Dane Sloss and Mark Dennis ( Event Directors )

After competiting around Australia and the World in paddling events, keen Ocean Ski competitor and Queensland Single Ski Champion Dane Sloss saw the need to create an ocean paddling event on the Gold Coast with prizes and prestige simialr to the major events held in Sydney.  With help from club stalwart Mark Dennis and his fundrasing experience and the consent of the Burleigh Heads SLSC they set about making this a reality!

Keen to offer support to fledgling ocean paddling events around the country and to help grow the sport, ocean paddling Legend Dean Gardiner was kind enough to make the event part of the Australian Ocean Racing Series (AORS) and lend the support of his OceanPaddler brand.

When Dane told his long time friend, former Australian Double Ski runner up and chairperson of ProChoice Saftey Gear, TIm Bird he was the first to offer a hand with the financial support of a naming rights sponsorship and the "ProChoice Safety Gear Burleigh Ocean Challenge" was born!

Burleigh Heads SLSC ( 2010 Event Host )

The Burleigh Heads Mowbray Park SLSC was founded in 1923 and is one of Australia’s most successful and respected Surf Life Saving Clubs in both beach patrol and surf sports competition.

The club now consists of 1450 members, made up of 250 active patrolling members, 700 associate members and over 500 nippers. BHMP nippers are the current Queensland Champions and have been for the last 3 years. The active members are the qualified award holders who voluntarily carry out an average of 5300 patrol hours per season - (August to April).

With a competition history dating back to the 1920’s predominately in the R&R and March Past arenas, Burleigh’s new found success in surf sports at the Australian Tittles only came in the first part of the new millennium thanks to the exploits of former Australian Paddle Board Champion Simon Musgrove and Beijing Olympian and Surf Ski Champion Jacob Clear, who will be one of the favorites in the “Ocean Challenge”.

With medals in the Taplin Relay (2008&2009) at the Australian Tittles and being home to the current Queensland Single Ski Champion Dane Sloss and up and coming water sports athletes like Nick Dennis and Miranda Davies, Burleigh has shown itself to be one of the most powerful surf sports clubs in the country.

Dez Blanchfield ( Event Developer & Manager )

Dez is a relatively new face to the paddle sport industry, and a self proclaimed "punter", who despite growing up on Bougainville island in the Solomons where paddling a hand made canoe which usually comprised of a hollowed out log and an outrigger was the usual means of transport (there weren't many roads on the island), only recently go back into paddling as a way to get back in shape and loose some weight.

After six months of training with the legendary Guy Leech, which usually involved chasing Guy around Sydney harbour on plastic tubs and wondering if your heart was going to explode befor the end of the session, it didn't take long to transition from plastic tubs to jumping on an ocean racing ski. As Dez puts it "..we'd watch these guys on Skis go screaming past.. I wanted to be one of those guys!".

After some hillarious weeks of learning how to stay on the correct side ( turns out it's the top! ) of a surf ski, and yes there's some hillarious videos of it on Youtube for your entertainment if you're interested, Dez took to ski paddling with a vengance, and hasn't looked back since, having earned his stripes as he puts it with the journey from a fibreglass Fenn XT, to a carbon Fenn Mako 6, and then the current carbon Think Uno.

Not content with just paddling on a surf ski as a "punter", Dez decided back in November 2008 that there was a need to bring some standardisation to the whole Paddle Club and Time Trial world, and set about building a Race Management System ( RMS ) that made the whole challenge of setting up and running paddling groups and race events much simpler and a whole lot cheaper. So he started a local Time Trial paddling group he called the Balmoral Blast which turned into a huge success.

After more than two years of work on the whole challenge of running paddling groups and race timing, the end result has culminated in a project called Blast Paddlers, which is rapidly spreading around the world, with new or existing paddling groups joining the "Blast network", to run regular Time Trials, Training Squads, Technique Sessions, Demo Days, and Social Paddles ( and the occasional Social dinner of course ), all run using the Blast RMS.

So it goes without saying, that when the opportunity to partner with Dane Sloss and Mark Dennis to develop and running what has now become the Burleigh Ocean Challenge, it was a no brainer that Dez would jump in and grab the opportunity with both hands.

Dez brings with him the experience of having run over 100 Time Trials back every Saturday in Sydney, dozens of major race envents, and world class race series and charity events, which range from weekend Time Trials that average around 30 to 40 entrants in a handicapped format, through to major events with as may as 770 entrants ( Kayak 4 Kids 2010 ) all powered by Dez's Blast RMS.

We can expect big things of this guy, and as Dez likes to put it "watch this space", as there's some great things coming out of the whole Blast Paddlers project, and the ProChoice Safety Gear Burleigh Ocean Challenge is part of that story. Wait to you see this guy with his "game face" on.

To find out more about the Blast Paddlers story, click here http://BlastPaddlers.COM/