Victory on Stellar SE surfski

The Reykjavik kayak championship was held on 30 of april, yesterday. On my way to Geldinganes I was thinking that I always think I had seen everything when it comes to weather in Iceland, but snowing hard on the 30th of april!! Still I was happy about the summer starting with the first competition of the year in the series of the Icelandic championship and it would be the first time someone would compete on surfski. In the warmup it was still snowing but the spirit was high for the small group of 15 paddlers in various levels in the paddling sport. The tide was changing and the sea was calm, the whistle went off and I was on my own on my precious Stellar SE surfski, with my Brasca VIII and my GPS. My goal was to get an average speed of 11 km/hour and for the first km I had to start fast because I would bee slower against the current on the way back. My plan was going well and the figures on my GPS were pretty promising. Still, big snowflakes maid sort of ice crush on the sea level and they were slowing me down. It was hard to focus on the paddling, maintaining the speed on my own. Because of the snow the sight was not good and I had a hard time finding a turning buoy once slowing me down a bit. I was constantly focusing on my style, the GPS and my heartbeat. The sea was totally flat so there was no help from waves and wind, it was a testing of my speed in 10 km. My time was 52 min. and 29 sec., average speed of 11.4 km/hour. It was a safe first place and a race record(old time 55.11). This is a promising start for the summer for a mid pack racer like me .
Ólafur B. Einarsson