'Epic' fleet fights for Pittwater Classic prize (8/5/10)

Organisers were thrilled with the number of participants entered into the last round of the highly successful “Bing Lee/LG/Epic Kayaks Harbour Racing Series” on Pittwater, north of Sydney. 146 paddlers lined up at the start at ‘Bayview’ and, after a reasonably well behaved start, headed north through ‘Pittwater’ to the turning mark off ‘Barrenjoey’ head. Conditions were ideal for those new to open water racing – light wind, calm sea and lots of sunshine which resulted in some pretty quick times being recorded.

Fastest 3 times in the surfski singles belonged to David Tudor Jones (also winner 30’s age group), Steve Coulter (also winner of 40’s age group) and Cade Barnes respectively, with just 22 seconds separating them. Cade demonstrated great consistency throughout the series with 3 fastest times, a 2nd and a 3rd. Kate McGrath continued her domination of the women with a convincing margin ahead of second fastest woman, Jacqueline Lawrence. In the older men’s divisions, Piet Boer put 4 minutes on the next best over 50’s while ever consistent Neil Carlyle topped the over 60’s division. Full results are available on the website.

A new feature of the event was three K4s battling it out and watching out to avoid four person swimming. The Manly Warringah team did the quickest time of the day at 1:02:56.

It was great to see a fleet of 10 stand-up paddlers doing the 9km course. The top three were Sam Parker, Peter Morgan and Adam Quin. Rose Fitzwater blazed the way as the sole stand-up paddler in the womens division. Well done, Rose!

The Harbour Racing Series Committee deserve our thanks and accolades for an efficiently run series of events. Paddlers voted with their feet and turned up in epic numbers. No doubt many will feel sufficiently encouraged to enter the more challenging ocean races and we look forward to their participation in the Manly Warringah Winter Series starting in June.