her entry. We had been watching the barometer rise like a homesick angel so we knew she’d be pulling in! And did she pull in? Solid 25knots, with 36knot gusts, with pure SE and flat, swell-less-perfection. It doesn’t get better than this and thankfully most heeded the early calls made that the event was going to be on, and we had 37 SUPs and one prone paddler on the start line. Click through for results and pics…   → READ MORE

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. Click through for some great photos plus a full race recap and results of race #1…   → READ MORE

Here are the results and a race recap from this weekend’s annual Langebaan Dash Downwinder here in South Africa.

This race is traditionally a windsurf/kitesurf event, but 3 years ago the SUP’ers were invited along as well and this year more than 30 paddlers gave it a crack. The regular wind/kitesurf course becomes a bit of a sidewinder on a SUP, unless the wind switches to pure South East, so we ended up doing an alternate route this year which turned out great.

Taking out the win was young gun Dylan Frick in the men’s race and the unstoppable Brigette van Aswegen in the women’s.

Click through for the race recap, results and some pics of the action…   → READ MORE

South Africa’s surfing hellman, adventurer and leading SUP racer, Chris Bertish, has just completed one of the maddest SUP missions I’ve heard about…

Paddling along the wild coastline of Western South Africa for 8 days, covering 320kms, with no assistance, carrying 40kgs of supplies on his board, battling 3-5 metre swells and crazy shorebreaks, in very cold (and shark infested) waters, fighting side-winds almost the entire way, sleeping in a tent, blistering like crazy, going blind from sunburn… and all for charity.

This is one amazing story, so click through to get the full story from our South African correspondent Peter Petersen, plus see some cool pics of Chris’ adventure.

But a fair warning: This story will make you feel really, really lazy by comparison…   → READ MORE

Big final race held in sizeable surf made for an exhilarating finish to this years PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series here in Cape Town, South Africa. With 9 out of 10 weeks producing raceable conditions (we held races in everything from 17 to 43knots of wind) this has to go down as our most successful series to date!

With Chris Bertish (NAISH), Brigette van Aswegen (STARBOARD) and Ethan Koopmans (NAISH) (Junior) having already wrapped up their divisions it was down to the fight for lesser placings that became the focus of today’s race. Being the final race of the year with only a week and a half to go to x-mas we also incorporated a Code-Red dresscode, which saw some great outfits take to the runs.   → READ MORE

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.   → READ MORE

Here’s Peter Petersen’s recap of race #7 in the PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash series, Cape Town, South Africa:

Conditions were EPILIPTIC!! Pure South-East winds at 32-43knots with no swell. Combine that with the spring tides draining Table Bay and we had the fastest downwind conveyor-belt to date. Virtually every paddler improved his/her times.

Right off the beach it was clear that two guys had their eye on this race. Greg Bertish set off like a rocket and immediately created a gap, while Coreban founder Ivan van Vuuren paddled out deeper and flew down the course. Chris Bertish arrived at the beach three minutes before the start and was still chatting to the time-keepers when the whistle blew. He nevertheless set off in his usual style and by halfway had cleared everyone but the two frontrunners.   → READ MORE

Awesome conditions for race #6 of the PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series in South Africa. Winds gusting to 35 knots and solid 6-8ft (2-3meter) waves made for another epic Cape Town downwinder.

Click through for more photos of the action, full race results and the current Series Leaderboard.   → READ MORE

We’ve successfully completed five races in the first six weeks of the 10-week PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series, which is a testament to the consistency of the wind in Cape Town! It wasn’t a howler today, but 15-24knots fanned the course producing heaps of quality runners.

It almost wasn’t to be though, as the wind only turned and switched on two hours before the start. A lot of paddlers stayed at home due to the wind’s late arrival – this despite the race-committee calling the race on since the morning. A total of 23 SUPs and 29 skis competed, the first time this year that skis have outnumbered the Stand Ups (plenty of name-calling such as “Fair-weather SUP’ers” etc was overheard at the bar afterwards…). A pretty solid swell might also have had something to do with it.   → READ MORE

35 knots of cranking South Easterly wind, record participation and a stack of Personal Best times!

Fifty Stand Up Paddlers lined up to make this a record field in the 4th round of the 2012 PRIMI Naish Downwind Dash Series. Conditions were close to epic with the strongest winds and biggest runners we’ve seen so far this year.

These conditions clearly suited our SUP championship leader Chris Bertish (Naish) who paddled straight into the lead and never looked back. Chris caught runner after runner and although brother Greg (Coreban) was keeping up initially, it wasn’t long before Chris dropped him and the rest of the field like pieces of hot coal. Click through for the full race recap, results and more pics of the awesome action from South Africa…   → READ MORE

The Brian Kayaks Big Bay Classic race hosted round four of the South African SUPSA Qualifying Series on Sunday 4th November. The winners from this Series will be representing Team South Africa @ the ISA Worlds in Peru next year.

Perfect light wind conditions greeted the 110 paddlers of which only 13 were SUPs. A 6.1km triangle course was set going out the bay and up the coast into a slight headwind. This was followed by a 3km downwind leg which offered nice little bumps with a 180 turn and back to Big Bay. Click through for the race recap + results   → READ MORE