Slater Trout – Official Website

Just finished up an amazing weekend at the Rainbow Sandals Gerry Lopez Battle of the Paddle at Duke Kahanamoku Beach in Waikiki.  We headed over from Maui last Wednesday and met up with my manager Ben Cortez who came in from California for the event and to hang out.  We spent Thursday and Friday getting boards organized, paddling and catching up with lots of friends who had all come together for the event.  So many great paddlers all in one place!  They were here from all over Hawaii, California, Australia, Florida and many other places.  Everyone was busy getting in the water, doing the Hawaii Kai downwind run for practice, seeing old friends and just generally getting excited for the event.  Thursday night we met up with the crew from Surftech for dinner,  shaper Joe Bark makes my race boards.  Then Friday night was the kickoff  party at the Quicksilver store in Waikiki, great food and a room full of legendary surfers and waterman.  I spent Saturday morning sleeping in, then tried to down some oatmeal and banana but did not have much of an appetite, I was thinking about the race coming up that afternoon, the elite race of the Battle.  The course was five miles long and covered a shallow reef so they scheduled the race for 3pm, high tide.  After breakfast I made my way to the beach to check out all the sponsor tents, vendors and all that was going on.  Then back to the room to hydrate and rest.  By race time everyone was ready to go and lined up on the beach with boards and paddles in hand.  The horn blew and off we were. I have not heard a final count but I bet there were 100 or more racers.  They had a live stream of the whole event on the web that was awesome.  I got a good start and settled into about fourth place with two paddlers taking a bit of a lead from my group.  We had wind, heat and if you were lucky some waves.  I seemed to miss the sets but that is just the way it goes. I battled back and forth from third to fifth and back to third. The course was M shaped and took us in and out three times with a run up the beach twice.  Everyone had a board handler who would grab your board as you jumped off and have it ready for you to jump back on after a short run through a course in the sand. On my last pass through the course  I rounded the last buoy as a group of several paddlers caught a nice swell and rode right past me…ouch.  My third fell to seventh at the end. I was happy with top ten and winner Danny Ching sure deserved it, he paddled so hard going back and forth with Travis Grant from Australia for much of the race.  Travis ended up second with famed Hawaiian paddler Arron Napolean third and great Australian paddler Jamie Mitchell in fourth. After a quick awards ceremony we headed to dinner with the gang from Maui Jim, but I had to leave a bit early to get home to bed, I was beat.  All the competitors agreed it was a tough course and a hard race.  The next morning I opted out of the downwind event and hung out to cheer on the winners after the 10 mile race and sure enough it was once again Danny Ching, he was on a roll!  That afternoon was the final event, the team relay.  We had a good team together, a bunch of Surftech riders.  I started out, then Matt Becker from California took over, he turned it over to Elite women’s winner, Candice Appleby, and the final leg would be a great paddler from Oahu, Scott Gamble.  Each of us would take two turns on the out and back sprint course.  I had a good start but with Danny Ching right with me the whole time and I barely hit the beach first after the first lap.  The team battled back and forth for over half an hour but in the end Danny’s team got a lead and took first.  Congrats to them they had an amazing group of paddlers Danny Ching, Travis Grant, Jamie Mitchell and Californian Brandi Baksic.  We were happy with second considering there were 45 teams!  Tonight dinner with Surftech again, getting packed up, we head to LA tomorrow then to Florida on Tuesday.  Great weekend, great event and now I am really looking forward to the California Battle in early October.  A huge thanks to Rainbow Sandals and all the sponsors that made this event possible. See ya at the next one.  ST