Behind Surfin'Venice

SurfingVenice SUP test from TheInsider on Vimeo.

It's pretty a while that at RRD we're working to this great event called Surfin'Venice.

The main idea was launched last fall.
Then it take pretty a while to find a meeting date good for everybody.
And it was already February 2010 when we had the first check to find a place good enough to start the parade and another one suitable for the RRD village, and the race course as well.
At that time, Miki Eskimo was the only one who paddled on the Venice's channels, so we discovered that we need to test on a paddle board the parade course to verify how much difficult was to keep the balance when the motor-boat pass you by, how time it takes to make the whole course from the start at Piazzale Tronchetto until Campo S. Biasio, and many details like this.

So the test day was a pretty cold and grey day of April, and we discovered that:
- if you are just a little use to manage a SUP board at the sea, it's very easy to keep balance Canal Grande, since the water il completely flat, and the slow the traffic generates mainly small chop.
- You always have to stay concentrated on what you're doing, since there are a lot of beautiful things that make you turn around the head! Be careful, since to fall in the water in Venice is prohibited!
- Chop become more powerful and tricky in Canale della Giudecca (the place where Michy Eskimo is paddling on the event poster picture), in front of Piazza S.Marco, where boats are more, bigger and their speed is higher.
Bend your knees and go on paddling! A few hundred of meters and you've done it!
- Canal Grande is the longest Venice Channel. It's about 6 km long. So you need to be in a decent shape to cover this distance paddling until the end.
- To paddle following an historical Venetian rowing boat is not just cool, but very useful as well, since this way you're always sure that other boats will see you and you will always be in the right place at the right moment, avoiding to cross boats way in a dangerous way.
That's why the 100 SUP riders will be divided in 10 groups following 10 historical Venetian rowing boat keeping a right distance from the others to allow an healthy flow of the typical Venetian boat traffic along it's principal way.

And so... what's going on?
Are you ready to join the family?

check it out how to do it