A widely held misconception that drives me crazy, is the idea that the waves on the Great Lakes are too “choppy” for downwind surfing. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, “choppy” conditions are arguably the best conditions. If we assume that “choppy” means steep, short period waves, those are exactly the conditions […]
Downwind Paddling Technique
PPP Episode 39: Downwind Jam Session
This podcast was an experimental downwind jam session. The idea was to setup a Zoom call open to any and all paddlers to join and share their stories and experiences around downwind paddling. We got off to a rough start when the initial call was highjacked by hackers, but were able to regroup and have […]
Context is Everything When Interpreting Downwind Paddling Instruction
Mixed Messages As happens from time to time in the surfski world, there are some mixed messages around what paddlers should be striving for to improve their downwind paddling. In this blog I attempt to explain why seemingly opposing views are both correct, and most importantly distill it all into useful guidance for the average […]
PPP Episode 010: Oscar Chalupsky talks AFib, Nelo, and Downwind
Today we catch up with the legendary Oscar Chalupsky, just a week after he scared the world with a FB post of him in a hospital bed surrounded by nurses and doctors. In our discussion today, Oscar gives us the blow by blow detail leading up to his episode of Arterial Fibrillation. While the incident […]
A Midwest Paddler Spends an Amazing Week At the Epic SURFSKI Center in Tarifa
Note: Below is a guest blog written by Zach Handler. Zach is a long time midwest SURFSKI paddler from the Minneapolis area. I had a chance to paddle with Zach several years ago at the Chicago “Un-Race”. Zach has competed in a couple of US SURFSKI Championships in San Francisco and is one […]
