Scotland Island 6km/ Sydney SUP Expo

Monday March 10th 2014

Vaikobi's Grant Hardiman takes out 2nd place

The Sydney SUP Expo/ Scotland Island 6km SUP Race was held yesterday at Royal Motor Yacht Club under brilliant conditions and was hailed as a roaring success!

With legend paddlers, Chuck Patterson (Naish Team Manager) and Hawaiian Riggs Napoleon in attendance, there was an air of excitement at the race briefing run by Rob Brown at 9am.

Under the watchful eye of race director Sam Williams, the day kicked off with the Scotland Island 6km Race & 1.5km short course at 9.30am. Fifty eight (58) competitors lined up off the Royal Motor Yacht Club start line awaiting the starters instructions and after a short wait the elite racers were off at a solid pace!

Vaikobi's Grant Hardiman led for most of the race before being pipped by a charging Toby Cracknell in the last 100 metres. Andy Davis took out the remaining spot on the podium. Tammy Montgomery took out the Ladies division whilst Riggs Napoleon did not disappoint and took out the U/19's. Riggs is a weapon!

Marty Cole took out the SUP ATX Short Course.

Grant was pretty pleased with his 2nd place after taking out the Pittwater Challenge the day before capping off a pretty good weekend for him. Awesome work Grant!

Full Results can be found here:

6km SUP:http://www.webscorer.com/racedetails?raceid=19311&did=23090

SUP ATX Shortcourse: http://www.webscorer.com/racedetails?raceid=19311&did=23091

Back on land, there was action aplenty with non stop demo's and the SUP time trial challenge (taken out by Riggs Napoleon again!). The demo's were a huge hit with kids, adults and families all getting into a Vaikobi Race vest and getting out on the water to test out the latest and greatest boards from Bic, Naish, JP, NSP & ATX.

It was fantastic to see so many kids out on the pond at RMYC and getting out on a SUP board. More than one future champion was bred yesterday for sure!

Photo Credit: Australian Paddle Surfer Magazine

Photo Credit: Australian Paddle Surfer Magazine

Balmoral Paddlesurf's Jill Wong giving a bit of advice

BicSUP's Bevan McKavanagh taking a Young Bic racer out for a spin.

A big congratulations to the event organisers and in particular to Andrew Allen from Balmoral Paddlesurf, Rob Brown from RMYC and Sam Williams from Jamieson Park Paddle who put in a big effort to make this event a reality.

A huge shout out to our fellow event sponsors, Royal Motor Yacht Club, Naish, BicSUP, NSP, JP Australia, Balmoral Paddlesurf, Zhik & Barz Optics