Legends Paddle On By 101 Surf Sports
One of the best things about our business is all the incredible people we get to meet. The last two weekends in a row have seen three of the most legendary watermen stopping by to paddle.(pictured Connor Baxter and part of our Tuesday Paddle Training Group)
First up we welcomed 2016's winner of the Ultimate Waterman Contest, Zane Schweitzer (pictured bottom row far left), to the shop for a little social paddling and some clinic time for a few lucky paddlers. Zane's flyby was a whirlwind that saw us packing all his ultimate waterman skills in to an action packed day. As Friday dawned we had Zane join our normal Friday Crissy Field Training Paddle. We were lucky to be joined by yet another local legend big wave pioneer Jeff Clark. Jeff even brought a few of his latest 14ft Stand Up Paddleboards for us to try on the rougher waters of San Francisco Bay. We were even lucky to catch some raceboard ride-able surf in one our secret surf spots. Paddling with Zane and Jeff under the Golden Gate Bridge was something we will never forget.
Part two for Zane was to head on down to Half Moon Bay to do some surfing with Jeff and one lucky local, Haakon Hoyer Nielson. Haakon we are sure will also never forget the day he surfed with his two new bro friends Zane and Jeff. The way Haakon has been paddling lately maybe someday these two guys will remember the first time they paddled with him.
We were not through with Schweitzer quite yet. After surfing HMB we pulled him back in to San Francisco to do some slalom windsurf racing as part of the St Francis Yacht Club Windsuring Slalom Series. With top pro Jesper Vesterstrom in town and National Champion Xavier Ferlet on the line this was top notch action. After 6 years of not touching a cambered race sail Zane jumped on to my Starboard iSonic 107 and Severne Reflex 7.8 kit and was off to the races. The wind was pretty light with the top guys on 8.5's and 130l iter boards but Schweitzer managed to put up a solid performance. We guess it's somewhat expected if your grandpa literally invented the modern windsurfer.
Should we let him go to bed? Remember it's still friday. After racing wrapped it was time to party. Our local association. the San Francisco Boardsailing Association, was hosting its annual "Give Thanks For The Wind Party" with host Mafia Bags pulling out all the stops. If you have not heard of Mafia Bags we'll let you know that they have set up an innovative San Francisco company. Mafia is re-purposing old kite and windsurf gear in to new products and putting out some of the sharpest looking bags we have seen.
Ok so now we let the kid to go to bed but with that said we set his alarm early for our Saturday 4 hour InZane SUP clinic. After an exceptional clinic it's finally time for Zaniac to take a well earned break. Made us tired just writing about all that.
As the next weekend rolled around we welcomed the most dominant race paddler Stand Up Paddleboarding has known in Connor Baxter. Connor is pictured at top right after narrowly edging local paddler Jim Robison on a sprint back to the dock. Connor joined us for our normal Tuesday morning training group. Connor was super generous with his time, and his tips, dispensing a near clinic level performance for all the assembled paddlers. After paddling Connor let the group test the wheels on the new 2017 Starboard All Star and Starboard Bolt paddle. The general consensus was a shocking realization of just how stable a 23 inch wide board can be. For those that take the time to read blog posts all the way to the bottom we'll share a little nugget we won't be widely publicizing. That is to let you know that Connor will likely be joining us for our 9/9 7:30am paddle at Crissy Field. Thanks Connor!
Also joining was actor, dancer, and top paddleboarder Ingo Rademacher (pictured at top left). Pretty soon TMZ may be haning around our front door if this keeps up!
While we are astounded at the athleticisim of all these paddlers what stokes us the most is the way they conduct themselves as human beings. Respectful, hardworking, conscientous, and giving. And it's not just one of them, it's all of them. It makes us very proud as a community of paddlers to see these young athletes taking our sport forward in such a positive way.