Durban – The Durban surfski community will be relishing the opportunity to paddle through the Durban harbour again at the annual Bay Union King of the Bay taking place on Sunday, 25 June.
The annual King of the Bay race is the only chance that paddlers can paddle through the Durban harbour and out through the breakwaters before the turn left to paddle along Durban’s famous coastline to the Mngeni River mouth and back to the Durban Underwater Club.
Last year organisers had the unfortunate task of having to cancel the race off the back of the devastating floods that wreaked havoc to the Durban water systems, however, the event will return this year and is expected to draw a strong field.
There are two options for paddlers with a short course that will see paddlers head straight to DUC once they exit the harbour mouth, however, the long course always attracts KZN’s top surfski paddlers and 2023 will be no different.
The race this year will double up as the KZN single surfski championships which will be an enticing carrot for a number of the province’s top surfski paddlers who will be eager to build on last week’s results at the South African Surfski team’s selection event in St Francis.
Heading the list of entries so far are Saskia Hockly and Hamish Lovemore, both recently crowned champions at the South African Canoe Marathon Champs at St Francis Bay.
Co-incidentally the two were both winners in their respective women’s and men’s K2 races on the final day of the champs and will be keen to celebrate their national titles last weekend with a win on Durban waters.
With entries only closing at 6pm on Saturday evening, there is still time for some of the big names missing from the entry list to get on the start line.
Entries are open and you can enter at https://paddler.canoesa.com/