How to Sit in Water and Paddle a Surfski for 260 or 300 Miles by Carter Johnson

Wed - July 18, 2007

How to Sit in Water and Paddle a Surfski for 260 or 300 Miles by Carter Johnson

Following his story from the 2007 Texas Water Safari Carter Johnson wrote a few more comments on body maintenance and how to dress for a long and wet drive on your surfski.

Sitting in water... by Carter Johnson

In the Surfski, it is pointless to try to stay dry. It just wont happen. I quickly found out that even if the water is flat, you need to expect to be sitting in a puddle of water. As miserable as this sounds, it can workout if done properly. In really hot weather, I follow these golden rules and dressing accordingly. Fist rule, Don’t start peeing on yourself till the last 5 hours of the race. Rule 2, See rule 1 (nobody said this was pretty). Next comes dressing for success.

An entire tube of Desitin or Aquafir cream to all areas below your waist and above your thigh. (Generically sold as baby rash cream)
Tape over your nipples to avoid some of the worst shafing you could imagine
Start with some neoprean shorts from Paddleme.com. They are the only ones I found that deliberately have no seams in all the magic areas unlike most surf short. This is critical, trust me! As for the neoprene, you are wet regardless so it is the way to go.
Cut out a large quick access hole in a strategic location of our shorts depending on your gender. With the amount of baby rash cream you will have on, you do not want to be pulling them up and down.
All white long sleeve Poly propylene top and bottom to keep the sun and bugs off. You can continually wet them as necessary to stay cool. Sew on some mesh pockets to hold food that you cannot finish in 1 bite as well as your rappers. Cut a similarly located hole as your shorts into the long pants.
For the sake of the spectators. Wear a very loose pair of slippery basketball shorts over your bottom layer.
Find the dorkiest hat possible. Rain or sun, you cannot go wrong with an over sized 8inch bill and a tail that will either stay wet and cool you off, Channel the ran over your clothes rather than down your neck, or just keep the sun off you. There is no price for looking sexy in these events (unless you are from Belize).
Get some Hydropel ointment, and lather up your hands then insert them into you favorite gloves. Reapply every 12 hours.
Last is a good comfy seat. I find 2 inches of custom fit mini cell with a layer or two of 1cm thick camping mat that runs over the seat and all the way up the back deck of your ski does the job. Cover the foam with some very slipper tape.

Now your ready to go, hold on tight and prepare to be wet!

Carter

I shot the pictures of Carter's "touring" SX-1 Huki surfski which you are seeing here at the finish of Kansas River "Fitty Gritty" Race. The surfski was paddled in that race by West Hansen who made some adjustments to the boat outfitting.

The seat foam pictured above is my rendition. Carter's padding went with him back to CA. My seat pad is much thicker than Carter's, as I prefer to sit higher. My back padding was two layers thick to help me move forward more, since the boat is set up for Carter, who is two feet taller than me. -- West