boating
British Rafting Championships
Monday, November 17th, 2008
Team Richy P before the start of the race
This weekend I went to the British White Water Rafting Championships. The story behind this is that I used to work with one of the team, Matt Blue and have known another member of the team, Hoopla, for a few years. While I was paddling in the Alps a few weeks ago, we hatched a plan to enter a team.
The British Rafting Championships involved 20 teams in total, with 16 mens rafts and 4 womens rafts. The winners will represent Great Britain in European white water rafting competitions next year along with the runners up in both the womens and mens categories.
I’ve not been in a raft on white water for about 18 years, but I’m pretty much game for anything involved with paddling, so this was too good an opportunity to miss especially because the weekend was a great chance to catch up with old friends.
The competition was held at Llandysul Paddlers, in Llandysul, South Wales on the River Teifi. Llandysul run Raft Guide courses each month along with kayak and open canoe courses. With the competition course located right next to the centre, this was a great location to run the event with all activities taking place from the main Llandysul Paddlers raft base pictured left.
The competition consisted of various events, with each event carrying points depending upon time and position:
Time Trial - a balls out fast sprint against the clock over a course of about 500m of white water.
Head to Head - two rafts sprinting head to head down the same course as the sprint.
Slalom Course - upstream and downstream gates to navigate throughout the same white water course.
10km endurance race held on the Sunday.
We arrived on the Friday night, and decided to hold our team preparation, strategy meeting and hydration in the Porth Hotel. When I say preparation, I mean that true to form, we were the last to get kicked out the bar.
There are 6 people in each raft team and our raft was made up of Tony Pape (Blue), Richard Procter, Steve Greaves, myself, and two last minute additions made up of stragglers: Steve and Sam, our affectionately newly nicknamed team member called Zulu - I’ll try and add the full names here later this week.
British Rafting Championships from chris dalby on Vimeo.
The competition started bright and early on Saturday morning with a safety brief and introduction from Matt Blue, which you can see a video of this above.
The first event of the day was the sprint, where each raft would sprint flat out over the course. This would act as a bench mark for the head to head event and allow the fast teams to have first pick of their favoured raft. I gotta say, I was crapping myself before this event. Our team hadn’t event set foot in raft together and the hydration exercise the night before was seemingly having the opposite desired effect.
Suddenly, our time was up and we were on the water in the raft listening to the one minute count down waiting for our race to begin. 5,4,3,2,1. We were off. The adrenalin rush was immense. Putting everything into the 2 and a half minutes sprint. Here is a video of one of the sprints starting off.
British Rafting Championships from chris dalby on Vimeo.
The gulf between our raft and the GB team raft was huge. They looked like a finely tuned synchronised team of pistons. With every stroke, each paddlers arm, paddle and hand position were completely in tune, entering and leaving the water at exactly the same time. They were a complete joy to watch.
After the sprints came the head to head heats. This event ran like a knock out competition. So the better the raft, the more heats you ran until there was an eventual winner. We only managed two heats. We lost the first heat. Annoyingly so. It was a ferocious battle with our raft battling side by side of our opponents for most of the course. But we got edged into an eddy three quarters of the way down the course and ended up loosing all our speed. We’d been beaten and we were gutted. We felt we could have beaten them and our lack of practice time had let us down.
Head to head racing
Determined to make amends, we won our second heat with a cunning use of tactics by edging our opponents into an eddy. The same tactics used against us in the first heat. For us, the head to head was over. The feeling of winning was superb and although we didn’t progress any further in that event our spirits were high as went into lunch.
After lunch was the slalom course. I felt we had a good chance to hold our own in this, as we all know how to paddle and this event is as much about skill as speed. We had a couple of practice runs on the slalom course after lunch and we missed loads of gates. It wasn’t looking like it would be a good day for our raft.
We were one of the first rafts to go down the slalom course, and I’m not sure what happened but we pulled it out the bag when it mattered. Our first run was a near perfect descent. We didn’t miss any gates, and only managed to pick up 15 penalty points for clipping three gates. We got out on a huge high with applause from the bank. Only the GB raft team managed to have a clear run and there were not many rafts that managed to make every gate.
The 5th best white water slalom raft in Great Britain
Our second slalom run was a dismal showing. We were tired. It had been a long day. But we were confident we had done ourselves proud on the first run. We came 5th in the Slalom. The 5th best slalom raft in Great Britain! It was worth all the aches and pains throughout the day, and the 7 hour drive to get there.
The day was rounded off with a meal and presentation of the results with prizes for every raft that competed on the day followed by a disco. We partied long and hard into the night at the Porth Hotel, who looked after us really well.
Sunday morning was the 10km endurance race. Unfortunately I didn’t enter this. We needed to get back to London, and I felt sad watching all the teams kitting up and heading out to the course. I’m sure they had a great day again.
Our raft finished 10th overall in the competition out of 16 rafts, but we were all buzzing to come 5th in the slalom competition. If only we had put some training in.
A huge thanks to Matt Blue and everyone involved for an incredibly well organised event that ran like clockwork. Attention to detail was superb and everyone that competed was made to feel a winner and given a prize at the dinner in the evening.
As soon as I have photos from Jason Pacey (Magic), who was the official photographer, I’ll be updating this blog and adding some gnarly action shots.
We are already planning our raft for next years event and there is talk of actually training for the event next year 
Paddling difficulty: Grade2. Weather: overcast and rain.
For the geeks amongst us, here’s a map:
A Weekend at the Tyne Tour
Monday, November 10th, 2008This weekend I went paddling with a group of old pals and my wife at a canoeing event called the Tyne Tour. I’ve never been to this event before, and had never paddled the River Tyne before, so was looking forward to this one and especially seeing some old friends.
We loaded the car on Thursday night and drove to the camp site that we would be staying in hexham, along with the hundreds of other paddlers. I must say, I was amazed that it only took 5 and a half hours to get to hexham from home, and bang on google’s predictions. Having said that, we arrived at 2.30am, so there was not much traffic on the road.
The Tyne Tour offically started on the Friday evening. So because we arrived Thursday night, we were the only people on the whole of the site. Friday morning we got up early(ish) and loaded the boats on to the car and headed for the river. We would be paddling the River Tyne from Kielder Reservoir to Hexham, which is about a 30 mile paddle. This would make for a days paddling with a sense of urgency, especially because it gets dark around 4pm, so we were under pressure of time for the whole day.
I was truly amazed by the stunning scenery of the River Tyne. We pretty much had the river to ourselves and only saw 4 open canoes on the river for the whole day. The upper Tyne was a series of gentle rapids seperated by reasonably long flat sections. You might call it a long slog, but then setting off to paddle 30 miles in about 5 hours is always going to be.
We decided to have a floating lunch. I cracked up when I played this video back while writing this post. Everyone eating, and suddenly no banter or talking. It had been a hard morning.
Tyne Tour Paddling from chris dalby on Vimeo.
It was a short lunch and we cracked into the paddling again. Unfortunately we didn’t make the whole 30 miles, we ended up only doing around 24 miles, as we ran out of light.
Tyne Tour Paddling from chris dalby on Vimeo.
When we returned to the campsite, the desolate patch of grass next to the golf course from the morning was now rammed with tents, and resembled a music festival with refreshments vans and with vendors selling canoe gear.
Weather: Cloudy with some headwinds. Paddling difficulty: Grade 2.
Day 2 - Running Warden Gorge
We woke up with more than a slight headache after the evening festivities and headed to the water for 11am. It had rained quite hard during Friday night, although I’m pleased to say that I slept through it.
As the Tyne Tour had started properly, we were getting on the water with hundreds of kayakers and a few fellow open boaters. We would be paddling only 14 miles on this day and the grand finale at the end of the days paddling was the rapid at Warden Gorge. A reasonably challenging rapid about 50 meters in length covered in waves with a huge chance of either campsizing or getting your boat swamped with water and ultimately campsizing anyway. The folklaw to this rapid is built up by the fact that you are not allowed to inspect the rapid before running it, because it is an area of Special Scientific Interest.
Sitting at the top of the rapid and watching kayak after kayak tackling the rapid with quite a few capsizes and swims certainly focussed the mind. There were about 8 of us paddling Open Canoes and we negotiated the top part of the rapid and eddied out on the right hand side about a third of the way down to get a better look at the bigger waves on the latter part of the rapid.
I’m pleased to say that not one of us swam.Here’s a couple of photos from Ben Keen who ran the rapid first and setup to get some photos of us all coming down. I had a bit of a surf on the wave at the bottom, but it was carnage with kayaks and canoes everywhere making it difficult to have a decent go.
A 20 minute paddle later and we were back at the campsite and got ready to head out and see the fireworks. We had a cracking thai curry and quaffed one or two scherbets. A great end to a great day.
Weather: Cloudy with some strong headwinds punctuated with blinding sunshine on the final stretch. Paddling difficulty: Grade 2/3/4.
Day 3 - The final day
We woke up to terrential rain and my tent was sat in a huge puddle. I decided that I was going to head back home and miss the final days paddling which was a repeat of yesterday. It would have been great to paddle with everyone else. The river must have had a huge amount of water in it from all the rain and I’m told that everyone in our group swam. So it must have been pretty big water.
I had a great time at the Tyne Tour and I hope I’ll be back there next year. Great company and great paddling.
Maiden Voyage of the new boat
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008We took the new canoe out for it’s maiden voyage today. I finally finished fitting it out this morning and couldn’t resist the opportunity for a test drive.
Courtesy of a post over on songofthepaddle.co.uk, we decided to go and have a flat water afternoon on the River Medway, which is only about 30 minutes drive.
We got there quite late and so only had an hour on the river. But it was worth it. Gosia was in her element and a great way to spend an afternoon.
Really pleased that we’re up and running with it now and it was a good chance to check it floats! Roll on Tyne Tour next week.
My new boat
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
My new boat
After getting back from my Alps paddling trip, I just had to go out and buy myself a new canoe. I spent ages thinking about which one to get. I had my heart set on a We-no-nah 15 Prospector for a long time and was aiming to drive to the Alps trip with one of those on the top of the car.
In the end I decided on the Venture Canoes Prospector 15, for a number of reasons.
I wanted somthing that I could paddle both solo and tandem with my wife
Something suitable for flat water trips and whitewater
Something that could handle a bit of bashing around
I spent long and hard thinking about this. It’s not the sort of thing you buy that often. Thanks to Blue, Matt Blue and Phil Hadley for letting me bore you with my questions. I bought this from Kent canoes that is well stocked, 20 minutes drive away and meant I could drive to the store and came back an hour later with the boat and lots of new paddling kit.
I’m really looking forward to getting this out on the water. Next comes the job of drilling some holes in it and rigging it up with the bouyancy, painters and kneeling thwart. Not for the feint hearted when you are drilling a hole in a perfectly servicable boat.
Final Day of Paddling the Ardeche
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008My final day of canoeing was spent on Day 1 of the Ardeche River, in France. When I say Day 1, I’m referring to the section of river you normally do if you just run the river for one day. You get on at Creps and get off at Chame.
The day started off learning to surf a wave backwards in an open canoe. We did this on the rapid called Peachy. A great training venue, we had a good play here.
Learning to surf an open canoe backwards from chris dalby on Vimeo.
After this we paddled down and found a place for lunch with Ollie Van’s group from Bicton College that were all paddling kayaks.
After lunch, we dropped down the river and eddied out top left backwards on the rapid called British Airways.
Eddy left backwards on British Airways from chris dalby on Vimeo.
To finish the day off, Charlemagne never dissapoints. Everyone descended backwards and eddied out to have a play. We had great fun here. Bashing the kayaks out the way and jumping on the wave. Great to see the tandem surfing too. Albeit in slightly small boats. After playing solo on the wave, I decided to surf the wave tandem with Blue and had a swim trying to surf the wave backwards. Shame I didn’t get that on camera, but you do see me swimming while tandem with Danny.
Charlemagne Backwards from chris dalby on Vimeo.
A cracking end to an amazing two weeks. The end of the video sums it up. The last days paddling for the whole of the season for those guys who travelled home the next day.
Thanks to everyone on Blue’s Paddle Training for making me feel welcome and sharing some memorable times. Inspiring me to run out a buy a new boat. Stay tuned for that one and more video footage.
A huge thanks to Blue, Matt Blue and Phil Hadley for putting up with me on the courses and training. Really enjoyed being a trainee in your sessions.
Paddling the Upper Ardeche
Saturday, September 27th, 2008After the high jinks of the Apls, I have been glad to get down to a bit of rest for a few days and a spot of work. Being on a campsite with wifi is awesome and means I am the same as at home.
This afternoon I went paddling with Matt Blue down the Upper Ardeche. A stalwort of the GB rafting squad, I worked with Matt back in 199something. His first season, my last. He since went on a skills mission, worked many seasons on the Ardeche, worked as a raft guide on the Zambizee and now paddles on the GB Raft squad.
We had spent the afternoon driving round looking for a river worth running. Then as if by magic, it appeared that the tap had been turned on. The river started appearing high and running well. Transporting water from a reservoir, down many levels, into the town to keep the resources moving. Amazing to see resource management and movement happening. Nonetheless, we embraced the water level and had a great paddle down a few hairy rapids.
There are two rivers feeding this. The Font blah de blah de blah (apparently), and the Ardeche. A great afternoon paddling. Some great rapids. Big and bouncy. Lots of rocks.
Upper Ardeche in an Open Canoe from chris dalby on Vimeo.
After this, Matt ran back the 2k to the bus with trailor and returned to collect us and get home. We stopped off for a Mc Doo and the obligatory walk round a sports shop and I bought a new river nife and tape for rescues.
Looking forward to 4* Leader training. Bring it on.
Alps Trip - Day 3 - The Rab
Saturday, September 27th, 2008Waking up after another bivvy and another night spent round a huge fire and N glasses of vino (N being the positive integer greater than 1). People were practising their bushcraft skills of making an ashtray out of a log and burning the hole using embers and sticks from the fire.
Ipod music and a great night had by all. We had already paddled back to Carlsberg after having the most amazing steak dish, with three different sauces, plus a huge salad and a strange pasta and ham dish that lived under the dangling steak and received the nasty end of of the flamed cognac. Picutres to follow.
The Rab is a nasty rapid on La Durance river, in the French alps. The import thing to remember is that rapids change. And nasty rapids eat you and change.
I was paddling tandem down this rapid and we swam like fish. I love this photo. Still paddling to the bitter end.
Paddling the Rab, on La Durance, France.
I recorded this video of everyone coming down the Rab. Not for the feint hearted in an open boat. We unanimously love the typewriter move that sucks from the chicken run to the nasty hole. We did laugh.
Check out the video here:
La Durance paddling from chris dalby on Vimeo.
Alps Trip Day 2 - Via Ferrata
Thursday, September 25th, 2008We came to the Alps intending to canoe. However, a local Via Ferrata proved too good an opportunity not to miss. If you have never heard of a Via Ferrata, think of it as climbing for tourists. Throughout Europe, there are loads of these setup by either regional authorities to promote tourism to the area, or by commercial operations. The course consists of a fully bolted and cabled route. Wearing a climbing harness, helmet and Via Ferrata kit consisting of 2 slings with karabiners, you can safely traverse the route with virtually no risk.
This is not climbing. The course is made easy by a series of large metal staples allowing you to safely climb vertical and overhanging rock faces with virtually no climbing experience. They do leave out the odd staple here and there, to make life a bit tasty on occassion and to get the heart pumping. Especially at that height. ALso, various bridges and wires, making it look like a scene out of Indiana Jones. There are also a series of zip wires spanning both sides of the gorge at it’s highest. As we were out of season, unfortunately these were closed 
The one we were doing was the Via Ferrata in la Durance gorge, which provides excelent views of the white water river below and the surrounding area. Not for the feint hearted, the Via Ferrata is 800m in length and 250m in height. Quite something dangling at that height off a sheer rock face with a video camera in one hand while holding on for dear life.
If you are interested in doing this, here is a link to the website of the organisation running the course.
Here is the video I shot:
Via Ferrata la Durance Gorge from chris dalby on Vimeo.
I also shot a series of mobile video as it became a bit hairy trying to dangle at that height with a video camera. Even so, still pretty difficult with a mobile!
Alps Canoe Trip Day 1 - Serre-Poncon
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008After getting to the Ardeche and settling in at the campsite, I spent the first night meeting up with the rest of the instructors on the paddling course and quaffed a few beers in anticipation of the trip.
We left the Ardeche on the morning of Friday 19th September and headed to the French Alps for Serre-Poncon, near to the town of Gap, where we would bivvy at a secluded spot right on the lake. The bivvy site, known as Carlsberg, because if Carlsberg made bivvy sites, they would probably be the best in the World.
The drive to the Alps took 5 hours, followed by the obligatory trip to Decathlon to buy a few last minute essential items of sports kit. We arrived and paddled the 2k distance in open canoes to the bivvy site in the dark.
Map of Gap
I’ve never paddled a canoe at night before. Not like this. Not carrying 3 days worth of supplies and in truly stunning surroundings. The moon was not strong, but the stars were out and we were treated to a wonderful shooting star display and a great view of the milky way. A truly stunning place, we did not see another sole there for the whole time. Set overlooking the lake, a remarkable place to bivvy. Reminds me of everything I enjoy about being in the outdoors.
We made the 2k, pulled our boats and kit out the water and carried everything to the bivvy site to meet the rest of the instructors. When we got there, they had already setup a great camp and had a huge fire going. Everyone was sitting around, drinking wine and talking with great expectation of the days ahead. People were carving things out of wood for the camp and doing bushcraft skills. A real back to nature experience.
Here’s a video of the morning after this night.
Serre-Poncon from chris dalby on Vimeo.
At the end of this video, you will see Martin paddling an open canoe using a stick. He was dropped off to go a walk up the mountain you can see behind him by himself. Early into the walk, his rucksack straps broke and he had to turn back. Liuckily we had left a canoe over that side of the lake, but no paddles. So he paddled the 2k with a stick.
Prologue to the Alps Canoe Trip
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I have disappeared for a few days on a canoe trip to the south of France. I have hooked up with a friend of mine that is running a canoe instructor training course down here and it was too good an opportunity to miss.
I arrived last Thursday afternoon, courtesy of Ryan air from Luton to Nimes and transferred to the Ardeche, South of France. My connection with the Ardeche is that I worked there for a few years when I was a lot younger as a canoe instructor. Paddling the river, teaching groups of English children how to paddle a canoe at an outdoor activity centre.
I left the outdoor education industry when I was 22, having completed 5 summer seasons working for an outdoor education company, as I felt there was not a career path capable of paying the right money for the amount of responsibility. This was shortly after the Lyme Bay incident that massively shook up the whole of the outdoor education business. And rightly so. I shudder to think how many lives I was responsible at the tender age of 22. Leading groups of 50+ people down the Ardeche river on a weekly basis in the southern French climate on a white water river. The buck stopped with me. They were the best days of my life and those memories stay with me always.
Things have changed somewhat since I left. Many of the people I worked with are now top of their game in the canoing world. Something that I hugely admire. Both professionally and from a lifestyle point of view. It’s something that I felt I would never be able to achieve. So I moved on. But I still enjoy paddling and I am making a huge effort to get out there and paddle as much as I can again. It’s something that is good for the soul. You just can’t beat a days hard paddling, followed by a few glasses of wine around a camp fire on a bivvy site.
This post should act as a bit of background to the trip, so you can understand where I came from and how much canoeing and the south of France means to me. I am recording video, taking photos and will be blogging the whole trip. The first three days of the trip should follow shortly:
Day 1 - Drive from Ardeche to Serre Poncon in the French Alps. Paddle to the bivvy site and camp out.
Day 2 - Via Ferrata - an unexpected beauty. Brought my climbing days back. Truly awesome.
Day 3 - Paddling La Durance in open canoes - A grade 2/3 river
I was inspired to blog this trip after reading the most excellent blogs by Thomas Otter about his recent Italian Cycle trip.