So last Saturday was stage 3 of the Baysup Frostbite Race series here in Bournemouth which is local club level racing. This series has been running for 6 years now and has been a fundamental part of racing in the UK. It allows newbie racers to get started and prepare for the race season or seasoned competitors the opportunity to race during the winter months. Cold and rainy conditions kept the race series living up to its name but still a good turnout considering. I was riding the Equinox and Scott Brown on the Vortex 23.5”.

With the Equinox being an open ocean board, it was going to be interesting to see how this went in lake conditions. The results were very good with me finishing 2nd behind Market Slater who dominated and Scott took 3rd. I got a good start and kept tight to Mark Slater for a lap then he hammered down but I still managed to keep my 2nd place throughout. The Equinox glides beautifully, the nose obviously is not as efficient as the Vortex but the overall design of the Equinox made it awesome on the flat. It’s a rough water board so it was great on the start line as the nose just ploughed through any chop from the other paddlers. Although this was a distance race, there were 35 buoy turns! This is because this stage was moved to a small lake as the river where we usually have distance races was flowing too hard due to the recent bad weather. I did a mixture of bow and pivot turns and it was awesome.

Scott had an unfortunate tumble at the first buoy which allowed me to push ahead. I could hear him breathing down my neck the whole way but I managed to stay ahead. Scott is clearly a faster paddler in a distance race but with so many buoys turns on the Vortex 23.5” and being a tad heavy for that board the result was superb.

So it was great to see the Equinox paddle so well on the flat. If you are looking at one board which can cover various water conditions then the Equinox has to be high on your list. The Vortex is out and out flat water and a true speed machine whereas the Equinox is the 4x4 of the range and can cover multiple terrain very efficiently.