Ta-Hoe Nalu Festival

Article and Photography by team rider, Kim James.

Wow! What a race weekend! The Ta-Hoe Nalu festival was held at King’s Beach CA, north of Lake Tahoe. We were at 6,229 ft elevation on the lake, which is 22 miles long and 12 miles wide. In normal situations this would have been a beautiful flat water race, but that was not the case!
The weather to start the first of the five races for the weekend called for blustery winds with gusts up to 25mph and they weren’t kidding! The lake turned into the Atlantic Ocean on spin cycle! I raced in the recreational division, which had the largest amount of racers with over 100 participants. We were all excited to race, but were wishing the conditions would let up. The wind and large side chop made for a very challenging race. Our 5 mile race had us going parallel to the beach which proved to be very difficult with the wind and side chop. Most racers had to drop down to knee stance to even stay in the race. As we all finished we were happy to have gone out there and do the best we could in the challenging conditions.
The air was chilly but the sun was shining enough to enjoy tasty cold beverages as the reward…even at 10am! Following the recreational race was the Grom race and the kids got to give it their best. The Elite race followed at 1:30 and it was awesome to watch the big names in the sport charge through the finish line.
The weekend was full of fun with many SUP sponsors hanging out at their tents promoting the 2011 boards and paddles. I really enjoyed my race weekend in Tahoe and was glad to have had the support and help from Coastal Urge and the guys at Surftech, who made sure I had a BARK Competitor there to race. I really enjoyed meeting Gabe, George and Ty from Surftech and trying out the new 14ft BARK Dominator, a great all around SUP board from Micky Munoz and Robert August. I learned so much from these guys this weekend. I am also thankful for the hospitality of my Kialoa paddle family for the paddle, dinner, and great conversations we had. I’m looking forward to the next time we can all see each other again. Looks like it will be in October at the 2nd Annual Southeast SUP Championship. It was an amazing weekend full of challenging SUP Races, great friends, crazy weather and beautiful scenery! Can’t wait to go again next year!
-Kim James