The second event in the Youth freestyle series took us the the Nene whitewater course, in Northampton .
The nene is possibly the smallest course we have in the u.k running on just 2-3 cumecs it funnels it’s way down a series of small ledge holes untill it hits a wooden ramp and the excitement really begins – Pool A consists of a reasonably big pour over and whilst not being famed for it’s freestyle prowess it does dish out a fair few beatings in between moves – great fun to watch.
The event followed the usual Youth freestyle format of some chilled out coaching in the morning, followed by a competition in the afternoon. However due to the weather/easy to swim course/coaches and parents wanting to cool down – the Nene is also host to a search and rescue ball game, a team of 5 kids has to rescue the balls that are being recirculated in the pour over.
Next weekend is the Val Selesia festival and along with fellow Palm paddler Dave Carrol, I will be running the Palm Throwbag Olympics (Thursday and Friday evenings) so I figured it would be good time to share some of the top tips I regularly teach on white water safety and rescue courses ready for the competition.
1. Plan. Using a throwbag is usually proactive, as in you have time to plan where and how you’ll be using it rather than reactive (jumping out your boat as someone swims passed?). Use this time to think about where a paddler is likely to swim, and whether there is an eddy to swing them into.
2. Throw. Too much emphasis is put on the throw itself, as long as it reaches the swimmer, no problem! Roughly I use underarm when I want accuracy, an overarm when I’m throwing down from a cliff or I want the swimmer to feel the rope hit them and a wide bowling action for distance, like putting a rope across a river.
3. Belay. Key for me is managing the forces just as the rope goes tight. The load is same for you on the bank as it is for the person in the water. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, your grip on the rope or the ground if the person in the water is tired, they won’t be able to hold on. You, as the rescuer, must anticipate the force and brake appropriately. The easiest way of doing this to move downriver and away from the river, space you planned for in step 1. It is possible to let rope out or use a body belay but again doesn’t matter how you brake someone in the water as long as you do, allowing you to rescue any sized person. The bigger they are, the stronger the water, the more braking distance need.
Next Month’s Dispatch will look at tactics for bigger water paddling as many of us head away to France and Austria for some summer sun.
Chris Eastabrook offers year round safety and rescue courses and has Palm PFDs, throwbags and other goodies available to try out on the standard and advanced courses. Click here for www.chriseastabrookcoaching.com.
The photos for this blog came from David Fairweather, check out www.davidfairweather.net for more photos and stories. Thanks Dave, Thave.
A few shots from a lovely evening session at Hurley weir, featuring Finn Burrows, Cheese, Seppi, Adam D, and Me.
Having hardly run this winter, it was pretty special to get a warm spring Hurley session in. Check out the Superego – still going huge, Cheese and Seppi’s Harlequin crossovers, and of course my hilarious mid-helix face. Nice. Thanks to Finn for the photos I’m in.
Off to Italy soon, so stay tuned for some freeride action from the Gene17 Valsesia River Festival.
We started off this most recent training weekend down a member or two because of illness and last minute work commitments BUT NOW WITH AN OFFICIAL COACH!!! We are so lucky and pleased to announce that Dave Brown, Coach Extraordinaire, has agreed to come on board with us.
The North Wales Massive were hosting this training weekend so we headed to Bala Lake for our morning flat water training session and the punishing torture that Coach Dave was about to inflict upon us. 7 Sets of 6x100m with 5 people paddling whilst the 6th person had do press-ups, or sit-ups, or the plank in the middle of the raft until the next 100m mark when we could change. In a sick way we loved it!
On to session number two up at Canolfan Tryweryn, a more ‘sedate’ slalom session with us aiming for certain gates and avoiding kayakers at the same time! No planks or sit-ups to do here, but every time we hit the gates Dave made us carry the raft arms-straight above our heads for 10seconds per gate!! We stopped hitting gates pretty quickly.
Most might think that was to have been the end of our day…but Coach Dave had other plans. We went to a village hall in the middle of the Welsh mountains and did the Canadian Abs test (Susie ‘The -Wall’ Jackson did 152 sit-ups in a row!), then a 5minute step-up test (that Nerys ‘BodyRockTV’ Blue insisted on doing in double time!), then a press ups test, and to finish, flexibility tests (Rosie was delighted to finally quantify the effects of 4years of yoga practise); yoga really does improve strength and reduce your risk of injury! At one point Coach Dave said ‘I had planned to do the bleep test with you tonight but I won’t because I don’t want to break you’…too late, we were already broken, but rolling around on the floor laughing as well, so it wasn’t all torture.
A 5:30am wake up was required the following day as we only had Dave for the morning before he was running up to Scotland (and probably away from us). We thought the day before had been gruelling…we hadn’t seen anything yet! Dave got us to do an hour of pyramid sprints with minimal rests, but we gave it our all, our minds set on the podium in Czech Republic in 3 months time. But it’s not all work and no fun because our reward for such immense effort was to head to the Siabod café for a full Welsh breakfast (shame it wasn’t fried in coconut oil though).
The rest of the day was much more chilled out doing some endurance paced training, and we were off the water at 1pm and driving home by 2. Pretty good work for sure, but then we were all practically on our knees. Afternoon naps were the order of the day next and trying to put off the onset of the inevitable stiffness to come. Gutted for the girlies who had a long drive home!
This is the event that many of the UK’s prominent river runners were looking forward to; a progression from the organisers of the Etive River Race onto a tougher section of white water with guaranteed levels from the dam. James Fleming, Giles Charter and their crew have to be congratulated for bringing this event to the scene so successfully, as it was not that long ago that quite a few of us were chatting hypothetically about a MRR as the perfect place for a top end UK extreme race.
Alex Lumsden on the sweet boof ledge in the middle of the run.
Before the safety briefing at 10.30 there was an hour of practice which claimed one dislocated shoulder and a couple of swims. The safety briefing itself was more of a ‘Chopper Read’ style pep talk in how to man/woman up in the event of any injuries, short of getting your head taken off. In the build up to the event it was clear that most question revolved around the mandatory first drop on the left side of the island… a chossy V shaped drop, which since a shift in the rock bed in 2007 has claimed it’s fair share of shoulders and offers a seemingly never ending variety of outcomes. The race got off to a roll at 11am with 2 minute intervals between paddlers, by racer number 25 there had been at least three swims and a couple of cracked/crumpled boats. Between Ian Letton, Dave Martin, Callum Strong, Johnny Hawkins and myself we must have changed our choice of line on the top drop about 20 times, as some very strong paddlers were getting caught in the small hole at the base of the drop next to the left wall, taking a good chunk off their time, while relative newcomers to the run were being subbed-out in the middle of the V and popping up with a boost in the right direction towards the next rapid, stirring a cheer from the crowd.
Mark Mulrain on the ramp at the top of the final Graveyard section
My first of three runs was not one of these smooth lines, opting for the riskier but potentially more rewarding right line off the first drop, I topped off an ungraceful dismount with a moment upside down and polished off my turd of a line by doing some time against the left wall. Fortunately I made up some time and it was the combined time of your first two runs which put the top twenty through.
Just above the last rapid looking to make up time.
Looking closely at the top twenty paddlers there was 30 seconds separating them… a fair gap on a course averaging a time of around 3 mins 40 sec. But then there was a host of easy mistakes which had been made by some very good paddlers. From the seal launch ramp (which due to a fence, meant you had to position sideways at the top and turn to slide down as the buzzer went) landing you with a foot and a half gap either side between rocks, and then just as your arms are tiring, plenty of fine lines and angles making the difference between hitting fast or slow water forced you to to keep a lot of power and concentration. For their final runs, the top twenty was very much a game of who had learnt from previous mistakes and who still had something left in the tank.
Thom Brown charging a sweet second run.
Being well out of practice in a boat this last year, I’d had two quite bad first runs, but between them both I figured I’d made just about every mistake possible – from screwing up the start ramp and the first drop, to hitting rocks and cutting across a flat eddy – so I knew where not to go in the final and had my eyes set on good lines while I felt like I still had quite a lot left in my arms, thanks to gym training over the last six months. My start and top drop weren’t as smooth as I’d have liked but still felt quite fast and the rest of my run felt strong down to the last stroke… and I was so focused on the finish line that I didn’t notice the swamped boat of Martyn Butler pinned on a rock just to my right in the last rapid, after a swim in his final run setting off just before me. I knew that Pete Scutt would still be charging in the final but former slalom racer Tom Wakeling was my bet for the win and behind them completing my top five would be Thom Brown and Rory Woods (who had smashed the finish line more impressively than anyone) with a secret hope that I might sneak in there.
On the middle boof ledge.
In the end it came down to less than 1.5 secs between first and third place. But vacating the gun club in less than an hour meant that prize giving would be held at the BA Club in Fort William at 9.30 so we were left in suspense for four hours while we all scrubbed up and ate.
Dave Martin cruising for the finish line on his second run.
The final placings for the top five were:
1st Pete Scutt
2nd Matty Nicolas
3rd yours truely
4th Tom Wakeling
5th Thom Brown
Fastest male time was Pete Scutt with 3.15.36, fastest female time was Sandra Hyslop with 3.25.39 and fastest junior time was Thomas Findlay with 3.39.29.
All in all it was a great event that lived up to expectations and hype so fingers crossed we’ll see it again next year for more speedy lines and carnage!
Many thanks to David Baldwin and Kacie Culshaw for these images!
“A group of 6 kayakers from the UK are out in Sri Lanka on an expedition to explore the white water potential, and help out the fledgling kayaking community. There have been a couple of previous trips to Sri Lanka before, but this one was the first to be held in August, during the heart of the monsoon.”
The expedition was a great success on both accounts!
Click the link for more info on the Lasting Legacy, or read below for an overview of the whole expedition.
The expedition saw the team searching out rivers in the Southern Central mountain range. Some rivers, such as the world class Kokmole Oya, have had previous descents. However, there is still so much to discover on the island and the expedition claimed numerous first descents.
There was another major aim to the expedition though – to leave a lasting legacy in Sri Lanka. This was achieved with the help of Borderlands, a Rafting and Outdoor Education company.
Amongst other things, the team ran coaching and safety sessions for the raft guides and safety kayakers. These sessions helped change the attitudes of staff from that of kayaking being a job, to playing the river and enjoying kayaking as a hobby. The training also raised their awareness of current safety and rescue techniques.
Thilack had a steep introdution to boof!
The highlight of the expedition for the team was paddling the Goorook Oya, a probable first descent, with Thilack, one of the Borderlands staff. Not only was this was the first time any of the team had completed a first descent with a kayaker from the host nation, but it also turned out to be an amazingly clean grade 5 steep creek which (aside from the green rainforest scenery) wouldn’t be out of place in California. And the best thing? Thilack nailed it. His third ever river and his first taste of waterfalls – this guy has got bottle!
The team would like to thank Palm Equipment Europe, ZET Kayaks UK, Lyon Equipment, and of course, Borderlands for their support.
To find out how Dave, Tom, Niamh, Sean, Nick and Will got on, check out www.kayaksrilanka.co.uk
Well it certainly has been an epic summer down here in NZ.
After lots of working behind the scenes with Red Bull and Tourism NZ I was able to finally put into action a trip I had been dreaming about for a long time. For the past 10 years I have been fortunate enough to follow my passion for kayaking around the world exploring some of the best whitewater this planet has to offer. I thought it was finally time to bring some of the amazing friends I have made through the sport down to my home turf and explore the very best that NZ has to offer. So in February Rush Sturges, Rafa Ortiz and camera man Matt Baker flew down to NZ to join myself and fellow kiwi paddler Jared Meehan and embark on an epic adventure.
Meeting in Auckland we loaded up a 6 berth RV and headed off on a 35 day, 8000km road trip through both the North and South Islands of NZ to see what we could find. We were set up to chase weather patterns, good flows and we weren’t afraid to put serious driving kilometers under us to put ourselves in the right places to find the water we were looking for. This plan certainly paid off and we were fortunate enough to get on some amazing rivers right throughout the country.
From L to R Jared Meehan, Ben Brown, Rafa Ortiz and Rush Sturges somewhere in the South Island.
We spent a couple of weeks in the creeking paradise of Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island using the traditional kiwi shuttle vehicle of the helicopter to access the remote creeks on offer here
The team loading the Heli to fly into the 2 day Mungo Hokitika River. A highlight of the trip.
Flying into the Kokatahi River
Putting the Atom Top and AMP PFD through its paces.
Dropping into another dark and ominous gorge on the West Coast
Committing but breathtakingly beautiful. The Mungo/Hokitika River is as good as it gets for multi day paddling in NZ.
The infamous 'Carnage Gorge' on the Kokatahi River.
Exiting 'The Gates of Argonath' at the conclusion of the Hokitika River
The creeking on the West Coast exceeded our very high expectations and some of the footage we got was incredible. The Atom Drytop along with the Sidewinder Pant combo performed amazingly well keeping me dry and comfortable yet remaining comfortable during some of the very arduous portages and hike-ins that we subjected ourselves to. The Mungo/Hokitika two day trip was a highlight of our time on the Coast and I was very impressed by both the weight and functionality of the Palm waterproof storage bags I used.
Before long a low pressure system from the deep south slammed into the Coast sending all the levels sky high and grounding the helicopters. We teamed up with a few of the local chargers and sampled several of the amazing flood runs the Coast also offers.
Hunting the Flow after some heavy rain on the West Coast
Lemming style flood boating on one of the local boys secret gems...
We then headed further south to explore some of South Otagos high volume runs. Fortunately for us the rain followed and we had a rare summer descent of the Nevis River, easily one of the finest hard runs in the country, before spending a few days on the classic big water test piece – Nevis Bluff.
The final move in 'Freight Train', my favorite rapid on the Nevis River
Getting a unique Heli filming angle of Nevis Bluff
Pretty stoked at the bottom of Nevis Bluff!
After over a month in the South Island we spent our last week on the Central Plateau of the North Island where we discovered a couple of rarely run waterfalls which was a great bonus in country not renowned for its tall drops.
Finding a hidden waterfall in the North Island was an awesome treat.
The Flow Hunters trip was an amazing adventure that I was sad to come to the end of. I got explore my home country with a group of amazing paddlers and friends and we had a trip that I will remember for a long time. The footage will feature in a TV show scheduled for a June release but until then you will have to settle for the teaser below. The edit has been a huge task but taking the time to sift through the huge amount of footage has reaffirmed to me what a great journey it was and what an incredible kayaking destination NZ is. Get down here soon!
Having my frst freestyle session of the year two weeks ago I didn´t feel well prepared for this weekends team trials and German Championships in Plattling. I started quite nervous in Saturdays prelims but finally got some good rides and even managed to do my frist McNasty in a competition. In the end I was more than happy with my winning score of 490 points followed by Nina Csonkova (SVK) and Sandra Sebelin.
In the next days finals I was even more nervous. Luckily it was the same for all the other girls. So we all didn´t score as high as the day before and my 313 points were enough to take home the titel. Second was Sandra Sebelin and third Nina Csonkova. Andrea Kaspers made the German team for Lienz as well and Lisa Schimanski completes the team as reserve athlete.
The first event saw a huge crowd of junior paddlers head to the river Dee in North Wales,
The river Dee has always been one of my favourite places to paddle, it’s home to some of the best playspots in the u.k at the right levels, has a couple of well known rapids and above all has a really chilled out atmosphere, I was really glad that the Youth Freestyle series returned to the Dee this year so that the younger paddlers could experience this stretch of river,
We were blessed with a nice medium level which easily facilitated high scoring rides but at the same time wasn’t to pushy for the beginners, However despite the organisers best efforts to organise warm sunny weather, the typical welsh weather shone through with heavy showers and low temperatures – luckily for us the juniors that attend these events are really enthusiastic about everything related to freestyle kayaking and weren’t to put off by the weather – the same couldn’t quite be said about Pringle who only returned back to the u.k from uganda the previous day.
The juniors were all split into groups and got the opportunity to be coached by some of the top paddlers in the u.k. Big smiles, new moves and huge wipe out’s where had by all !
With all of the paddlers having had their opportunity to get used to the features and gain a few tips from the coaches it was time to begin the competition – due to the temperature it was decided to run the competition in a jam style format to keep the participants a bit warmer, due to this format paddlers got multiple rides and were a lot more willing to go for bigger, more complicated maneuvers. This year the sponsored and GBR team members were separated into their own categories, to make it a bit more interesting the organisers decided to pit us all against Pringle to try and score the same or even better his ride …
