Long time, no playboating!

It's been a while (the Worlds, beginning of Sept), since I was in my playboat, and only the one session in a creekboat in that time - a short trip to the River Dart for the Gene 17 weekend back in December:
photos: Paul Wilkinson

My physio (I've been having sessions to resolve some long-term back problems) gave me the all-clear to go boating just the day before it snowed, but.... it snowed.... hmmmm.... no chance of me wanting to go near the water with cold white stuff on the ground.

Thankfully it stopped snowing and I recently got back in my boat. There's nothing like a green Hurley 3-gater in the sunshine to dust the cobwebs off and a couple of sessions this week got me back into the way of some big wave moves. Unfortunately I seem to have forgotten what to do in a hole (it's been well over a year since I did any significant hole-boating!) and who knows where my edges have got to. I'm sure that will come back in time (hopefully before the European Championships in June!) but not if that middle gate at Hurley stays green :)

New job, no boating

It has been a long time since I have been in my boat- apart from a 1 hour splash at Boulters, I have not been paddling since Worlds (early Sept). This is mainly due to a lack of water in the Thames valley - Hurley has been shut and my one trip to Boulters wasn't inspiring enough to make me want to get back in my boat until it rained enough for Hurley. However, I have also been seeing a physio to try and sort out a long-standing back problem and he has advised against boating until its fixed. The good news is it does feel like it is getting better, the bad news is Hurley is now on 3 gates and it is very tempting to get back in my boat.... I shall try to resist until I have built up strength in the right places.

At the moment I haven't got that much time to go boating anyway as I have just started a new teaching job, which although is just 4 days a week (3 days in a year 1/2 class, and 1 day in a year 4 class) I am super busy with planning/figuring out new routines and I also recently started an evening Post Grad cert course in teaching children with literacy difficulties.

Last weekend I took an organisational/adminstrative off-water role in my second missed selection event since 1999 (the first missed one was a couple of weekends before at Brit Champs)! Which didn't matter as, because I am European Champion, I am pre-selected for the European Championships in June. It was interesting to watch the action from the bank, but bizarrely I still felt nervous when the ladies came on as if I should have been paddling.

The event took place in a new feature on the HPP course: The Tardis, which had been developed especially for the event and was believed to be not too dissimilar to the feature in Lienz. It looked a tricky spot to set up and was super flushy if you didn't land your loops accurately or veered too far to playboaters left. Jen Chrimes had some great rides in the ladies event with some huge loops and back loops and Claire O took 2nd place with loops and some really vertical clean cartwheels.

Jen Chrimes looping


Claire O clean-cartwheeling.

James 'pringle' Bebbington took his 2nd selection win in the men's event pulling off most hole tricks in both directions, though in this competition he was not quite so far ahead of the rest of the field - Jon Best was only a few points behind and they were both closely followed by Joe Bradley in his first season of senior competition.

Thankfully the rains have arrived just in time for the 3rd selection event at Hurley 21st November (I'll once again be putting my spectator booties on). We just need to hope that a) it rains enough to keep it on at least 2 gates and b) it doesn't rain too much to flood it out - it's a fine balance!

Hopefully see you on the water soon :)

Flea

2010 Jackson Star - Is it worthy of the hype?

There has been plenty of hype about the New Star series when it first came out - videos of the Jackson paddlers going huge, lots of talk of 'this is the best boat ever' etc. etc. It's shorter, it must be better (though that didn't quite work for the Dagger FX!) Team paddlers were raving about it and so were the Jackson 'faithfuls' (i.e those that aren't sponsored but will always only paddle Jackson boats, those that will buy the new boat without even trying it and therefore have to rave about it anyway to show they have made the right choice - regardless of whether it is actually better than their last boat!).

Anyway, although I found the videos fairly convincing and you can not ignore the number of Jackson paddlers that medalled in Thun, I am pretty sure the top guys could get huge air and big moves if they were paddling a bath tub - I didn't trust the hype and wanted to try the boat for myself.

For the last 18 months I have been an 'independent' paddler, I am not faithful to any one boat manufacturer, proven by the fact that I have been regularly swapping between both a Wavesport Project - bought and paid for by myself, and a Jackson Star - kindly provided by my local kayak shop Marsport. I loved the Star in holes as it was so easy to throw around, balanced on end and great at looping, but I didn't like it so much on a wave as I couldn't get used to really having to dig the rails in for it to release to get any verticality. I have therefore been using the Project on a wave as I love the bounce and I can be lazy with the rails but still get big air!!

I demoed the new star in the holes at HPP and on the surf and have recently been paddling one (courtesy of Marsport) at Bremgarten (fast, flushy wave) and Thun (a non-steep wave, no shoulders). I know absolutely nothing about boat design, and can't comment on what exactly makes things good/bad, but below are a few of my thoughts as to how I found it performed.

General: This boat is short and ugly, but extremely light-weight! It is wider than the old star, and small people may therefore find it harder to throw around. I know several paddlers have had to put extra foam on the seat to enable them to get 'over the top' of the knee bumps.

Colours - after the '90s horrendous multi-colours by various boat manufactures (although Dagger in particular) I believe there was a reason why we moved to solid colours. 'nuff said, though each to their own - some may like the 'blended frog' look of the blue/green/red mix, or the French flagged red/white/blue, or maybe red/white/blue - at least there is a choice.
Martina Wegman paddling a good 'ol solid green-coloured '10 Star Thun

Outfitting - It looks to be the same as in the old boats. Happy feet - like marmite you either love it (them?), or hate it (them?) (although, actually - like marmite - I find I can put up with it at times)- I always put foam behind the happy feet so I don't need to use the pumpy up system, which I find to be too weird and wobbly. I find it quite concerning how much the plastic flexes when the foot bags are pumped up - doesn't fill me with confidence in how thick the plastic is!

One tip for those trying a demo - ensure you check the seat position! It makes a huge difference to the performance, generally the boats come in with the seat thumb screws & jubilee clip being loose, so as soon as it is paddled the seat moves to a far back position which greatly affects how it paddles, particularly in cartwheel moves. A flathead screwdriver and strong fingers will make it secure.

Boat finish - seems to be Teflon coated! Straight out from the wrapper and the surface is super slippery - my stickers wouldn't stay on! My hand also slipped off when I was getting out of the boat onto some rocks - be careful! Makes it nice and slippery on the wave though, I'm sure :)

Hole moves: In a hole it certainly had the pop and the loops were big, both front and back and it was easy to move around (sometimes a bit too quick though) for other moves.

The biggest difference between the new and old star is in the 'slicey' moves e.g cartwheels/splitwheels/tricky whus etc - due to the lack of length and the 'pop' in the boat it feels like it wants to pop out every time an end is initiated, this is not necessarily a bad thing and is certainly useful for air on moves, but it does mean it lacks the 'smoothness' of the old star in cartwheel-based moves.

This boat has obviously been designed with competition in mind (unsurprisingly given that a 4-times world freestyle champion was behind it) - cartwheels are not worth a lot of points any more, so it is not necessary to paddle a boat that does them easily (except I quite like cartwheeling - it's taken me 10 years to perfect it, I don't want to give it up just yet!!). Cartwheels are certainly still possible, they are just a lot more 'poppy'; harder to push through the fat front end and the back end (which does not seem to exist) can come through too quickly, so it is not so easy to control as in the previous Star. If cartwheeling is your thing, or you only paddle in pour-overs then you're not going to like it. But, in a decent hole, or if the majority of your moves are loop-based you'll love the 'pop'!

EJ - boat designer, getting vertical at Thun

On a wave: There was much hype about how fast this boat is, despite its short length. I don't see fast as always being good though, the old boat was fast, so was the Dagger Crazy '88 and that didn't make me enjoy it more than the slower Project (or even Kingpin). On Hurley I find a fast boat to be too hard to get blunts - as with such a small space for manoeuvering I am down the bottom of the wave before I've even thought of putting an edge on! So, I was interested to see how this boat would perform on a wave - particularly as I had to make the choice of whether to paddle one at the Worlds or not.

Emily Jackson, World Champion, back-blunting.

On Bremgarten (fast wave, good shoulders) the boat was awesome - it was easier to control than the Project as it didn't bounce around so much, it went just where I pointed it! It was smooth on the wave, but it still released really easily (easier than the old star) and was easy to get vertical. Blunts seemed really fast and effortless and clean blunts felt easy. Jumping straight back into my Project afterwards felt sluggish and hard work.

On the slower wave (Thun) the speed of the boat was a definite advantage as the wave wasn't giving any speed or bounce at all (although the bounce of the Project was still good). Like the old Star, it was necessary to put a hard edge on the boat to get any response, but once done it did seem to release easily and seemed to go more vertical than the old boat (no, I didn't get the protractor out :)) -bizarrely though, a lot of the time when I was getting blunts (seen later on video) it felt like I was roundhousing. It did seem to be more retentive than the Project - this could be due to the fact the moves were being completed faster.

My conclusion - whilst I shall remain an 'independent' paddler I'm refining my boat collection and selling the Project. I'm looking forward to paddling the new Star at Hurley this winter. Big loops without hitting the bottom are going to be great and I'm hoping for some 3-gate sessions to get in some fast wave moves.

Thun - Semis & Finals

A 4^th World Championship final was not to be for me as I just couldn’t get the points to make top 5 – I was fairly happy with my rides compared to how I had been paddling throughout the rest of the competition, but I was sure I could have been paddling better on the wave – my back blunts were fairly non-existant, I forgot my rails and couldn't find the airblunts that I was landing a couple of days before in training, I looked deep up my sleeves for a big move, but even the felixes I landed in a couple of practice sessions wouldn’t have been enough against the strong field of the top 5 competitors.

The competition in the ladies category has finally reached the stage, comparable to the men's event, where us part-time paddlers are finding it harder and harder to compete against some of the top paddlers, who are not only full-time/professional paddlers (whilst some may envy my 85 days on white-water (in the last 365) it is fairly insignificant when compared to some others' 200-300+ days of paddling), but paddle full-time with others who coach them. I have seen huge improvements in my own paddling following several coached on-water sessions with Kayakojacko and Sweetwater Coaching’s Dennis Newton and also video-feedback sessions on the Nile with Love it Live it coach Sam Ward and can only imagine what paddling full-time with someone who can offer regular feedback could do to the level of my paddling.

What a great finals to watch though! The standard in the ladies was amazing – Emily Jackson landed a huge helix in her 2^nd ride which helped her to score more points than many of the men were getting. Ruth Gordon was consistent with air and verticality and a donkey flip in her 2^nd ride upped her points score to give her 2^nd place. Tanya Faux was looking nervous in her 2^nd ride as she wasn’t getting her usual powerful, vertical moves, but she saved it until her last ride which gave her the points she needed for 3^rd place.

The men’s event was also great to watch – Nick Troutman’s first ride had just about every move possible one after the other, with no set up time in between – 1500 points in 45 seconds! Pretty much impossible to beat, though we watched in anticipation to see if the others had it in them to go one step further. EJ had a good try but was taking time to set up his moves, losing valuable seconds - he scored just under 1000 points which gave him 2nd place. Stephen Wright had some solid rides and although he couldn't match either EJ's or Nick's rides he looked pretty happy with 3rd place and threw a huge wave-monkey-type move after the buzzer to plenty of applause from the crowd.

Thun wave was certainly not the best feature to compete on - it was hard to get air, there were no shoulders, it was a 'flat' wave, (although you really wouldn't think so from looking at the finals rides!), but all in all this was a great event - despite being the only event where I have had to paddle at 2am to get extra wave-time (if only the wave was working from the Monday, instead of the Wednesday...), it was well organised and the sideline shows (rafting high-ender, big-air ramp, slackline), added to the main event, helped to make a great spectacle for the thousands of onlookers.

Back in England now and we have no down-time at all before the British Champs and the selection events for the Europeans in Lienz (June '10), thankfully as European Champion, I am already pre-selected.

I am unable to make the British Champs this year, so I'm going to let someone else take the British Championship title from me :)

A huge thanks to Marsport for sorting me out with a new boat in time for the Worlds :)

Ladies Quarters

A write-up is on ukfreestyle website

I have made it through to the next round, once again in 9th place (consistent!), though I seem to have misplaced my box of verticality - last seen on the Nile in June - if anyone finds it please return to me, Gwatt Campsite by 17.00hrs Saturday at the latest.

Ruth Gordon got some huge air on a donkey flip/airscrew, though she took 2nd place just behind Emily Jackson who was consistent with flip turns, air back stabs and felixes.

All semi-finals are happening this afternoon, starting with the OC1 - who all went through to the semis as several of them tied on 0 points - how bizarre to put paddlers through to a World Championship semi-final when they have scored 0 points!

Good news as the sun is shining - a big contrast to yesterday's stormy showers, although the clouds seem to be gathering....

I'll be up again, with team mate Emily Wall at about 18.00 tonight.

Thun - ladies heats

I have updated www.ukfreestyle.com with what has been happening in the rest of the competition. Yesterday was the ladies heats. I was grateful of an early heat, as that meant I could then watch the rest of the ladies paddling (I hate watching when I am yet to paddle).

My rides were OK - a couple of blunts (thankfully I found my edges 2 days before the competition and started mainly gettting blunts (left) instead of roundhouses) and clean spins, but no where near the level of the top ladies. Ruth Gordon, Emily Jackson, Mariann Saether and Tanya Faux were the ones to beat yesterday - mainly they were just getting verticality and/or air on every move front and back, but there were a few big moves being thrown as well. It looked like Ruth nailed a donkey flip; Mariann, a felix; Tanya, a huge pan-am and Emily has been consistent in getting flip turns and flashbacks.

Because of my early heats I could cheer on fellow Brits Emily Wall and Lowri Davies. Emily got a nice back stab, but then caught an edge and flushed early, but she had a good final ride which put her through to the next round in 13th place. Lowri was really unlucky with the wave totally greening out as she went to catch it on her first ride, this seemed to put her off in the next 3 rides as she had several more unlucky flushes and therefore didn't make it into the top 20 cut.

This year we have had the luxury of a quarter final - the first since the team sizes were reduced after Graz 2003, as there were 43 women. Now that I have already made top 10 (I was 9th yesterday), I would have preferred to go straight to a semi!

The online updates here are great - Emily W got a text from her mum in Bali telling her what heat she was in before she saw it being posted on the official noticeboard!

Well, I'm up again this afternoon, hoping for some verticality today!

(can't seem to upload any photos at the moment, will try again later :)

Thun - Opening ceremony

(I wrote this on Tuesday morning - but only just got round to posting it!) 

We had our last team training session yesterday, although for us ladies we have another 2 days before we are competing (Thursday).

Last night we attended one of the best opening ceremonies I have been to (and I’ve attended a lot!), mainly because it started just about on time (no sitting around in the heat waiting for something to happen), it was relatively short, the speeches weren’t translated into several languages (and were also fairly short) and the ‘entertainment’ provided (in the form of street dancing and a competition ‘song’) was actually quite entertaining.

The street dancers (local, Swiss youngsters) were great, but unfortunately either the stage wasn’t big enough or the routines were too big and therefore they performed on the floor making it difficult for the majority of us to see.

The announcement a few days previously that there would be a ‘competition song’ brought back uncomfortable memories of the ‘ro-ro-rodeo’ composition performed in Graz by one man and his slightly wobbly keyboard… we awaited a repeat performance, what we got was a little different (to say the least) – Rush Sturges performed and composed a hip-hop/techno rap (I’m not sure that’s the right terminology) about competing in freestyle in Switzerland (relevant!) – it was very good!

We had a great team meal on Monday night, against the back drop of the lake and mountains – thanks to the Laytons and the other parents for preparing the feast! 

GB team float boat ladies: 

A handful of the GB team 'men': !