Pulled from the blog over at Hobie.com
The Pacific Paddle Games - Hobie Style
15. October 2015
The 2015 Pacific Paddle Games are in the books and as a team, we are still buzzing on this weekend!!! It was Doheny at its absolute finest. Overhead cranking surf... That's an understatement... it wasn't just overhead cranking surf, it was overhead cranking surf consistently All. Weekend. Long! There was never a moment when the waves weren't racked and stacked out the back! Not one race went through the surf without a few moments of in your throat action! It was all time and we were stoked to be part of the first year of this soon to be mandatory race weekend!!
Pacific Paddle Games - Doheny State Beach
Aside from the epic surf conditions, it happened to be one of those beach weekends where if you even lived 2 feet inland of the water’s edge, you were definitely wanting to be at the beach. Bright blue crystal skies and temperatures hovering around 100 made those sweet team tents a gathering spot for friends, new and old, teammates, and everyday beach goers the spot to be! (Though, next year, maybe they could even be air conditioned??) Team Hobie turned ours into a living room with the help of our buddy Rod of RJ Importers. Kind of lucky we also have our own beach furniture shops (Tuvalu) for times like these!
Needless to say, the extra-large tents were an all-time idea to go along with an all-time race... Oh, the race?? Guess we should talk about the whole reason we were there!!
Patrick Cleveland
Team Hobie came out big for the Pacific Paddle Games, like, as in, we brought down a BIG team! Not only did we want one of those swank aforementioned team tents beachside, we wanted to make sure that we supported a race that was coming back to our own backyard here in Dana Point in the best way we could, by showing up with full team support. In total we brought down 16 competitors! Martin Letourneur, Bullet Obra, Gregg Closier, Lexi Alston, Patrick Cleveland, April Zilg, Scott Dieterich, Phoenix and Sofia Sanchez, Byron Kurt, Alex Matero, Keoni Dahlin, Zeke and Keaton Rose, Dax and Colin McPhillips competed for us to excellent results!
Lexi Alston
One of our favorite team performances of the weekend had to be from our 13-year-old wonder kid, Lexi Alston. Though, it didn't surprise us at all, we still have to say we were absolutely blown away by the poise, the technique, and the far beyond her years performance she put on in the water. Placing an overall seventh for the women, she had a breakout weekend. She handled the high pressure of the women's technical final like the pro she is growing into. Calm and collected throughout, she kept stroke for stroke amongst the elite of the sport. Her smile through the finish line told her story better then we could! Congrats, Lexi! Way to represent!!
Martin Letourneur
Not to be outdone by has adopted American sister, Lexi, Martin Letourneur, also turned in a performance beyond his age. At 19 years old, our French team rider, hung tough with an ultra-competitive Men’s field in the Pro distance race and Pro technical to take an overall eighth place! Astonishing for the young gun! He kept his cool in the technical race, never falling back out of the second lead pack. He took a risk to break away just before the finish to ride a very small bump instead of waiting on the set, this paid off as he ended up in a very solid 8th place overall!
Hobie Team - April Zilg, Bullet Obra, Martin Letourneur, Lexi Alston
Our own 'Vanilla Gorilla' the wonderful April Zilg didn't do too shabby herself this weekend! Though she may have made it into the women's technical final by the skin of her teeth, she came back hard, finishing an overall ninth for the event! Strong work from our North Carolina native, and hilarious as well as ferocious competitor! Bullet Obra had a strong race weekend too! The Hawaiian native crushed the surfing portion of the races and came out of the distance & technical with an overall 22nd place for the men's pro.
Some of our other standout moments from the weekend were led by Colin McPhillips deciding midway through the prone race that the wave he was on was just a little bit too good to lay down on, so, stood up and rode his prone board the way only a three time world longboard champion could, and ripped the wave all the way into the sand. He noted that "if I'm not gonna win the race, I better at least give the crowd something to look at.' We love that guys swagger. Little 11-year-old Zeke Rose took after his Uncle Colin and decided that instead of turning the buoy and heading back out onto the race course, he would take a little detour onto a double overhead bombed wave! Solid choice from the micro grom. We approve.
We also like to thank all of our out-of-towners for flying in for the race Sophia and Phoenix Sanchez from Lake Tahoe, Alex, Keoni, and Greg for crossing oceans to come. To Scott Deidrich for pulling that prone board off the wall one more time and representing for Hobie! To Patrick, Keaton and Dax for bringing the youthful energy into our 65 year old brand. And, last, but never least, a giant thank you to none other than Byron Kurt for just being grandpa.
Hobie Demo Team
Before we close it out on the PPG weekend, we have to give special shout out to our demo staff!! They were slinging boards in the heat all weekend long, with out a break, to the steady stream of deom-ers! With no complaint from any of them, they were an unsung part of our success! Lead by the incomparable Mark Carlisle, and followed up by our staff of Michael Skelly, Freddy Merrill, and Kane Johnson they put more people out on the water then we ever thought possible. Mark and his team, and all the teams who were in the demo pits, deserve their own award for continuing to spread the stoke of this great sport to the masses, because, at the end of the day, when the races are over, and the tents folded up, it's the brand new fresh faced paddlers who are going to be carrying this thing we call SUP into the future... And, if this weekend was any indication, what a future it will be!!
Thank you PPG's for an all-time epic weekend! Cheers to next year!!!
Tracey Engelking, Team Hobie. Lifestyle Athlete Division.