Kelly Margetts, who just signed with Sunova, tells us more about this partnership and his trip in the USA where he will participate in several races throughout the month. He also come back on his first race on the American continent, the Coconut Cup SUP Festival, where he won the 12K flatwater and placed second in the 10K Technical Elite Course.
Signing with Sunova at the start of the year was an easy decision for me. Sunova’s vision for our sport and its future were on point with mine. In addition to the opportunity to help build a sustainable, grass roots, SUP race unit; as well as to help build and manage a race team, was to good to be true. Sunova have already proven themselves as one of the best SUP surf brands in the world with their innovative design and construction. Bert’s balsa technology, which put Firewire Surfboards on the map, gives our raceboards not only a unique look, but the balsa flex memory offers a distinct advantage. Add that to the pioneering designs from legendary Australian downwind paddler Marcus Tardrew, and we have a recipe for a fun future ahead.
I’ve been working hard with paddlepowertrainer.com in my preseason training and I have planned a pretty cool trip with my fiancé Sarah. We’re bringing Sunova to the southeast United States with a couple of island races, technique clinics in Florida at Urban Kai and Blueline, and then we’re taking on the Carolina Cup‘s infamous Graveyard along with the world’s best paddlers. From there, we’ll finish the trip in Annapolis with the Capital SUP crew.
We’ve started our Sunova Tour in the US Virgin Islands, visiting good friends Jeramie Vaine, Bill Kraft and Isabelle Picard from Kite and Paddle St Croix for the Coconut Cup last weekend.
Friday we had the 12km downwinder on the western point of beautiful St Croix. It started at picturesque Cane Bay right off the beach and straight into the long rolling bumps. The first 6km was super fun, but then got pretty technical with the backwash around Hams Point. The second half continued into a flat-water grind, right along the rocky coastline to the finish at Freedom City Surf in Frederiksted.
My new Sunova worked really well in these conditions, nice long bumps into the rough backwash, and then glided home in the flat. Josh Riccio was close the whole race after some leg rope issues at the start, but I was able to hold him off and take the win by 1min 30sec in those hot conditions. Mo came in third, Garrett Fletcher fourth, and local legend, as well as my host, Bill Kraft rounding out the top five. After 48hrs of travel, it was a great way to blow out the jet lag and put my early season training to the test.
Day two was the sprints, but I had an option to explore the island and got to surf most of the day so I didn’t race.
Day three was the 10km technical in the protected waters in front of the Freedom Surf City shop and restaurant bar, which created a great atmosphere. It was a loop race, which we did 5 laps of a diamond-ish shaped course. My pintail was less suited to the buoy turns than the downwind run, so knew it would be tough-going, backing up Friday’s win. Josh and Garrett got off to a great start with Mo and Bill on their tails, as well as young Brian Alvarez from Puerto Rico on his 12’6 who got a flyer of a start. I had to work through the field after an average start and was unable to catch Josh, who looked strong out in front with a gap on the field after lap one. I was stoked to come away with a second place.
The Coconut Cup was a nice way to start my first international trip for the year.
Several members of the TotalSUP Team have boards from SUNOVA Surfboards and we are SUPer happy to share some big-name additions to the SUNOVA SUP Racing squad before the 2023 ICF World Championships in November. Team manager and top SUP racer Christian Taucher has all the SUNOVA news Hi Christian, I hear you’ve been busy since our last […]
Avec un record de participants en lice pour cette 17ème édition, le Fort Boyard Challenge 2023, s’est déroulé le week-end dernier dans des conditions estivales mais peu venteuses. Face à un public présent en grand nombre sur la plage, les participants en stand up paddle et pirogues polynésiennes ont profité d’une mer d’huile sous un […]
Australia’s Gold Coast is an area we might associate with surfing, and stunning beaches with a shoreline developed for tourism, it is a hotspot for holidaymakers from around the world. But there is much more to the area than the plentiful beach breaks and paddlers looking for some longer, racier SUP action. SUNOVA paddler Monika […]
Anni Ridsdill Smith is a well-known name on the UK SUP Racing circuit, she seems to be at every race and she is now spreading her wings to compete in Europe and further afield. This season she has joined the ranks of paddlers moving to SUNOVA for their FAAST race craft after what seems like […]
SUP and SUP Racing is a sport that increasingly is attracting athletes from varied backgrounds. Many competitive paddlers have a background in watersports but an increasing number of SUP Racers have been competitive at a high level in other, completely unrelated sports. SUNOVA fan Polona Pusljar is one of those athletes who has already had […]
SUNOVA are a Surf and SUP brand famous for wooden SUP race boards which can be seen on the start lines of SUP races all around the world. Over the last two seasons, the brand has been expanding its roster of team riders and are now getting results at the top level of the sport. […]
“Stacked field of pro SUP athletes”, “gnarly ocean conditions”, “incredible experience” and “an excellent event organisation” are some of the recurring themes summing up the Madeira Island Sup Challenge (MISC) 2023, the EuroTour Grand Slam event, held on the Madeira Island this past weekend, a stunning archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean and located about […]
Christian Taucher is a name you might not be familiar with but this new signing to the SUNOVA race team is a very experienced paddler you should keep an eye on. A multiple Austrian champion and coach, Christian’s SUP journey started back in 2016 after his retirement from professional handball. Based in Graz, Austria Christian […]
SUP foiling is a rapidly growing part of Stand Up Paddling with more and more paddlers learning to fly. As more paddlers learn how to make the most of their new skills Downwind SUP Foiling has seen a huge growth in popularity, particularly down under with their perfect ocean swells proving a great way to combine […]
Use of cookies
This website uses cookies in order to make it easier to use and to support the provision of relevant information and functionality to you.
Necessary Cookies
Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.
3rd Party Cookies
We use a set of third party tools to provide information on how our users engage with our website so that we can improve the experience of the website for our users. For example, we collect information about which of our pages are most frequently visited, and by which types of users. Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!