Race report and photos from New Balance Grading Race

Durban - Defending champion Matt Bouman held off a dogged Grant van der Walt to win the first leg of the Discovery Sunglass Hut Surfski Series in flat conditions on Durban Bay on Sunday.

From the start of the New Balance grading race at DUC the duo quickly put significant water between themselves and the chasing pack, with Bouman edging clear as he milked the runs on the downwind leg to Battery beach, and van der Walt using his famed flatwater speed to repeatedly grind back onto his wave.

The pair came into the finish at uShaka beach side by side, and while Bouman hoisted up his ski for the sprint up the beach to the finish, van der Walt stumbled and fumbled with his ski, affording Bouman a flattering victory margin of four seconds.

"It was hard to keep him off my back," said Bouman at the finish. "Every time I managed to get ahead on the runs, he somehow managed to grind back at me. He is a tough competitor, and the conditions suited him today."

Sub-Master Herman Chalupsky finished third, ahead of Marc Holtzhausen and U18 winner and reigning junior world marathon champion Brandon van der Walt.

Toti wiz Michelle Eder quickly stamped her authority on the women's race, and raced away unchallenged to steadily extend her lead over the dogged Donna Winter to an eventual victory margin of just over two minutes, with Mandy Rawlins finishing third.

The double ski category also ended in a needle sprint-finish, where Quinton Rutherford and Brian Taylor made the best of their beaching and sprint up the beach to edge out Marc Germiquet and Warren Valentine.

The mixed double ski class was comfortably won by Patrick Maloney and Kerry Segal.

The race was ideal for novice surfski paddlers, as the expected overnight cold front failed to materialise, and the anticipated three metre westerly swell didn't make an appearance, leaving Durban Bay flat as a millpond, with some runs on offer on the northbound leg from the harbour mouth to Battery beach.

The race enjoyed massive support for the short and long course options, with hundreds of skis lining the beach from the harbour breakwater to Ushaka pier at the start. However the massive entry was shy of the world record entry for a surfski race of 525 paddlers set at a series race in Durban several years ago.

Next weekend the Discovery Sunglass Hut Surfski Series moved to Dairy Beach for the 14km Powerade Dairy Beach race, the final warm-up for the Dunlop Surfski World Cup the following weekend.

More information and results can be found at www.surfski.co.za

SUMMARY OF RESULTS
DISCOVERY SUNGLASS HUT SURF SKI SERIES
New Balance Grading Race
Men
1.Matt Bouman 53.51
2.Grant van der Walt 53.55
3.Herman Chalupsky 55.55
4.Marc Holtzhausen 56.09
5.Brandon van der Walt 56.52
6.Andre Pohl 57.02
7.Wayne Wilson 57.29
8.Mark Mulder 57.33
9.Oliver Burn 57.38
10.Steve Cohen 58.09

Women
1.Michelle Eder 1:03.03
2.Donna Winter 1:05.12
3.Mandy Rawlins 1:12.48

Double ski
1.Quinton Rutherford/Brian Taylor 54.35
2.Marc Germiquet/Warren Valentine 54.39
3.Dwayne Powell/Steve Atkinson 57.05
4.Simon Russell/Wayne Volek 57.34
5.Stretch Struwig/Eddie Smith 57.44