After 250km of intense paddling up the Sunshine Coast during the Carbonology Sport PE2EL Surfski Challenge, an incredibly close race developed in the doubles category.
On the first day, a monumental 77km, a blanket could be thrown over eight of the A batch doubles for the majority of the stage.
It was only in the final push to the finish where the damage was done, which saw lifetime friends Jason Goedhals and Hein van Rooyen making the move to win, together with club mates Howard Loftus and Andrew Stone.
The title sponsors took the lead and never looked back until the final stage on day four.
Goedhals and Van Rooyen, co-founders of Carbonology Sport, have always had a love affair with the challenge and it was a dream realised when the opportunity arose to become event sponsors.
Goedhals was only a couple of months old when he found himself strapped to his mother wishing his dad good luck in one of the legendary mid-70s’ challenges.
Van Rooyen, an ex-Springbok kayak sprinter and marathon representative, took on his first challenge as a junior and has been hooked ever since.
Day four dawned and, with the majority of the hard work done, most paddlers look forward to a relatively easy canter to Orient Beach to complete one of the most gruelling endurance events on earth.
However, for Loftus and Stone it was a day full of pain and suffering as they went out on a solo breakaway in an attempt to not only win the stage but the challenge itself by clawing back the 3:11 deficit.
It was a monumental pull and it seemed the impossible had been done, but Goedhals and Van Rooyen, together with the third-placed crew from Durban, chased hard to limit the damage.
As the chasing crews neared the East London harbour the only ship to leave port that day decided to do so at the most inopportune time and, under strict instructions from the NSRI safety boat, Goedhals and Van Rooyen were ordered to stop for close on five minutes.
Confusion ensued as to who had actually won and after a complex meeting to decide the outcome for the title the race committee eventually decided to award Goedhals and Van Rooyen the win by a mere 59 seconds.
Challengers Loftus and Stone were left perplexed and decided to appeal, but were not successful. However, unbeknown to the race directors, new evidence from the paddlers’ personal Garmins suggested that, in fact, it was just too close to call.
An incredible result to be separated by mere seconds with one calculation separating the two doubles by less than a second.
To the credit of both crews, an incredible gesture was made and it was decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to share the title, which was accepted by the event director.
There is nothing quite like the PE2EL surfski race – four days of pain and suffering, but the field also gets to take in the magnificent stretch of coast between PE and East London.