So far on this blog I have exclusively written about white water paddling. While this is a part of kayaking that I love, it is not the only area I have dabbled in. In truth while I have had a shot at almost every discipline in paddle sport I have probably spent the vast majority of my time flat water racing. Or to be even more precise marathon racing. While long races are not quite as conducive to silly adventures as trekking around the back end of Wales, it is fair to say that after 10 years or so I have built up a small repertoire of flat water stories. The following story is one of the more infamous incidents. Like all good paddling stories it involves a helicopter or two, except these ones belonged to the police.

The Haslar race series is a set of inter-club marathon races across the UK. Split into regions, each club hosts one race a year with varying courses for Divisions 1 to 9. This particular race we found ourselves in Oxford. Once upon a time Oxford had one of the best courses mixing the width of the mighty Thames, an array of winding back channels and a portage across a field that would occasionally feature cows as one additional hazard.

Unfortunately we are no longer allowed to race this course. Thanks Jason & James.

The briefing was fairly clear: Downstream, portage the rollers, turn around the buoy then back up the back channels, GO UNDER A CABEL, portage, turn, finish. Simple, easy, impossible to go wrong. Yet even to this day Jason & James extoll the similarities of cables and the hazard tape they paddled through. This small directional derailment snow balled out of control as the rest of the field, who Jason and James had been leading, blindly followed the navigationally inept pair.

As the back channel that they were charging down narrowed, stuttered and became increasingly impassable most sane people would probably come to the conclusion that they had gone the wrong way and therefore should turn around and head back. Most marathon racers are not sane people. They are very determined people. Therefore despite the increasing realisation that they were no longer racing down the correct course they continued to race over a small weir and through bushes and trees. The racing didn’t stop until they came across one surprising obstacle: the Oxford to London high speed rail link.

Repots vary on the reasons why, however what they all agree on is having travelled so far in the wrong direction it was physical impossible to turn around and go back. Thus the only logical response was to cross the tracks and continue onwards, and this is how over 30 boats ended up crossing the rails with only one near miss.

For the other, less navigationally challenged, racers everything had continued uneventfully. That is until the race closed in on the centre of Oxford. It was at this point that the not so soft hum of rotor blades appeared above the city seemingly tracking the paddlers as they raced along the river. Suddenly there was an explosion of boats on the banks as out from the centre of the city rushed the lost division and jumped back onto the water, naturally, still racing.

Having portaged the train tracks and narrowly avoided a collision they had cooperated to raise boats and bodies over a barbed wire fence ejecting the lost division into the centre of Oxford. It was here that the racing resumed but, unfortunately, nobody knew where the river was. One can only imagine the bemused bafflement on the face of the poor locals as a horde of kayakers clad in lycra and carrying their boats descended into the centre of the city, regularly stopping to ask for directions to the river.

Inevitably, having raced the entirety of their scenic detour when Jason, James and the rest of the lost division crossed the finish everyone was disqualified. The police were also remarkably understanding about the whole fiasco and no charges were filed, however we are no longer allowed to race through the Oxford backchannels.