ICONIC MILLERS RUN

ICONIC Miller’s Run

NIKK I MOCKE

IMAGE: Rob Mousley The The

Mill hat , ho , er ’ hen, s Run... ho a nd hy?

The Millers run is arguably the world’s best downwind. It certainly attracts a variety of paddlers from around the world and is a downwind on all paddlers bucket list.

Everything about this run seems scripted: the conditions, the distance, the launch, the finish, the accessibility, and pure exhilaration - it is just perfect.

The What

A Millers run is between 11.6km and 12km long depending on the tide and conditions, can be done in either direction. A Reverse Millers is from Fish Hoek beach to Millers point done on a NW wind (predominant wind in the Cape Town winter) and from Millers point to Fish Hoek on the South East (the VERY frequent and predominant wind in summer). For ease in this article a Millers run refers to a run in the South Easter from Millers point to Fish Hoek, and a Reverse Millers run is from Fish Hoek to Millers point on a North Wester.

The Millers run can be done in big swell, small swell, big winds, light winds and with a push, weekly. The predominant and frequent winds with near perfect direction along the Miller Run route makes it unfair to compare to any other downwinds. The Ho .

The Millers taxi - shuttles groups to and from Millers when the wind is good, this adding to safety in numbers and total convenience. No more looking for drivers!

The drive is quick and there is little traffic –20 min one way is quick and easy!

The start –With two slipways to choose from, getting your hair wet is never an option, it is an easy launch with a safe finish in the sheltered Fish Hoek waters. No sweaty palms, dry palates or crooked necks worrying about surf.

Safety in numbers - Being a very popular paddle route, there is generally a crew on the water or

coming behind you for added safety. The NSRI have a base mid-way of the Millers run and are very tuned in with our paddling groups and activities.

The “Rules” - The Millers run rules have been firmly instilled in paddlers since the beginning of time and they are as follows:

South Easter Millers

1) Start behind the rock at Millers point. (Getting to the rock is often the hardest part)

2) When your feet touch the sand in front of the Lifesaving club you may stop your watch to get your time. (The record is held by Jasper Mocke in a time of 36:36)

3) General manners –slower paddlers head off first, each wave of paddlers leaving the slip way meet at the rock and race home.

North Wester

1) Start your watch as your feet leave Fish Hoek Beach

2) Paddle to the slip way on the Northern side of Millers point and stop your watch at the edge of the breakwater.

The “line” –The Lighthouse is the major marker in the Millers run, on a general day (IE with the correct wind) you want to aim at the lighthouse, and passing just on the inside of the Lighthouse (between the lighthouse and the land).This sets you up on a great line (and avoids the reefs on the outside). Once past the Lighthouse on a South East, aim at the Glencairn Quarry. (A big brown hole in the Ma in Skills

You need to improve on the following s kills to improve on a downwind

Cadence –keeping a high stroke rate/ being able to paddle with a high stroke rate effectively is important to accelerating onto runs

Fitness –you need to be fit to paddle downwind, its high intensity, hundreds of 10 stroke intervals in an hour, so work on fitness and speed

Catch a wave –if you can manage your ski out through the surf, turn and catch a wave successfully your downwind skills will improve. You will know how to handle your ski, feel speed, and enjoy yourself.

mountain) Fish Hoek is past that, don’t get confused and head to Glencairn.

The When.

Fish Hoek is a windy place, so Millers runs are frequent and readily available. It is important to know your own limits and check the conditions yourself.

In my opinion the best conditions are:

SE @ 20 knots and small to medium swell is perfection for most,

NW @ 20 knots and no rain is perfection for most.

Avoid Millers runs when: Its ESE, the easterly makes the ocean angry and messy, it’s less fun for less experienced but nice and technical for those wanting a challenge.

Avoid Reverse Millers runs when: The wind direction is WNW (the WNW blows you out to sea), it’s raining (the white out is a real thing and when you can’t see where you are going, things get confusing quickly) and If you don’t have warm paddling gear and all your safety equipment.

The Who.

The Millers run is for everyone IF you can remount your ski, paddle 10km on the flat with ease, catch a wave successfully and can effectively use your safety gear.

If you are unsure of your ability in a certain wind speed, here is a test you can do... Paddle out of Fish Hoek bay past the Sunny Cove station steps, do a turn or two, and do a remount. If you can turn, paddle against the wind and remount, you are ready to do a

The Why.

The exhilaration and speed mixed with skill and adventure makes for a memorable paddle. Reaching speeds of 25km on some runs its just nonstop action.

A few of the Millers maniacs group members, who are aiming at 100 Millers runs in 2020, had this to say about why they love the run…

Rudy Durand who has done 75 Millers runs in 2020 says “I love Millers runs because it’s the perfect combination of feeling nervous but super excited at the same time”

Charlie Berrington “You get to have a lot of fun doing something that is good for you on so many levels. It’s the fun and not the time I chase!”

Mike Thorpe, leader of the Millers maniac group with 82 Millers runs in 2020 says “The Millers run is a special piece of ocean, one day you’re soaking up the scenery, from whales to sunsets over the mountain, the next you are racing your mates or yourself and sometimes doubting your abilities and your sanity. All of this with the convenience and support of Millers Taxi that we often get to rub shoulders with legends of surf ski paddling and mere mortals that lends to a very strong sense of comradeship and community.”

And then everyone has that Millers we will never forget…

Neil Kirkwood remembers an epic tale of a Millers run on 10 Dec 2017…SE 35 knots gusting, 4.1 m swell… in attendance, Laousse, Marais, Berrington and Kirkwood.

Berrington and Kirkwood in such esteemed company? If ever a day for the Chicken slipway, no man up for Rumbly Bay. “It’s said the hardest part of a Big Millers is the paddle to the Rock. More than a vestige of truth in that. No setting of the Garmin not the time for remount practice. Blast past the Rock straight onto multiple runs. Laousse, Marais have gone. Strange! Charlie’s voice seems to be a bit high pitched, must be that tight pair of shorts. Buddy system deployed strongly recommended even though you need Xray vision to see another paddler. As for turning your ski around Good Luck. Halfway at the lighthouse already in what seems like minutes possibly a combination of fear, exhilaration, and a healthy dose of stupidity. It picks up here the runs are steep, the gusts treacherous, show me one of us who said he went for every run and I will show you a liar. A bit of “what are we doing here” invades the mind space quickly shoved aside worse thoughts lurk. At the beach fall off in 50CM of water entry reputation intact.

This is what we live for the immense satisfaction of having stared the abyss in the face and prevailed.”

Safety Gear is non-negotiable, the water gets cold and wild! In order of importance (in my opinion):

Leash PFD Tracking device/phone Whistle Warm BRIGHT gear Ability to save yourself

Make sure you can remount your ski in any conditions and work on your swimming. NEVER EVER lose your ski or paddle and if you are in a tricky situation assume no one has seen you or can find you so saving yourself and making a plan to get to land is up to you.

(Note –you can be a good paddler but a beginner on the downwind spectrum, don’t confuse the two)

Do n guide ind pa ddlers

Beginners –10 - 15 knots

Intermediate –15 –20 knots

Experienced –20 –30 knots

Super experienced –30 knots +

Nordic Kayaks Double 670 CarbonX

emma levemyr

I always say that paddling a double is double the fun! It offers a great opportunity for beginners to come along and get a shortcut to see what surfski paddling is all about. I also enjoy taking the double out for a paddle (or should I say battle?) with one of my surfski friends around the local cape when the winds are really strong.We scream and laugh together while enjoying the ocean roller coaster.The double is also often used during interval sessions, both with experienced and less experienced paddlers.

Trent, Evy and I have been friends since 2011 and we live and paddle in the waters off the Swedish West Coast.Together we owned and paddled the Epic V10 double (ultra) and the CS Zest double. For me, these two doubles are fairly equal in stability and speed. I find the seating

comfort better in the Zest and I liked the feeling of a somewhat shorter double. Both surf well, no question about that.A few years ago, I bought the Fenn Elite S double (carbon), a truly beautiful elite surfski.After my friend improved the cockpit drainage by replacing the rather poor Fenn scuppers with the efficient DeBrito bailers, it changed from being a bath-tub to a rocket-ship.

The Fenn double is still on my surfski rack while the Epic and Zest now belong to other happy paddlers.The newcomer is the Nordic Kayaks (NK) 670 double. My two friends and I got interested when we heard that NK was about to build a double surfski.We were looking for a double with great seating comfort, since this has been the issue for some of us with both the Epic and the Zest. Evy, one of the part owners, is pretty short and has been longing for a double with a low hump and a foot rest possible to adjust for her leg length. Since we are all paddling NK singles we were sure the NK double would fulfill our requirements.

Weight and materials

The NK Double comes in three materials/weight classes, Carbon Hybrid 18 kilos, Carbon Lite 13.8 kilos and CarbonX 13.4 kilos. NK skis are currently built using prepreg material with autoclave curing, creating an extra light yet strong construction.We decided to go for one of the lightest ones as I wanted to be able to load it on my minibus on my own. In retrospect, I am so happy we chose to spend the extra money on the lighter one. I just love to handle it, to me the light weight

turned out to be more important than I thought. More to come about that later.

Stability

When replacing the Zest double I was looking for a double in the same range when it came to stability.The NK double is 50cm wide, which is one cm wider than the Zest, which is 0,7 cm wider than the Epic. I would say the stability of the NK double and the Zest are about equal.

The coc kpit

Oh those NK buckets –how I love them!

The main reason why we wanted to upgrade the double is because of the bucket and cockpit.To me, the NK cockpits (since 2017) are the most comfy I have ever tried, especially the bucket.Also the

humps are low and positioned a bit closer to the bucket, which I do appreciate even though I have long legs.Another thing I enjoy with these cockpits is that they offer a higher seating position than I encountered on previous skis.

The cockpit rails are a bit lower than on the Zest, which makes re-entry a bit easier but results in a wetter ride.

The front cockpit fits persons 155- 195cm tall (beam 43cm) and the rear cockpit fits persons 165-200cm (beam: 45.5cm).

The paddle entry for the rear cockpit is a bit wide, today I find myself hitting the deck a bit too often.

Steering

The NK Double comes with self adjustable steering and with a foot rest that is easy to adjust. In the double it is possible to steer both from the front seat and from the back seat.We thought this may be a problem but also knew it would be possible to replace the foot rest in the back with one without pedals. In the end, when using the double, we found this only to be a nice feature. I will now be able to let my friends take the front seat because I can steer from the back seat.

Our double came with the race rudder, which was too small for the bigger waves.We have now replaced it with the wave rudder.

The length

The NK double is 670 cm long.The Zest is 725 cm long and the Epic v10 Double is even longer, at 760 cm to be exact.

This short double truly has some advantages but maybe some disadvantages.With the shorter length I have got a double that is very easy to maneuver, it is very easy to drive and, in that sense, it feels like paddling a K2 when sitting in the front seat. It is also easy to carry around and load on roof racks. What are the disadvantages? Well, when paddling upwind meeting choppy waves, it can be a bit wet in the front seat. During the first test I did the conditions were pretty wild with winds over 28 knots and waves over two meters around the local cape.The first 30 minutes was a great upwind struggle, with strong wind and small but very choppy waves while we were still inshore. And yes I got swamped every now and then, definitely more frequently than if I had been sitting in a full length double.The integrated wave deflector helps a lot but still, I got wet.To me that’s no problem since the bailer is so efficient but ask me again in January when the water

When meeting the bigger waves the ski behaved just like the full-length ones, going up and over them. Surfing those beautiful waves was great fun, and with the NK double it was easy to hold position and maintain the wave.When going downwind in smaller and slower waves (0,3m waves) I noticed the speed was great as long as I could surf the waves at an angle, but when trying to go straight downwind I would get a bit stuck.With a full length ski it would

probably be easier to climb over the smaller waves. On the other hand, I found it easier to surf the waves with an angle and the ski showed up to be much faster than I thought.

With the shorter length/shorter nose, the buoyancy of the ski is of course lower and this becomes obvious in some wave conditions. I have used the double a lot since we unwrapped it, both in flat and big conditions, with beginners and with more experienced paddlers, and I am very happy to pay this price of less buoyancy since the advantages of this ski far outweigh the disadvantages to me.

Conclusion

I have got a double that I really look forward to taking out for a paddle. It is comfy, fun, easy to paddle, it works fine for me bringing beginners out and it is fast enough to race. Family members enjoy it as well since it is a great and fun means of transportation between the rocky islands in the small archipelago where we live. It is so light we can

lift it up at almost any rock and go for a swim or a coffee. I have noticed that I use this double more frequently than any of the other doubles and right now, it seems that I only need one double.

https://youtu.be/ei5d7w10nrA

https://youtu.be/tII0J6BV8iY