Thames Weirs' - 8th time lucky

The trials and tribulations of a weather (or, more accurately, 'water') witch:

In the last month I've visited several Thames Valley weirs' in the hope of some good wave surfing. I'd heard reports of the Thames Valley's very own Nile Special (although obviously slightly smaller and just a little bit colder and browner) - in the form of Shepperton on 9 gates and Sunbury on some mystical but magical gate-formation:


I have shamelessly stolen this picture of Jon Best at Sunbury from the
White Water The Canoe Centre Website Nice pic, gives an idea of what the wave can be like.
They also have a good video of Shepperton here

So, we'd had the right amount of water but would the lock-keepers open the right gates, and would the upstream/downstream levels be ideal to form the best conditions? Well, seemingly so, but alas, not on any of the many occasions I've visited the above weirs this season. Despite positive web-reports from other Paddlers, whenever I have got to Shepperton it has been either too high, forming a hole, or too low, forming a very flushy and hard-to-get-on wave. I only live 40 minutes drive away - but I just can't seem to time it right! Obviously, when Shepperton was on a perfect level for 2 whole days I was in Devon on the only weekend in November/December that had no rain! Thankfully though, despite a lack of water in most of the Devonshire rivers, the Upper Dart was good to go and we did get a couple of great runs down the river - first time in a creek boat for a few months!

Just before Christmas, as I was having little luck with Shepperton, I went to check out Hambleden Weir, which is just a 10-min drive from Hurley.



After battling through the fog I viewed the wave a little closer and it didn't look too bad. Hambleden weir has moveable ramps, the height of which can be changed by anyone in the local canoe club. Unfortunately, on the day I was there, the local paddlers were either put off by the fog or christmas shopping so the ramps were not at the ideal level. The wave was OK though, just a bit too flushy and very surgy as you can see from these two pics:


And, as I was by myself I wasn't feeling too brave, so after 4 or 5 mainly upright-rides I took off for the short drive to Hurley. Hooray for Hurley! A perfectly green 3-gater, extremely cold, but hey... well worth it.
Thanks to Marc Musgrove for forgetting his spraydeck and therefore available for picture-taking.

After more rain this week I decided that maybe this time I'd be in with a chance of getting Shepperton on its best wave level. Hurley had just gone up to 4 so it was looking good. Our optimism was short-lived though as on the drive over we noticed the ducks were swimming in the fields and the cows were all knee-deep in water - perhaps, once again, a little too much water. Torrential rain overnight saw Shepperton go from a low 4 gates to an all-gates-open hole - looked OK, but not the wave I've been searching for...

Another pic of Jon Best, this time at Shepperton, again Shamelessly stolen from WWTCC website (thanks to these guys, and Kayakojacko website for keeping us up to date with the levels on all the weirs) - more wave than hole here. As the levels get higher the wave moves towards the stantions and becomes a more closed-in hole.


We decided on another look at Sunbury - this weir feature has been changing from awesome wave to munchy hole within hours and, as yet, it is difficult to predict what it is going to be doing. When I visited there in November it was a big munchy hole. As it's only 5-mins from Shepperton we tried our luck again. There was an extra gate open this time, and it was more wave-like with a reasonable shoulder on river-left. Although it was still not at its prime, it was good fun and I'm sure big moves were possible. It also provided a good work-out getting up the boily eddyline to the top each time!



There is still a whole load of water in the rivers, which means there is still a chance of getting out on those waves...maybe next time....