Paddle 45

by Keeth Conway

The Paddle45 race takes place in Suttons Bay Michigan a small quiet town in Northern Michigan Michigan. It is a 3 day festival of events that begins with a social paddle on Friday evening with all levels of paddlers joining in and afterwards enjoying drinks and brick oven pizzas made with fresh local ingredients. Saturday is a paddle that may be a downwinder on the big lake or a shipwreck paddle depending on weather conditions. This year with the calm conditions we wake surfed behind my boat which was a hoot.
 The race has a “Badass” category where racers can opt to do both the 5k and 10k race for a cumulative time. Many paddlers even did each race on different crafts and we use a handicap system to even the playing field. We had OC, SUP, SUrfski and prone.  The badass winners for female were Danielle Holdsworth (1st), Lauren Dorsey (2nd), Kirsten Lefeldt (3rd) all on a SUP. The men’s Badass winners were Dan Novak (OC, SUP) , Rob Hartman (2nd) (Surfski), Nick Murray (3rd) (surfski).
The race started off with some side chop for the 5k and the first mile of the 10k when the wind laid down for a flat calm race which is unusual for Suttons Bay which is part of Lake Michigan. The flat water paddlers definitely had the advantage this year. Overall winners in the SUP were Dan Novak, Jay James, and Thomas Hardin.  Full results can be found on Paddleguru, then Paddle45 is the race.