SurfSki is one of those upcoming new canoe disciplines. It is getting more popular every year. It requires easy timing and if possible splits taken somewhere on the course to get intermediate results. It’s a relative young paddle sport discipline although surfskis have been used in Australia by beach guard crews and races were held in Australia for a long time. RaceGorilla provides the platform to time the race and display the results live at the internet using just a couple of smartphones.  When organising a race, you will not have to hire expensive hardware or a professional timing team. Your crew of volunteers can do the job all by themselves.

Characteristics of surfski

Surfski races usually have a mass start from the beach and a finish on the beach as well. Competitors run across the finish line and press a button to stop the time. The races are usually downwind races, enabling the athletes to surf on the waves during the race. Live split time updates are interesting for the spectators as sometimes large distances are covered along the beach and can be hard to follow the race.

When timing a surfski race, it is possible to use just use manual timing. If the times have to be more accurate, just connect the finish button to a Alge Timy or a Tag Heuer CP5xx and send the times to the smartphone at the finish using RaceGorilla Bluebox, the exact time will be online in a matter of seconds.

Mass start format for surfski races

Most surfski races, use the a mass start format. All competitors start at once or in groups.
A simple race only has a start and a finish. To give more insights of the race to the supporters, just add a number of split points.
For a quick test just use the standard format available in RaceGorilla.
The simple default race for a tower running event has a start and a finish, and a category of men and women. If you want to set up a race with more splits or more categories, use the RaceGorilla dashboard to set up a race entirely to you demands.

Try it yourself

Just download the app and experience how easy it is!
If you do find it hard to get going, you can read our Quick Start Guide, or if you have any questions, please send us a message.

Do you want to check what the results can look like? Hav a look at this example of the Dutch Coast Race in Surfski in The Netherlands