Vela & Appleby Win Hobie Hennessey’s Waterman’s Challenge 2014

Fun, contestable conditions prevailed for the 5th Annual Hobie Hennessey’s Waterman Challenge | Image: Mike Muir

DOHENY BEACH, California - Doheny Beach served up great weather and small 1’-2’ waves last Saturday for the 5th Annual Hobie Hennessey’s Waterman Challenge. For this unique event, the elite racers combined the places of a 5-mile distance race, and 5-lap technical race through the surf.

The Elite field was a quaint gathering of SUP’s local stars like Colin McPhillips, Byron Kurt, Dave Boehne, Anthony Vela, Brandi Baksic, Kristin Thomas, and Candice Appleby; and young stars like Noa Hopper, Alleanna Clark, Shae Foudy, Javier “Bicho” Jiminez, Sean Pangelian, and Brennan Rose.

On the women’s side, Candice skimmed her way to an early lead off the start in the Distance race and never looked back. Brandi Baksic and Shae Foudy battled it out for second place, the entire race, and finishied off with an exciting run up the beach. Shae 2nd and Brandi 3rd.

Anthony Vela, Ryan Murphy, Noa Hopper and Karl Ring

In the Technical Race Candice again had a great skim off the beach and glided to an early lead. Catching a wave all to herself on the 1st lap and remained in front the entire race, while passing lots of men in the mean time. Brandi and Shae once again battled for the entire five laps with Brandi. This time Brandi edged her way in front with Shae 3rd. For the combined score the result of the technical race would be the tie-breaker, so Brandi finished 2nd overall, Shae 3rd and Candice Appleby taking the undisputed win. Complete results below.

Candice Appleby and Shae Foudy

The Elite Men’s race saw Javier Jimenez leading the draft train to the 1st turning buoy, followed by Brennan Rose and Anthony Vela. The top two started on a course to the wrong 2nd turning buoy, while Vela lead the pack to the famous Red Seal Buoy about ¾ of a mile off Doheny Beach. Noa Hopper, Sean Pangelian and Vela broke away from the pack forming the lead group for most of the race. With about one mile to go, Ryan Murphy broke away from the train and charged his way to the front taking the win, with Sean, Anthony, Noa close behind in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th respectively. Javier and Brennan were disqualified for not completing the correct course.

The Men’s technical race was similar to the distance race with Javier, Brennan, and Anthony getting out to the front of the pack. Of the 5 laps they rode waves in together 3 times including the finish, which was another exciting run up the beach. Since Brennan and Javier were disqualified in the distance race, they were racing for fun, and Anthony Vela took the technical race win, and overall Waterman’s Challenge win. Colin McPhillips surfed his way through the field to take 2nd place in the surf race. The event also featured a 9-mile distance race for SUP and Prone paddlers, a kid’s race, and 3-mile fun race. The kid’s proved to be brave, skillful and inspiring as always, with impressive wave catching skills and hard fought finishes.

Elite Men Top 10 Overall

• Anthony Vela
• Sean Pangelinan
• Ryan Murphy
• Noa Hopper
• Karl Ring
• Dave Boehne
• Colin McPhillips
• Brian Haag
• Byron Kurt
• Brendan Light

Elite Women Top 5

• Candice Appleby
• Brandi Baksic
• Shae Foudy
• Kelsa Gabehart
• Alleanna Clark

*All images: Mike Muir