29
Oct
The annual BCU Student Safety Symposium is a weekend long course aimed at keeping University students safe and happy on rivers in the UK and around the world. Run by Tom Parker and held at Plas-Y-Brenin, the weekend saw a variety of coaching workshops, lectures and Q&A sessions covering everything from how to run a intro white water trip to advanced technical rope work.
 Photo – Sarah Jones
28
Oct
Last week, the Clemson University Whitewater Club hosted an LVM 27 premiere at Fike Recreation Building. Following dinner and the movie, Pyranha Kayaks hosted a demo and pool rodeo. Casey and I headed down to Clemson Friday evening from Franklin with a pile of boats to join the festivities. We were met with a good turnout of folks at the premiere who blew off homework and other responsibilities to join us in the pool for a bit of fun.
Most of the time we spent in the pool was for folks to spend trying the different boats we had available but the highlight of the evening was the pool rodeo we held at the end of the night. The judges decided to keep things simple by having two classes: Funniest Trick and Coolest Trick. There were no rules, as long as your ride involved a kayak and was the best thing you could come up with in the pool. Some amazing feats of skill and daring were displayed but winners had to be chosen.
Mac, mid-airscrew off the diving board at the Clemson demo
After much deliberation by the judges, it was decided that Todd Henry had performed the Funniest Trick – a bouncing seal launch to faceplant off the high diving board. Mac McGee did the Coolest Trick, an airscrew off the low diving board. Our winners walked away with Pyranha shirts, stickers, and other swag, but we brought enough that everyone who attended got something.
Mac stoked on his new Pyranha shirt
Handing out prizes to the winners
Thanks to Brian and Dave at Pyranha Kayaks for hooking us up with boats and swag for the event, to Penstock Productions for the video, to the Clemson Whitewater Club for organizing and promoting the event and getting food, and to Clemson University for hosting the event. We hope to be back!
Other news in the drought-ridden southeastern US is a recent rain event. After said rain, the aforementioned wonderboy Mac from Clemson met up with me at the Cullasaja River near Highlands, NC to fire off the seldom-run Bricklayer Falls. I’ve heard about this drop and seen the circulating photos of Pat Keller or Joe Barkley running it years ago but never knew exactly where it was. FOUND IT! And…now I understand why this drop isn’t run very often. It’s a nasty 30 foot drop with a sloping entrance, tricky landing, and a terrible cave at the bottom. Mac and I loaded up our Burns, ran the falls at first light the morning after the rain, at a perfect level, and found perfect lines. Here are the goods, as well as a few other shots from that day.
Mac taking one last look while I head for my boat
Me rolling over the lip
Mac givin’ er
And the man behind the lense – fellow Pyranha paddler and brother, Casey Jones
Now, all that there’s left to do is wait in anticipation of the Green Race this weekend and try to control my nerves heading into this event. I’m picking up my new Karnali in a day or two and can’t wait! The weather is chilly now (we just had our first snow of the year last night!) but weather forecasts for Saturday are looking to be perfect for racing. More to follow after the race!
Good lines out there.
22
Oct
Moose Fest 08 from jared seiler on Vimeo.
The Demshitz Movie Trailer from jared seiler on Vimeo.
Check out the New Demshitz website!!! www.demshitz.com
21
Oct
Check out the Demshitz movie tailer due out spring of 2009.
21
Oct
Back at the start of October Nottingham played host to the 2008 British Freestyle Championships with all the usual suspects out in force and a surprise or two…
Photo by: Jim Evans from Alpkit.com
Back in 2006 after the 2006 Europeans I decided to retire from OC1 paddling due to the fact it was starting to break me but I decided to give it a go again and see if I could still do it. Well, I can and amazingly I managed to win the 2008 British Champion title!!
Photo by: Jim Evans from Alpkit.com Â
20
Oct
13
Oct
Check the video: Wind River Race 2008
This was a sweet local race put on by the pdxkayaker.org guys. Head to head heats of three or four heading over the Sheppard Falls. The race started about 20 feet above the first drop so we knew there would be some carnage in the landing. I ended up taking 1st followed by Rob Bart and Dave Hoffman. Christie G took home 1st in the ladies race. Check the shot in the video of the girls heat to see someone getting landed on. The river levels are at extreme lows around the Northwest, we’re hoping the rains start kicking in soon.
09
Oct
Oops
Sorry this is a bit late, but with all the fun and games of the past few weeks I really have just had no time to sit down and write some words about Pyranha Fest! The event took place over the weekend of the 20th and 21st September, on the River Treweryn in North Wales, there was quite a bit going on over the weekend, courses organised by Tom Parker (and run by the Pyranha Team paddlers) covering a wide range of core paddling skills and group dynamics! Boater X competitions, boat outfitting master classes (If you didnÂ’t go to this you missed out on the biggest pile of free foam IÂ’ve ever seen!) Photographic workshops, Free style coaching with the Legend Mr Pete Catterall and many other interesting paddling related bits, oh the two new boats were lunched, The Karnali, a softer river runner designed for the progressive intermediate paddler went down a treat & the big one, the Z.one, this is the boat that has been produced to take over from the very popular Ina Zone and shares many design characteristics of the Ina zone, But made better with slightly changes in the cockpit, bit more bow rocker, a longer softer but more defined rail and the whole boat has been stretched out to make it super fast threw the water. However itÂ’s still really easy to paddle really user friendly, a great boat. If you havenÂ’t paddled them yet, find them and try them!
Mikey Abbott and Andy Phillips, of the informs Whitewater Warriors had made the long trip over from Norway for the weekend to run a “Warrior Master Class” which proved very popular and of course the river was open to enjoy
Saturday evening the entertainment didnÂ’t stop! It just left the water and moved into Bala for a night of beer drinking, Film premieres curtsey of the FatCats with there resent trip to Greenland a great talk from the Warriors about there travels. The night descended into a beer glass and some good naked dancing, what a night!
Sunday was a re runs of Saturdays paddling fun. IÂ’m very sorry to the nice chap whose shoulder became dislocated! I hope your wellÂ….. And sorry I did forget to give out the names of the winners from the boater X
4th place (but 1st woman home) Emma Runcorn, Very well done!
3rd place Graham Milton
2nd place Adam Donlay (think that was your name! Sorry if IÂ’ve spelt it wrong)
1st place Josh Wedgwood (now this is quite amazing when you realize young Josh is only 14! Very well done) IÂ’m not sure if there were any prices!…….. But great win!
Overall what a top weekend how Sammy got the sun to shine I will never know but a top event well done Pyranha cheers Sammy! Again again
09
Oct
Well quite a lot of events took place this weekend, Personally I along with Graham and the other guys from RunandJump Clothing headed to Scotland for the Etive River Race. We arrived by the banks of the Etive at 5 in the morning after a night of driving that just never seamed to end! But after a bit of sleep we awoke the Friday morning to find the Etive pretty dam low! Never mind we thought this is Scotland and there is always something to paddle, with the race in mind we started on the Etive, IÂ’d only ever paddled it once before and had walked most of it then! So took the opportunity to learn the lines and paddle all the drops. After a few runs down we turned our attentions to the small tribs that flow into the river further down stream, although low they provided us with some great sport and a good long walk! Friday as we were just falling asleep it started to rainÂ…Â….it continuedÂ…Â…Â…Â…Â….for a long timeÂ…Â…Â…Â…Â…Â…a very long time. The next morning it was still raining and the river had risen over night by quite a lot! So much in fact that the section of the river the race was going to be held on was just too big to run a commercial competition on, so we moved up river to the next section, normally this section is bump and scrape at best, but not today! With the rain still falling the section was now a good grade 3 with good wave trains and holeÂ’s dotted along its length. The format for the race was nice and simple! 50 teams, two in each team, both set off when the last man crosses the finish the clock stops. Pyranha, in the sponsored category to be fair did pretty well with 3 EverestÂ’s and a Burn in the top 4 positions. Me and Graham came first Chris Evans and Pete Catterall came a very close second, Shep and his mate came 3rd a really good well organized race. Once down the main the course Me and Milton set our eyes on the section the race was supposed to be held on, with the water now super high this section turned into a right old mission, but was super cool. The rocky lines of the day before had been replaced by big powerful drops it was great and made the long drive well worth the effort. After the run we all headed back to the Ice Factor in Kinlochleven for prize giving and wee dram of whiskey!
(The river on Saturday!)
Wining teams:
Open: Simon Grant & Calum Hogg, A Bowl Full of Fun,
Sponsored: Graham Milton & Pete Scutt, Run and Jump Clothing Team 3, Pyranha
16-18: Jonathan Hiam & Adam Cox, Psychotic Badgers,
Thank you to David for brining me up a boat! cheers to Pyranha for the said Everest!
05
Oct
Finally, the Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championships have taken place in the Oetz Valley in Austria during the last four days. Unlike last year, when the race had to be cancelled due to high water, the waterlevel was all right this time and pretty constant as well.
The starterfield consisted of around 130 paddlers (5 women) from around the world, both incredible whitewater specialists and world class slalom paddlers. The programm around the event was as amazing as last year – lots of good food, video night, photo contests…
After some really exciting races, it was Thilo Schmitt from Germany who took home the title in the end, followed by Kiwi Sam Sutton and Italy’s Michelle Ramazza. I was able to qualify for the final (best 25) and eventually came 11th, so I unfortunately closely missed my goal to be under the top 10 paddlers. A couple of smaller mistakes in both final runs summed up to this result.
For more information on this really well organized event visit www.adidas-sickline.com. Photos, result lists, daily reports and a little video about the race are available there.
Here are a couple of pictures of myself racing:
