Winning one of the toughest races on the surfski calendar requires more than just luck. Dawid Mocke, a world champion title holder in the sport, prepares meticulously to ensure that when he races he wins. He describes the race in only a few short sentences, but ones which speak a great deal of strategy, commitment and preparation.

Pre Race:
My pre race preparation included as much simulation of the race intensity as I could. To this end I paddled the actual distance of the race twice before race day arrived.

Also, because winning the Cape Point was one of my main goals this year, I opted not to go on to the Tahiti World Cup races after the Perth World Cup races in November as I felt that the intensity of racing as well the taxing conditions in Tahiti would seriously jeopardize any chances I might have of winning the Cape Point Challenge. As it turned out this was the right decision to make as the guys who did carry on to Tahiti eventually pulled out of racing the Cape Point because they were so blown after the event.

Race Day:
Because there was downwind predicted for the way home, I decided that I needed a solid lead going into Buffels. I would rather be in control of the race going into the downwind section than still be in a vulnerable position when we got to the runs because you’ve got guys like Oscar and Pete who could totally dominate a downwind run after two hours of paddling into a headwind. The only way to do that was to go flat-out from the start and hope that no-one would come with me. The logic was that once I had a gap of a couple of hundred metres, no-one in the main pack would want to bridge that gap. The group would slow down, giving me a chance to increase the lead by paddling only slightly faster than the pack.

The tactic worked and by the time we got to Buffels I had a four-minute lead. Going into the runs this lead could easily double in time which meant that there was room for me to blow if it came to that.

(Ed: He didn’t blow, just for the record. And the rest, as they say, is history.)

<<back to index of articles