Van der Walt paddles to victory
Durban North's Grant van der Walt wins his first surfski race of the winter season.
IT was a battle of tactics at the first instalment of the McCarthy Toyota uMhlanga King of the Bay on Sunday as Durban North resident Grant van der Walt outsmarted the rest of the field to power to a substantial win in the third leg of the Bay Union Surfski Series with Mt Edgecombe’s Jenna Ward claiming the ‘Queen of the Bay’ crown after she beat a determined Hayley Arthur to the shore.
It was a long, steady slog for the paddlers as they felt each other out over the 9km from the Stella Canoe Club clubhouse to the mouth of the harbour and that is where the racing started with a number of boats falling off the back of the leading bunch.
Van der Walt and uMhlanga’s Matt Bouman opened up a fairly extensive lead over the rest of the field and both chose to take different lines towards the turning can at the uMngeni river mouth and the varying tactics seemed to be the difference between the two.
“It was really flat out there today which made it so much fun,” an elated Van der Walt said following his win. “There was a little bit of a bump and the wind picked up on the way back and it was quite difficult coming back into the wind but it was super fun”
The ladies race was hotly contested with Hayley Arthur proving to be a more than worthy opponent for the eventual winner Jenna Ward.
Ward claimed her third win of the Bay Union Surfski Series and leads the women’s standings by some margin after a challenging race.
“It was really difficult out there” an exhausted Ward said. “When we turned at the can and headed back into the wind it made it really difficult and the last six kilometres were really tough and it was harder for me because paddling into the wind is definitely a weakness of mine.”
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