WaveScience said..paul.j said..
IMO if we could get 3 good events on the East coast like 12 Towers , 1 in Melbourne, 1 in Perth(KOTC) this would push Australia and the racing side to a whole new level!!
They just had a charity paddle for mostly newcomers in Melbourne over the weekend that attracted 400 people paying $100 just to participate. None of these people are members of a club, or have any idea that there is such a thing as SUP racing.
Meanwhile, organised SUP racing in Victoria is in a parlous state (pardon the pun) for various reasons known only to those in control. Needs a complete overhaul.
There were a number of members of SUP Clubs in Melbourne that chose to raise money for the Cancer Council Saturday. One club raised over $6000 amongst its members & friends, whilst another provided marshals to the event.
As for SUP racing in Victoria, it comes down to interest.
The overwhelming majority of participants in SUP in Victoria have little to no interest in racing, however there are a small but passionate number that do wish to race. There are two established clubs in Melbourne and two other groups - one that runs a distance racing series without insurance, risk management plans etc. in a semi-clandestine or 'exclusive' environment as they put it to avoid scrutiny from authorities and a private company that has a long history of running very well managed (but sometimes considered expensive) events primarily for the surf/ocean ski fraternity of which the SUP community are invited to participate.
The little interest in racing was more than evidenced on Saturday, when a
capped 400 participants paid a minimum of $100 to participate in a fundraising event that raised in excess of $160,000 for cancer research & support programmes. The course was just over 6km. I'd estimate that at least 80% of the participants on the day had never paddled that distance in conditions that were far from ideal and continued to slowly deteriorate.
Surfing Victoria, who claims to be the governing body for competitive SUP at a state level, sees SUP racing as more of a liability than an asset and appears to treat racing accordingly. Similarly, their experience in organising SUP racing events appears to be limited on face value.
As for racing, some of the bigger events in Victoria are so significantly weather dependent, that only the most experienced have the capability of finishing let alone competing. That virtually eliminates many considering racing as an option. In the last summer, there has been one race that was on the edge of being dangerous with many barely coping with the conditions, another that was a 15km cross chop grind and a state championship run two weeks ago on a highly technical course where little to no consideration was given to the tidal conditions of the day, making a 15km race feel like a 20km grind against the current.
SUP racing in Victoria has two fundamental issues: An overall lack of interest in racing by the majority of the participants of the sport and a historical declining interest in recent years in the official events that do exist.
I know one club in Victoria that is member driven had a number of members at the time raise the prospect of a racing series, but none of those members were prepared to contribute to risk management plans and organising events. They still could have competed, but had an expectation (and an impatience) to have others do the work for them and they simply turn up to race. In the end they chose to run a race series themselves without risk management plans, permits or insurance.
Subsequently, the same club has had no other member approaches to run any sort of race, but numerous approaches to run other events.
Clubs need to manage their risk and it takes time and money to manage that risk.
All Victorian clubs are volunteer based and no individual or group should be making demands on any club to run events and not be prepared to support these volunteer organisations in one way or another.
The best way to overhaul SUP racing in Victoria is three things:
Give the punters what they want and that means the punters need to speak up about what they want and demonstrate the numbers are there to run a successful event.
The punters need to be realistic that events take in excess of 4 months to plan in terms of permits, risk management plans, logistics etc.
The punters need to be prepared to make the time to do some hard yards in the organisation and preparation of the event so they have a safe, insured, compliant, well managed event they can compete in on the day and not expect an event to be delivered on a platter.
If that happens, both Victorian SUP clubs will easily support a greater number of race events.
Those that seem to be the most vocal about demanding events be run in my experience tend also to be the least likely to contribute to organising and running one. The fastest way to paddle less is to become a committee member of a club and spend a year organising & running events for your members.
