As the WCA’s Freestyle Development Officer I am putting on a series of development weekends across Wales with demo freestyle boats, free coaching and a fun competition. If you or someone you know in Wales is wanting to get into freestyle, then there’s never been a better time to try it. We’re also looking for budding rodeo stars to make up a squad which will compete at freestyle events nationwide. Check out the flyer below:
If you need any more info, just drop me an email.
See you on the water… oh and spread the word!
Lowri
Matt has just sent in a video of his latest paddling out in Voss.
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Jonny N
Immediately after breaking up from school, I flew to Porto (and then drove onto Spain) for the European Freestyle Championships. This was my first year in the GB team, and I was travelling reserve for the junior ladies, and competing in the king of the wave!
We (me, dad and Lowri Davies) arrived at the town late on the Saturday before the comp. It was very hot and being stuck in a car with no air conditioning hadn’t helped! After driving around the town for about half an hour just looking for the hotel we managed to find it and meet up with everyone else who was already there. I took this opportunity to find out what the wave was like and just catch up with people.
The ‘wave’ with no water – Saturday night
There was no official team training until a few days after I arrived but I was still waiting for my boat (we had given it to someone who was driving across). It arrived the day before team training started so, eager to get out of the boiling sun, I jumped on. Unfortunately this was just before the wave started to drop so I only got one surf. The next time I just flushed!
By this time everyone had arrived so team training started the next day. We were only given 1 hour on the water and, as we were the biggest team, we were split in to two halves so it was only half an hour. This session was just getting used to the wave as I kept on flushing on the far shoulder. The next day was also team training but this time we were last so we could stay on afterwards. The level that day was a great level (at least for me) so I stayed on for three hours until I was shattered! It was only interrupted at around 2 in the afternoon by about four people snorkeling down the wave!
I’m the dot on the right, spin to win!
Because only people who were competing were allowed on after that the rest of my week was spent cheering on all the competitors and checking out the local sights. I even tried squid which I found disgusting! Oh, and I also was lucky enough to be asked to be flag bearer at the opening ceremony, it wasn’t quite as grand as the olympics, but it was still another first – and great all the same.
I was still really sad that I didn’t get a chance to compete but I was pleased that I managed to see how a competition like this works and how people deal with the pressure. It was great how well we did as well especially Flea and Dave coming 1st in the senior women and C1 respectively.
Before I knew it my week was up and I was flying to Lyon with Lowri to spend a week in the Alps. We stopped off for a few days at the white water corse near Lyon. We didn’t do that much paddling though! We met up with another family so we spent most of the time going down the course in a raft, swimming to cool off and on hydrospeeds (small surfboards). These were such fun especially playing king of the wave on them.
After a few days we set off for the Alps. It took around three hours thorough the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking. We stopped of for a quick bite to eat up the top of them before setting of again, after Lowri debated leaving me up there (she has a problem with smelly kit!). We arrived at the camp site quite late, just before it got dark, and met up with the group of people we were going to paddle with,
The next day me and Lowri, along with a few other people, went to Rabioux. This was one of the biggest things I had run (’cause we have such small water in the UK). Lowri went down right in front of me and got back looped. All I remember is seeing that just as I went over and thinking great thats going to be me in a second! Thankfully I managed to boof over so I didn’t get sucked in but it took a while for Lowri to come out again.
The rest of the week was spent running the rivers around the Alps. The setting is just so nice! The only bad thing is that because the waters right off a glacier it’s freezing cold. Probably my favorite place was the Race course. I was the only one in a playboat so I was kind of worried that I would be backflipped but that only happened once and not even on one of the bigger drops!
I was sad to be leaving the Alps as there were still a few rivers that I wanted to run but we had a long drive ahead of us. I would defiantly love to go to there again and stay for a bit longer. Next time I might even get to go to Hawaii sur la Rhone!
I’m off to a family holiday in Ireland this weekend (no boating!), hope to see some of you at the Festival of Freestyle in September
Tash
x
Me in the Alps (c)Lowri Davies 2008
Just over a week since we arrived back from Norway, I’m still in awe of the place and if it wasn’t for the fact that airlines don’t take bookings a year in advance I’d have my next ticket to Voss in the bag.
I love the Scottish highlands and having similar geographical characteristics (except on a generally larger scale) Voss and Sjoa felt very much like home turf… just with out the unpredictable river levels. The fjords, valleys, mountains and rivers give an amazing sense of freedom as you wild camp on your tour of the abundant white water. It was two weeks in heaven!
Our crew of 6 consisting of Bled Lloyd, Lyndsey Evans, Ant Ing, Pete Wood, Dave Martin and Myself hit a different river everyday bar one. We were lucky enough to have local knowledge from friend Sam Hughes on the incredible Finna Gorge which goes into my top 10 list of great places to be. Without someone who knows the way for the first run down we’d have spent hours scouting so thank you Sam!
On other rivers some knowledge from Bled, Lyndsey and Pete’s previous trips was useful, but with a good crew we managed to keep the faf factor under control… apart from the necessary Statoil coffee stops!
In the middle of the trip we found ourselves at the legendary Sjoa Fest and Sweet Rumble event on the Amot Gorge. It was a great opportunity to catch up with good friends from previous travels and also a great opportunity to go head to head with some of the local boys on proper boaterX turf. Time trials laid out the top 16 boaters and heats they would compete in the next day. A roll or even a moment of hesitation at this point meant an early departure, as was the case for a couple of previous winners. Despite a couple of unlucky waves breaking over me I made it through in 9th which put me straight into a challenging heat the next afternoon. Being fast off the mark I busted myself through to the finals where some paddle scrapping off the start line meant the four of us were on top of one another into the first rapid which didn’t seem to have much effect on opening up the pack. The short stretch of calm between rapids saw us all aiming for our race lines and it was only at the last rapid where the race was won or lost. For me a tired boof punished me with a back loop and beat down on the eddy line meaning a respectable 4th place. A great event finished as always with a great party.
For our crew it was back on the road, now heading south back towards the Bergen ferry but not before completing the upper section of the Sogndal where we had retreated the previous week due to quickly rising levels. 
The ferry home gave chance to shower and recuperate in time for bingo and disco fever where Max and Luke from Leeds uni taught everyone a move or two. Unfortunately DFDS ferries are stopping their service from Newcastle to Bergen on the 1st of September this year so we’ll have to find another way to migrate!
See you on the water
Ed
Thanks to Dave and Tao for the pics!
Since getting back from Norway I feel I’ve embraced a summer of mediocre English boating fairly well. Sit-on-tops on the flat, marathon boating and the like – great fun, but hardly adrenaline pumping. This weekend, though, I needed something different. I gathered up some good mates and a plan started to come together. With only Sunday free we had to cram in as much as possible. Looking at the tides we realised that, with a bit of motivation, we might be able to grab a session in at the Bitches and Severn Bore on the same day.
Arriving at St Davids at 2am left us 2 hours of sleep before we found ourselves kitting up and heading off into the darkness. Luckily we’d opted to take the new Dagger Greens and having a long boat made the early morning ferryglide all the more pleasant. A couple of hours of sunrise soul surfing and much yeehaa-ing later and it was time to head back to Whitesands bay (via the mandatory fry up in St Davids) for a few hours of kip in the sun.
When we woke up it was off to Newnham to catch the Bore (via Rosie’s for tea and cake). We then waited.. and waited. As the sun went down we thought of all the things we could be doing instead.
Suddenly we heard the rumble. “Bore Coming!” It got louder until the noise was terrifying! It felt like getting to a class V drop when you’re expecting a river to be all class II bimble. Out of the black the wave arrived – 3/4 ft high, glassy and green. We surfed until we all fell off, pegged it back to the car and overtook it again for two more hillarious surfs. Crashing through nettles and seal launching into the darkness is all part of the fun!
Still buzzing and giggling to myself two days later I had my first run down local South Wales Classic, Poo Creek. Perhaps a summer of English boating is something to get excited about after all…
Tim
Check out http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/ for tide times and Bore info
TIP: Take a fast boat
Good guide to the Bitches on UKRGB
http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/bitches.htm
