The Sydney International Boat Show is exciting for all sorts of reasons, but one of my favourite events is the Boat Building competition. A whole bunch of shipwright apprentices from…

Barmy beer can boating in the balmy tropical North Winter in Australia’s Southern states is a hard time for paddlers. The sun rises only reluctantly, and does little to warm…

In the surfski arena the biggest barrier to growth of the sport at the bottom end is the inherent instability of ocean skis. A few brands have started to address…

I’ve been incredibly lucky over the years to have met and been coached/mentored by some incredible paddlers. When you think about it, I’ve had rock gardening lessons with Tsunami Ranger…

When two Aussies attempted to paddle from Australia to New Zealand everyone thought they were crazy. Their story, “Crossing the Ditch“, made it to the public with both a book…

It’s been just over a week now since the 2012 Mauritius Ocean Classic and I’ve had some time to think about the event and what it meant to me. What…

It’s been seven months since I first entertained the idea of trying to participate in the Mauritius Island Shamaal – seven months of training, dieting, learning to paddle a surfski…

Our first downwind race, and both Nat and I awoke early (4am) feeling sick with nerves. The official pre-Shamaal Race, known as Sporty’s Downwind Dash (named after a paddling character…

It’s quite the journey from Sydney to Mauritius, with the Team Fat Paddler crew of Nat, Josh and your’s truly arriving after 20 hours of door to door travel. But…

There’s nothing quite like a mid-week paddle. With work taking up most of my waking hours, the only option was to go at night, and what better spot to paddle…

It was cold, it was dark, it was noisy. With a weather forecast of 20-30 knot westerlies plus a good 2m ocean swell coming from the East, I was curious…

Six months ago I decided to attempt the impossible – learn to paddle a surfski and attempt to take on the World’s best at the Mauritius Ocean Classic. Months of…

The good folks up at Hamilton Island asked me to post some details for the Gatorade Battle of the Paddles next week, so here it is sports fans! Looks like…

Manly Beach Australia, 5.30am, first days of Winter. In a word… it was COLD. But three paddlers braved the wind to get out at dawn for a session in the…