Tuesday, 31 May 2011 08:36
Bouman blitzes field
Not even a last minute change of venue for the Hansa 5 Beaches surfski race could prevent Matt Bouman from demolishing the rest of the field and claiming his second win of the Discovery Sunglass Hut Surfski Series.
Having headed off from the revised starting venue, Marine SLC, Bouman went out extremely hard and set a blistering pace early on which the vast majority of his top contenders struggled to maintain and before long it wasn’t a matter of if Bouman would win but rather by how much.
“I’m terrible when it comes to tactics, I pretty much only know one way of racing and that’s hard,” chuckled Bouman after the race. “I went off pretty quickly and then even though I was ahead fairly early on Brandon (van der Walt) and the rest of the guys were never that far behind so I still had to make sure I worked pretty hard.”
“I’m obviously very chuffed with today’s result and two wins out of four races is great but they’ve both been when Hank (McGregor) hasn’t been here so it will be nice if I can beat him when we’re both out there,” said Bouman.
Despite the positive result the surfski powerhouse struggled to hide his disappointment that the traditionally challenging 5 Beaches race had to find a more suitable temporary home this time round.
“I was really looking forward to heading down the coast. It’s always nice to mix it up a little and each venue brings with it is own little challenges so it was a bit disappointing when it was moved. “
“I understand there is a need for safety and that the whole field needs to be considered when decisions are made, it just would have been nice for the top end to have had an opportunity really push themselves a bit,” he added.
Meanwhile Brandon van der Walt put in another impressive performance to claim a comfortable second place ahead of Barry Lewin who took third.
“I tried to go with Matt (Bouman) up front but eventually I had to back off a bit and it was then that I decided to go a bit deeper and this really helped me settle into a bit of a rhythm and things went a lot better from there,” said van der Walt.
“Things are definitely going really well at the moment. I’ve been working hard with Hank (McGregor) quite a bit recently so it’s really encouraging to get some good results but it’s still very early days.”
“There’s a long season ahead of us still so for now I just want to try make sure I can keep it going and that I don’t peak to early,” he added.
With only one entry in the ladies race this week it was a foregone conclusion that Danica Vorster would claim the ladies race however, having recently got back in the ski and now training hard, the win may just be what Vorster’s needs to kick start her season.
“It was quite fun going down but once we turned it was really tough coming back into the wind,” said Vorster. “Hopefully with a bit more training I can soon start really challenging Donna (Winter) and ultimately do well at the World Cup.”
“It was disappointing that we couldn’t give the south coast a go. Coming from a surfing background it would have been really fun to see how things went in the surf but we still had a good time out there,” she added.
Wayne Ashford and Herman Chalupsky narrowly out-sprinted Richard Philps and Bryan Taylor as well as Robin Tindall and Richard Lowe to claim the win in the doubles race whilst in the short course Luke Steenkamp put in another strong performance to claim the singles title and Craig Springate and Greg Steen took the honours in the doubles category.
After careful consideration it was series organiser Billy Harker who was faced with making the tough call to move the race from its home on the south coast to the shelter of the Durban bay.
“It’s obviously really disappointing that we couldn’t hold the race down the coast because the series is all about putting on a variety of events at different venues and the Hansa 5 Beaches brings something special to the series,” said Harker.
“However due to exceptional circumstances, we unfortunately had to make the call as we would not have been able to ensure the safety of all those who participated in those conditions.”
“With the swell coming of the south east, which is very rare for Durban in winter, it meant that our lifesavers would not have been able to assist anyone should they have been in distress in the surf and for me that was not a risk worth taking,” he added.
The series will however have the opportunity to head south again next weekend as race five of the series, the Discovery Winkle Race, takes place on Sunday 5 June at Winkelspruit at 09h00.
More information can be found at www.surfski.co.za
SUMMARY OF RESULTS - HANSA 5 BEACHES
FOURTH LEG OF THE DISCOVERY SUNGLASS HUT SURFSKI SERIES
Long Course - Men
1. Matt Bouman 1:02.47
2. Brandon van der Walt 1:04.55
3. Barry Lewin 1:06.49
4. Adan Nisbet 1:07.21
5. Quinton Rutherford 1:07.21
6. Oliver Burn 1:07.22
7. Mark Mulder 1:08.17
8. Dirk van den Berg 1:08.18
9. Luke Nisbet 1:08.29
10. Mike Stevens 1:09.41
Long Course - Women
1. Danica Vorster 1:19.37
Long Course - Juniors
1. Gene Prato 1:15.44
2. Calvin McKie 1:15.50
3. Lyall Whitehead 1:19.55
Long Course - Doubles
1. Wayne Ashford/Herman Chalupsky 1:05.52
2. Richard Philps/Bryan Taylor 1:05.57
3. Robin Tindall/Richard Lowe 1:06.03
Short Course - Singles
1. Luke Steenkamp 35.29
2. Steven Taylor 36.33
3. Bucky Symons 36.41
Short Course - Doubles
1. Craig Springate/Greg Steen 34.11
2. Maya Opperman/Lauren Glossop 39.49
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