Karel tames "The Doctor" Teaser only video

The picture above is a snapshot from a GoPro video that we had pointing out of the back of the support boat.... just for fun.

Cheers Rambo

#3 Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:52pm

The conditions were ok, just the course line was 45 degrees off ideal surfing conditions. Part of that was because you could not see the mainland till 3/4 way due to smoke from bush fires, so most when too far nth surfing the runners then had to work back.

Jr was ok with it, but the original course from last year was direct downwind and perfect line. It suited the skis better. The main sponsor forced a route change, so there was no option.

Rambo

#11 Tue, 01/20/2009 - 7:33pm

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The Brewery is built right on the ocean front, a wharf actually.

R
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#17 Wed, 01/21/2009 - 1:37pm

As many as u want.

News just in .... from Bart's

Karel paddled "The Doctor" one last time before he left for home yesterday. He described the run as comparable to any of the best downhills in Hawaii. The smile on Karel's face at the end said it all.

R

#19 Wed, 01/21/2009 - 3:02pm

Well here's a little reading of an Epic Doctor paddle, crazy yes, exciting yes.

Riders of the Storm
Sep 28 2008, 9:57PM

To quote the, distinguished and celebrated sage Jerry Seinfeld, “The sea, that day was angry my friends, like an old man returning soup”. And so it was on Sunday the 27th of September a few brave soldiers went to war, from Fremantle sand tracks along hurricane alley down to the picturesque harbour of Sorrento. These men went to war knowing full well that some of them may not return from the horrors that awaited them. The original storm riders that finished at Sorrento, reads like a who’s who of Western Australia’s best downwind paddlers. As you are about to read these now faceless men are bound forever, together in a unity that is only known amongst those that have faced certain death and then had the courage to spit and stare it down.

The task that was set for them this day, without their knowledge was without doubt some of the roughest Southwest conditions ever paddled in. Even living legend, Nick Taylor was said to say, “Oh my god I thought I was dead, this f…..ing monster came at me like a freight train with my name written all over it. Did any of you guys see that thing? It made me f…ing s…t myself.”
As we took off from Trigg in Ash’s car we where all saying,“It’s a Nor West wind, the completely wrong direction this in is going to be bad.” Darryl Griffith, who came down for some moral support and to see some carnage, was laughing and said that he would see us at Sorrento in about three hours. When we finally arrived at Fremantle the occupants fell silent, as the rain buffeted the car, the 30 knot Nor wester had turned to a ranging bull of wind straight out of the south. Excitement tinged with fear, dripping with anticipation was contained to a place where warriors about to do battle live their lives. This was a place that was going to have to be a bloody big, because there where about to be a lot of us huddled together.

Are we going, or was this entirely in vein? We needed a leader, someone to whom other men would look to in a time of crisis, To quote Sean Connery in Highlander:“There can be only one”. From the darkness he came, rain driving into the behemoth yet still he marched forward, unrelenting in his quest to lead. Ash Nesbit was out of the car and taking his ski off the roof, with the wind whipping around him even this was an event worth watching. If Ash is going to do this then we have to follow. Slowly the skis came off the roofs and down to the start. Cold water, 30 to 40 knot winds throwing the craft from side to side, what are we doing? Is this madness or some desire to conquer our own private inner demons that waited each one of us out in the dark depths?
We all paddled up into the relative safety of the groyne and awaited our comrades. Nervous looks, laughter and fear permeated the group that where about to go over the wall and into the mouth of the raging bull.

The wind was screaming, not a single word could be heard, not even from a person 2 meters away. The bull wanted its first victim and it was hungry.
In a reflective moment those first few strokes of any great adventure are uninspiring, even slightly boring due to the fact that there are so many stokes ahead heralding greater excitements to come. Not this day, as we took off, those who have paddled longer than some had been alive where fully aware that at its very worst this would be a day to remember and tell the kids around a fire, if we survive!

I have been paddling in the sea breeze for twenty five years and today was one of those occasions that almost bought me to tears. Oh the humanity, there where bombs going off all around me, my ski was feeling like a drag racer with the brakes let right out. The wind and ocean where as is if they had become one, in a final and total assault on your senses. The first of the big skates began to appear at Cottesloe, where the ocean bed quickly deeps and the predicted eight metre swell had time to get its sights trained on any unsuspecting fool whom was stupid enough to be in its cross hairs. I have had experience paddling in some fairly strong summer puffs that Western Australia is famous for but if what was beginning to present to those who where being lashed by some forty to fifty knot winds was bordering on being completely out of control and very one sided.

I have heard our summer sea breeze sometimes being referred to as “The Fremantle Doctor” well this was Dr Frankenstein and his monster was beginning to stretch and flex its muscles. Greg Mickle, 8 times Western Australian Iron Man Champion was first to take one of the largest drops on an ocean ski I have ever witnessed. To this day there maybe still a concaved compression on the rear deck where in his attempt to keep his Fenn from nose diving to a place where the Australian royal navy may have had to send a deep sea probe just to recover the rudder and stickers from the shattered ski. To my amazement and to others whom witnessed this feat he stood it on its nose and hung on. Some may say his bum may have been his saving grace, but I think some moments of sheer terror in a mans life, like finding out your about to be a father or headed for disaster in a traffic accident your body and soul are truly capable of extraordinary feats. This was one of those moments in time, physiologically he may now be able to hang upside down from his rectum just be recreating a vacuum in his head but then again anything was possible this day.

At this point the group was at around City Beach and experiencing total and utter concentration to keep the ski moving forward and not being spun left or right. Although a greater problem was beginning to present itself. The problem was this, the drops where now so steep that it wasn’t possible to take them straight on and trying to head toward the right and back to land was difficult to attempt as this would spin the tail hard to the left and into the water you go. Only one way to go and that was to head out to sea on the North West direction. “Don’t look back” That’s what I said over and over just keep the ski up and moving forward. The wind gusts that where now becoming so strong, so cold and frequent that all you could do was huddle up in a hunched position and hope like hell that this wasn’t the end of the world, because from where I was looking that was about to happen.

Later on we heard some of the statistics from the bureau of meteorology. From 16 degrees when we left down to 8 degrees one hour lately with wind up to fifty knots and gusts recorded of sixty five. Remembering that at last years World Cup Rotto race, it peaked at 30 knots

We have all survived to Trigg point, we have all stayed close, and we are all f….ing idiots to be out here. I look across to Greg Mickle he is cold and hurting, Ash is firmly fixated on the nose of his ski, Andrew Stevens from Cottesloe is screaming down a giant of a skate, he states later that his venturi’s nearly sucked him through the ski, toes first!!!. I can see Sorrento in the distance and I know that the sea bed will change soon and that the skates will loose some of there power and most importantly a slight glimmer of hope that I will indeed see my wife and children again. My respect for Mother Ocean has yet again risen in my expectation, don’t treat her with distain or lack of acknowledgment of her might, because she will give you a kiss that you will never forget.

Ash looks as though he is beginning to smile and enjoy the last few kilometres. Sorrento, its beginning to shine like a beacon before us.
Some alcoholics profess to have “moments of clarity” when all around them becomes calm, quiet and serene, for me this was one of those moments, when my ski hit the sand at Sorrento Beach. I wanted to emulate the Pope, not to have found God, although I prayed a lot for an atheist at around City Beach, but I really wanted to get down on my knees and kiss that sand for all it was worth. When I saw Diane Arnott and Darryl Griffths on the beach they didn’t seem to be touching the ground and simply drifted toward us ready to help.

Those whose noses hit the beach that day all became banded as brothers, to have survived it was a feat of spirit and endurance with a massive dollop of pure luck.I looked back to see Shawn Rice, one of our elder statesmen, the face that I saw was of a man of about twenty and had just met the girl of his dreams, “How good was that, Shawn said, some of those wave must have been fifteen foot and they where the ones that got me to the large skates”.Tony Bowman from down South couldn’t believe that his ski was in one piece but was sure that the hull must look like the space shuttle after re entry, “Skis are not designed to go that fast”

It was over, we had survived and at this point no one had been lost. Four of the original starters, Adam Bloomfield, Michael Baker, Matt Bowbridge and Todd Brewer had “pulled the pin” at Trigg Point and had managed to get onto the shore at Perth’s biggest metropolitan surf beach, though from what I heard later the carnage that resulted would have been worth witnessing. Michael Cook a forty year veteran of the beach and head lifeguard saw the boys make their way in at Trigg and was heard to say, “You guys are mad being out there, you should be shot”

To finalise this adventure and to provide you with a small epitaph, somewhere down the coast a member of the public witnessed a paddler fall from his craft and then lost sight of the floundering person. A quick phone call to the local plod gained momentum to the point that the rescue helicopter was dispatched in some terrible flight conditions to look for this lost paddler.
Blissfully unaware of events unfurling down the coast the soldiers who went to war, as old soldiers do, told of huge monster skates that where conquered or just the spectacle of them. Giggling adult men are rare in groups but maybe its the norm after life altering events such as we had just embraced. No fallen heroes this day, we accounted for all our paddlers at the end, even after seeing the evening’s news and being told that, “A group of paddlers where seen at Cottesloe Beach but had then disappeared into the waves” one witness said to the serious young reporter.

The warriors who finished at Sorrento that day are as follows,
Greg (vacuum ass) Mickle
Ash (face like a split watermelon) Nesbit
Shawn (actually grew younger) Rice
Tony (needs a new ski) Bowman
Dean (need to up grade his will) Beament
Andrew (eyes like dinner plates) Stevens
Nick (Oh my God, I’m F…ed) Taylor.

The water police finally caught up with us a few days post the run just to try and find out what the hell we where thinking attempting such a paddle.

Riders Of The Storm, some want it tattooed on their chest others a statue erected to commemorate the day. Me I’m just happy to be able to sit here and document the moment I thought I was going to die. Its always difficult to put down on paper just how events unfold just let me say that ninety five percent of the time I was screaming!!!!!

Dean Beament

Cheers Rambo

#23 Wed, 01/21/2009 - 10:59pm