Category: Silly stuff

Screaming largely ineffective – SUP technique review

Screaming largely ineffective – SUP technique review

New research conducted by the SUP working group has concluded that, contrary to popular instinct, opening your mouth to scream as you fall off a board does little to prevent the swim. “We have discovered that falling into the water with an open mouth actually tends to lead the swallowing of water.” The press release stated. “This significantly increases an individual’s chance of drowning and/or needing to go pee in a bush.

Up until this point it has been common practice for SUP paddlers to open their mouth and make  loud wailing noises whenever they are unstable. Common theories suggested that doing this could act like a jet engine or rocket to prevent the impending immersion of the paddler. However this new research states that the technique is,in fact, useless.

Instead the SUP coaches working group now suggests other strategies such as “support strokes” or “just being better” as more effective methods to avoid unsanctimonious swims.

We asked SUP head coach Brian Jenkins for a brief statement on how long he thought it would take to implement this new advise across the SUPing community. He responded “AHHHH” as he fell off his board.

The research has not been well received by the wider paddling community with many calling it “bloody obvious” and “just common sense”. Pat Baker, a long time coach and accomplished creeker, weighed in saying “we figured out that screaming was ineffective by at least the 1980s. Hell by this point I think even the sprinters had figured this out, and they only go forwards!”

However the boaters of the ‘squirt squad’, the UK’s leading squirt boat collective, disputed the findings stating that “by swallowing water paddlers can become even more dense than normal.” This assumably enables members of the ‘squirt squad’ to achieve a longer ‘downtime’.

The SUP working group’s press release concluded by noting that screaming when you fall in every five minutes can cause additional long term damage to the rest of a groups hearing and is “actually quite annoying. So if you could just stop Brian then that would be fantastic.”

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RIVER STENCH REPORTS: Kayak & Girlfriend cut ties with local kayaker

RIVER STENCH REPORTS: Kayak & Girlfriend cut ties with local kayaker

Newbridge, Dartmoor. Friends and family of local boater Ewan Walters were shocked and surprised earlier to discover that his brand new Pyranah Machno had developed a large crack following a violent dismount from the roof of his car as he was returning home from the river.

Ewan’s now ex-girlfriend, was reportedly outraged and has been quoted as saying: “He only bought that bloody thing a week ago, and that was after he told me that there was no way he could possibly afford to take me out to dinner for my birthday!”

While not shocked by the cracks in their friend’s relationship, local paddlers were surprised hear that Ewan’s boat departed from his roof in a rather rapid fashion. One paddler, who requested anonymity said: “You hear about this kind of thing, but you never imagine it could happen so close to home. I mean, he literally lives 5 minutes from me… good thing I didn’t offer to give him a lift or something.”

A swiftly launched investigation into the event has yet to return any solid answers as to the cause of the accident. Those who witnessed the boat tying in the carpark shortly before the incident claim Ewan did everything within his power to ensure the boat was firmly secured to the roof of his fiat punto, even going as far to “give the straps a bit of a ping” and utter the sacred words of “that’ll do, it’s not going far”.

However some boaters are not convinced. Brian Oldman, who has been paddling since before the invention of both plastic boats and the julian calendar, claims to have never lost a boat off the roof of a horseless carriage. “I always use at least twelve straps when tying boats, christmas trees and people to the roof of my car. One time I even welded a boat to the roof, just to be extra secure.” In addition to this the wise old boater also recommended performing blood sacrifices to both river and road gods before giving the boats a little wiggle and stating “well, that’s not going anywhere.” He said: “It may take me over three hours to pack up and get going,  but it is a small price to pay for safety… and avoiding the wrath of the gods”.

Ewan would not give us a comment on the incident, but did offer us a new Machno – usual bumps and scratches, 1 professional weld.

Team GB and the Weather

Team GB and the Weather

We here at the River Stench secret lair have been avidly watching the Olympic games after the past few weeks and were over the moon when Joe Clarke secured a gold medal in the Men’s K1 Slalom. Everyone except for the dog that is, who didn’t really understand what we were whooping and wailing about.

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Joe Clarke on the podium. Photo credit: Balint Vekassy

After a slow start to the games team GB seem to be in full flow today  (pun intended) with 2 gold and 3 Bronze medals earned today at time of writing. The other noticeable occurrence today is in Rio the weather has been terrible; wet and windy all day. Or as we like to call it British. Quickly the River Stench’s scientists put together the following graph:

GB daily medal average vs Weather

Now as we all know correlation always means causation therefore we can assume that the very British weather is providing team GB with the extra boost they need and is entirely responsible for the day’s success.

One of the more interesting aspects of this data occurs when we extrapolate it. In London team GB won 65 medals over 14 days of glorious sunshine. From our current data we see an increase in medals won of 800% in foul weather. Therefore we can conclude that had it rained for the entirety of the London games, team GB would have won 520 medals in total or roughly 54% of all medals available at the 2012 Olympic games. From this I would strongly recommend the British government to investigate cloud seeding before the Tokyo games or at least dispatch a bunch of people with water pistols to the next games.