Hello and welcome back to the final installment of drive to survive’s significantly less cool cousin: Canoe to do [yet more canoeing but this time at an international]? The name is a work in progress…
Part 3 was supposed to take place on the Trywern, a terrific but technical river. However this was not to be as the water companies neglected to release any water from their dam. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel jealous of the French paddlers and their amicable relationship with EDF. Could you imagine a British water company not just willing to coordinate dam releases for sensible times but also wanting to sponsor events and athletes. What a fanciful thought. Still we can’t be bitter, it’s not like they are regularly dumping shit into the river. Oh wait…
So instead of the might T, we found ourselves on the slightly less mighty Dee. The Dee is still a lovely river. The main rapid, serpent’s tail offers up an experience similar to that of being fired out of a gun down the death star trench. The boils down the bottom combined with a helpfully overhanging rock pesent an exciting little challenge at speed that often leaves you second guessing your line right up to the point where you make it through (or don’t).
This final selection event would be the decider for the World Cup events. For the World Cup all our points from all the previous selection events would also be counted. WIth a couple of good results in the bag and 6 spots to play for I found myself going into this final even in a relatively safe position, bar some sort of major disaster. Thus, it seems inevitable that just before racing started I kicked my footrest out.
With the river being low, most of the lines revolved around successfully dodging rocks, and on one of my Serpent’s sprint practice run I was slightly less successful than I’d previously been. Applying a touch more speed than on the previous run I was dismayed to discover that the pillow wave I’d normally ride was a lot less pillow-y and a lot more rocky than I’d thought. Fortunately, I was paddling my old ‘bash boat’ but the ensuing collision was forcefully enough to remove some of my beautiful repair work from the bow and send me flying through my previous attached footrest.
Being the clever boy I am, I’d forseen this sort of complication and had brought my repair kit. Unfortunately, there was no way I’d be able to resin the footrest back in before racing started. Cut to me, scrambling around the car park for a screw that I could hammer through the side of my boat to provide a rapid but temporary fix. I was in luck (thank you Ian) and with some brute force to reset the fractured footrest and a little bit of trial and error on the screw positioning I once again had a footrest. And it only creaked a little!
First runs were at 4pm, a late start to racing, taking full advantage of the longer spring evenings. My sprint runs were nothing to write home about. I achieved a 7th place finish. However, I was happy to find some time on my second run and even more pleased that my footrest held.
A traditional post-sprint classic practice lap and subsequent paddle back up the canal put the day’s mileage up to around 20km. Not bad for a sprint day! We retreated to a nearby campsite to eat our body weight in burgers and chips before spending the evening on another classic canoeing activity: lying on the floor and groaning.
Normally I like to follow up a naff sprint result with solid classic performance, but sadly I only managed a 6th on Sunday. Blame it on a bug or not having paddled my bash boat enough recently. Either way it was a bit of dud to end on.
Still 6th was enough and I’m delighted to say that I’ve made the Senior World Cup team alongside the Senior European Championship team. It’s barely two weeks now before we jet off for Skopje so while this is the end of the selection series, it’s just the start of this season’s racing!
Photos by Dave Singleton
River Stench 