Bowen trio to compete in Canadian Surf Ski Championships

When they put their boats in the water Andy Hoppenrath, Bruce McTaggart, and James Krohn do so hoping for a wind warning. The south coast of Bowen Island, they say, is some of the best and most accessible surf skiing you’ll find anywhere along BC’s south coast, adding that Collingwood Channel (between Bowen and Keats) has a history of some of the strongest winds and biggest swell this side of Vancouver Island. On a typical week the group will head out three times, on average, from Tunstall Bay. This Saturday they will put boats in the water off Porteau Cove, paddle out into Howe Sound, and ride the wind and waves into Squamish. Along with some of the world’s  best surf skiers, they will be competing in the first ever Canadian Surfski Championships.
“It’s hard to hope for too much, because those top guys are basically Olympic athletes,” says Krohn, who is the most experienced surfskier of the three.
He took up surf skiing in 1998 while living on the beach in Cape Town, South Africa.
“I lived near Fish Hoek beach, which is basically one of the world hubs of surfskiing. They have a surfski life-saving club, which is how the sport started – as a rescue tool. For me it was a progression from flat water kayaking, which I raced while I was in university. This is a common progression, as the sport has a steep learning curve and it helps to have that familiarity with being on the water.”
Surfskiing, Krohn explains, is a very different experience than kayaking. The vessel is extremely light (weighing as little as 10 kg), narrow, and tippy.
“If you are able to capitalize on the energy of the ocean, the wind and the swell, you can overtake your closest competitor by 50 meters in less than a minute,” he says, “This is a very different skill set than kayaking.”
McTaggart, who Krohn and Hoppenrath say is the most competitive of the three, also comes to surf skiing from kayaking.
“About two years ago I was racing adventure kayaks and I got frustrated because I couldn’t self-rescue,” says McTaggart, explaining all the benefits of a surf ski: you don’t need a pump, or a skirt, or anyone around to help you back into your boat.
McTaggart trains every day, and says he would like to come in the top-five for his category in Saturday’s race.
Hoppenrath took up surfskiing four years ago, after years of watching people in the light, narrow boats glide past him in his double-expedition kayak in the Round Bowen Race.
“I was wowed by these fancy surf skis,” Hoppenrath says.
Having purchased one of the most stable surf skis, Hoppenrath says he didn’t find the learning curve too steep.
“Two years ago I upgraded, and that’s when I started chasing James and Bruce who have much faster boats. What we do is called down-winding, basically we paddle like crazy to catch a wave, and then we ride it.”
Hoppenrath is a veteran not only of the Round Bowen Race, but also of the Howe Sound Downwind Challenge, and just two weekends ago (alongside McTaggart) the Wildside Relay, 22 km up Oregon’s Hood River. As a team, McTaggart and Hoppenrath finished the race just 29 minutes behind the winner, whom Hoppenrath describes as “super-human.”
“I’m not really competitive, I just really like getting out there,” Hoppenrath says. “At a race, its really great to be surrounded by a bunch of like-minded people. At this weekend’s race, well, I really feel it is just a privilege to rub-shoulders with some of these competitors.”
Looking ahead to this weekend’s competition, McTaggart, Hoppenrath and Krohn say that, as always, they’ll be crossing their fingers for gale-force winds. Although, they do not seem particularly hopeful.
“Howe Sound is okay,” says McTaggart, “but it’s hard to beat a north-westerly blowing from Nanaimo to Tunstall.”