My life afloat

So the rains finally hit Nottingham a week ago I managed to get a good couple of sessions at Newarkl weir with some good friends. Newark however good fun it is is a stepping stone to trent Lock one of Nottinghams finest River Waves. It takes a good downpour to work needing around 3metres on the gauge to form correctly.Even then its a mission for longer boats or surf boats. Trent Lock is a big fast wave much faster than most as the levels rise it becomes easier to surf in shorter modern playboats.

Not this time! The big boats (Super Ego’s) and old school Riots are most peoples sellection.

Anyway I won’t go on about it have a look at the photos.

Photos of myself, Desperate measures barry Hughes and Danny Scott, Shep, Joe Bradley, Sam Hennesey, Amy Simcock and Rob Edgar.

Enjoy

Ok so I got the news that I had been accepted on a Masters course part time whilst teaching at my school, my first thought great! I can enter the National student Rodeo again!

So I entered under the Anglia Ruskin University (Sorry Trent…my allegiance still stands with Trent but I had to enter).

Friday night I got in from work, grabbed a beer and wait…. ok so I didn’t party straight away as was out for a meal with friends but that beer tasted good! After the meal I took a trip down to the River legacy gazebo to register…. and then back to the pub!

Saturday morning I was up nice and early met up with my friends and sponsors at Desperate Measures and Wavesport and hit the water to warm up. It was nice morning weather was calm with little wind. The event kicked off from 8.20am and saw girls, boys and well some odd sights hit the water for their extreme slalom runs.

Extreme slalom is the qualifying routine, a number of features where paddlers are expected to do a new school move, hit a ball that is suspended in the air (a little high this year), a spin and lastly an old school move! Did I mention the event is the largest freestyle event in the world! Yes the World but is meant to be fun and be a great introduction for new club paddlers.

The trade village was set up as usual with stands from desperate measures, Wavesport, Palm, Pyranha, Big Dog, Zet, Robson etc….. on hand to provide students with all their paddling needs and goodies. Also some excellent prizes such as a Wavesport D75, Dagger Mamba (in tiger stripe), a Big Dog Kaos and a range of other goods from Aqua Pack and Palm.

Saturday afternoon saw the women battle it out in their first heats for novice, and expert with the top paddlers moving through into the Sunday Final. Men had it easy and could sit back relax and have a beer or two and prepare for the party Sat night.

Saturday night wow… how do I explain one huge party, one huge tent one huge job organising. Well done to River legacy once again on providing an excellent party. The theme Jungle! My costume well me and my girlfriend went as Ant and Dec which seems to confuse a few paddlers who were from Canada and South Africa. To be fair how would you expect them to know that the guy with the huge forehead is famous! And why does Dec have boobs.

Story of the night has to go out to Joe Morley who managed to paddle to the Southbank pub leave kayaks in the beer garden, order at the bar in tiger outfits and spray decks, then on route to the party board the Nottingham Princess all you can drink booze cruise, then get off the cruise and paddle to HPP attending the party very wet indeed! Heroic!

Sunday morning came rather earlier than I may have liked and it was an early start for the men’s heats. I was on the water for 9am in the men’s expert heats and struggling on the feature, not with the paddling but keeping up my drinks from the night before! It was success as I had made it into the Men’s Expert Final and just had to wait until the afternoon to paddle again. George Younger was looking on form and in my eyes was sure to win putting in some very clean rides.

Women’s came and went with some great paddling from Islay Crosbie and Flic Meares. Unfortunately I did not get to witness much of the Intermediate and Novice events due to paddling but I am told these were very entertaining!

Finally I was up Men’s final 7 of us battling it out for the podium spots, my best result at NSR 2005 was 10th Expert now 7 years older and a student again I had to beat it, at least I knew I had already. The competition was high some great runs from all paddlers the format a 15 minute Jam session meant plenty of wave time was to be had and scoring was on variety so once a move is scored you must look for a new move. This was difficult in a jam session as most paddlers were running out of moves in their tricks bank or forgetting what they had already scored! I think everyone hit loops, Godzilla’s, cartwheels, Mcnastys and Rhys Roberts took the victory with the only Phonix Monkey in the final, George ‘of the Jungle’ younger taking 2nd and Ben West taking 3rd place. I ended up in 6th which I was happy with considering the competition.

Check out the results of this NSR 2012 below:-

Overall University Standings

1st: Southampton
2nd: Bath
3rd: Durham

Spirit of PGL award – Aberystwyth

Carnage Award – Glasgow

K1: Mens Novice
1st: Pete Ainscow
2nd: Will Mawdsley
3rd: Ryan Matthews
4th: Ricki Bills
5th: Adam Rimmer

K1: Womens Novice
1st: Jeannine Bradley
2nd: Marie Faithful
3rd: Nicola Woodcock
4th: Rose Ashmore
5th: Hannah Sullivan

K1: Mens Intermediate
1st: Ryan Stigant
2nd: Daniel Bodey
3rd: Sam Faithful

K1: Womens Expert
1st: Flic Meares
2nd: Islay Crosbie
3rd: Sandra Hyslop

K1: Mens Expert
1st:Rhys Roberts
2nd: George Younger
3rd: Ben West

C1
1st: Rick Longley
2nd: Jack Gunter
3rd: Steve Rees-Clark

Squirt
1st: Islay Crosbie
2nd: Tom Keogh
3rd: Chris Booth

Emily Parker Prize – Sean Carley

For photos see:-
http://www.river-legacy.org.uk
http://www.facebook.com/riverlegacyuk
http://www.youtube.com/riverlegacyuk

Following photos thanks to Andrew Sylvester

On new years day 2012 a truly inspiring person, Kate Stainsby died in an accident while Kayaking in the Yorkshire Dales in the UK. Jason raper was paddling with Kate on the day of the accident but was further down river when the tragedy took place. The Great North Air Ambulance played a huge role in the rescue efforts and so a group have decided to paddle the River Ure from source to sea which is 160 miles and plan to begin our decent on 9th March and aim to paddle to the North sea in 3 days.

As well as raising money for the Air ambulance They wish to raise awareness of the life saving results of Organ Donation. Kate gave what is thought to be 20 other people a second chance in life by been a registered organ donor, and in doing so prevented their loved ones experiencing what must be one, of life’s toughest challenges.

Please show your support by following the link below and donating.

http://www.justgiving.com/paddletheURE

More info on organ donation can be found at

http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/

Whether you give to both these honourable causes, just one or non, maybe you can go cheer them on or join them on the river. All support is hugely Appreciated.

And thank you to all who already have donated!

Great New Years was upon us again and myself and a group of friends decided to head to North Wales to celebrate with some good boating and some good drinking!

We headed to North wales on the friday nightso we could get a morning run on saturday. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of rain overnight however we managed to get a run down the Fairy Glen a good grade 5 gorge run and one of the UK’s premier runs. This run always relies on you being on top form. Alongside Miles Jones, Andy Butler, David bain and Daz Clarkson we head down the river. Having only paddled the Glen a few times I was very greatfull to have Daz and Andy with us as local knowledge of the lines is necisary.

Miles, Daz and David had already been on an early morning run.

The river was at a just below sticky level and proved to be great fun from start to finish. Heres some photos.

On to the party for New Years Eve we stayed at a bunkhouse in Panmachno good party good friends!

On New Years day we had lots of rain overnight so headed over to the Ogwen valley to see what level the Ogwen was on. On arrival levels were good! Medium to Low High so plenty of water running down Bank Falls and rushing down the Gun Barell section.

Mandy Chan had joined us but decided to run only the section after the gun barell (a horrible rocky slide about 15 MPH and about 4 inches deep full of rock and Iron Girders) the thing here is not to swim!

bank falls went well for myself, Stu and Miles. I took a slight roll over a rock that popped out of knowehere however my day got significantly worse upon entering the Gun barell section. I decided to avoid an overhanging tree (strainer) I would charge the stopper and boof over the tow back. In reality what happened was I didn’t get enough speed and got sucked back into the hole.

After about 2 mins sat in the stopper getting thrown around silly I capsized and fell out of my kayak not even needing to tag the deck. The next 5 mins I would rather forget I hit the overhanging tree, and about every rock and girder on the run. Not a swim I will want to do again!

anyway some photos of the damage.

On the 30th November 2011 my good friend and Wide Eyed Kayking team mate Matty Nicholas ran one of the UK’s most taked about drops Rheadr Mawddach. In support and filming were Jason Raper, Stu Morris, Islay Crosbie and Martyn Butler. This is one of North wales most off putting drops due to a crux lead in and the view of a Diss-used mine shaft. Standing 87ft this was only the 8th decent of this waterfall and only when standing next to it do you realise why. Check out the video!

A late entry this week, 3 weeks ago we headed north for some paddling adventures. Unfortunately there was little rain until the sunday so saturday consisted of a low level swale run.

At 0.2 on the guage this was the lowest I had ever ran this section of river, however with scrapes between sections at least we were able to run all the drops.

Myself, Matty Nicholas, Sam Ellis, Tom Pattison and Wayne Astley from perception/Wavesport, Jon best and Tom Gillings-Rice hit the river early saturday morning. Here are some photos thanks to Matt Tench who came along as photographer for the weekend.

Produced by Matty Nicholas the long awaited full film from the WEK expedition to The Land Of Fire And Ice. In July 2011 WEK paddlers Matty Nicholas, Sam Ellis, Adam Ramadan, Jason Raper, Miles Jones and Dean Gagnon headed to Iceland in search of waterfalls and rivers. The trip was a great success and the film One Day In Iceland tells their story.

After seeing QR tags on buildings, buses and billboards I decided it was my time to get involved and see how effective they are. QR is quick response code that works like that of a barcode scanner to link to websites, videos, links, the possibilities are endless!

I really do suggest you try it for yourself to spread your experiences in the paddling world!

If this has worked for you and you have been directed here after scanning my QR please leave me some feedback of what you think.

Take care on the water

Dale

Ok so this weekend I headed North to the Anual Tyne Tour event at Hexham green. The event consists of a trade section featuring all the UK’s kayak retailers and manufacturers my Sponsors were on hand providing event bargains and free demo’s, Desperate Measures were on hand with their famous Camo Tent!

and Wavesport were on hand with their gazeebo which was home of the Projector and Nintendo Wii for most of saturday!

The saturday saw hundreds of paddlers hit the tyne for a long paddle! Mostly flat exept for the Gorge section which caused a slight bit of carnage for some of the University clubs.

Saturday night was fireworks in Hexham green and then onto a ceilidh and drinks at the party!

Sunday most departed and hit up various rivers throughout the country, if they could find water!

Wide Eye Kayaking paddler Sam Ellis runnig Couldron Snout this weekend in County Durham, Uk.

Whilst testing his new VE glass blades Sam styled what is a much anticipated accomplishment in the Uk.

Ran before at lower levels with masses of safety this is by far the most impressive to date!

Check it out here!