Latest News
On Training: Attention and Its Limits
The paddler to your right has been pushing the pace for the last few minutes, and you've been tracking them. Watching their rhythm, watching the gap, watching whether they're going to open it further. Somewhere to your left, a run has been developing for the last few seconds. It would have [...]
On Training: Seeing the Water
The first time something catches your eye before you understand what it means, you almost dismiss it. A change in texture fifty meters ahead, a slight darkening of the surface, the way another paddler two boats over suddenly lifts their pace before you've registered anything worth responding to. It registers briefly [...]
National Series Notebook: A Loaded July
Patrick Dolan flew 5,000 miles from Hawaii to Massachusetts and won the 2026 USA COR National Championships on a grueling open water course against a stacked field of athletes. Five days later, Austin Kieffer won the showcase race at the Gorge Downwind Championships paddlesports festival in the biggest conditions the event [...]
On Training: Physical Integration
The race was two-thirds over and the aerobic system was still running cleanly. Breathing had stayed in control, the stroke hadn't collapsed, and the pace was within the range that should have been sustainable. But something had shifted in the last thirty minutes. A shoulder carrying something separate from the general [...]
On Downwinding: Leveraging Energy
The difference between flatwater paddling and downwinding isn't subtle. Grinding a flat stretch is the opposite: all work and no rest, every foot of distance earned stroke by stroke with nothing free about it. Catching a wave takes a handful of hard strokes, sometimes just one, and then the boat rides [...]
On Training: Efficiency and Friction
During any long session or race, most of each stroke converts cleanly into forward motion. A small fraction gets diverted into correction, stabilization, and adjustment. Some of that cost comes from outside: the ocean pushes, the boat responds, and effort goes toward holding a line and keeping the hull settled underneath [...]
Surfski Reviews
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Think Evo Fiberglass Review – by Wesley Echols
My first paddling experience with my Evo was a 37 mile circumnavigation of Aquidneck Island with my partner in crime, Tim Dwyer. I had purchased the glass Evo the previous day and was excited to try out my latest acquisition. Tim paddled my Huki S1R. So, in comparable boats, we [...]
Think UNO Review – by Wesley Echols
Special thanks to Mark Ceconi who has edited all my reviews. First Impressions: I first paddled the Uno on the ultra flat Charles River back in April 2009 (see clip), thinking to myself; “There is no way I will be able to paddle this in the ocean.” I did not [...]
Nelo 560 Review
FIT The bucket design of the 560M is an ergo design, it's a narrower fit for smaller hips but it's tapered to also accommodate larger hips. HANDLING SPEED Flat water speed was the easiest to compare: The 560M is amazingly faster: I don't feel bored, and it doesn't feel like [...]
Stellar Elite Low Volume (SEL) Full Review
Stable as V10 Sport Ultra, Fast as V12, not Quite but not Far off. I know the above statement for some will be hard to believe especially since I am the Northeast Stellar Rep. However, my reviews have been substantiated across the world. My advice to any paddler is get [...]
2015 Redesigned Stellar SR Review
Since 2003 when I began paddling surfskis, I have reviewed more surfskis than anyone else in the world making those reviews public via this website. Like most things in life, I did not intentionally set out to buy so many surfskis. I simply started out trying to find the perfect [...]