Lack of boating ahead
Well Hurley dropped to one gate last weekend, after a fantastic session following James F's wedding. Congratulations James and Elaine - it was a lovely wedding with a great party, maybe a little too much free wine though! So, we all hit Hurley on the Sunday with hangovers, only the wedding guests in the eddy (which was a fair few of us). We were all a bit shaky with the paddling but it was gorgeous weather and the level was excellent and the lack of a queue was great. Possibly that was the last session of the season - no rain forecast and the trees are out in full bloom so any rain that does fall will be instantly sucked up. This really is the wrong country to be in for boating - the weather gets warmer and we have to hang up our boats until it gets cold again, or until we go on holiday (which is generally my preference).
There is of course the local pourover at Boulters which is always OK for a good post-work summer dunking (and is actually between work and home for me so may be visited quite often), and of course the artificial course at Nottingham (not so local and unfortunately no waves, but again good for a bit of summer hole boating). I headed up to Nottingham on Monday for one of the youth freestyle events which are happening in various places around the country. The GB team attended this event to help out with a bit of coaching and for a demo event, it was good to meet up with the team again, and amazing to watch some of the young kids paddle. I didn't think a g-force 5.9 would look huge on anyone until I saw a tiny 8 year old paddling one! His feet only just reached over the seat! Still, he managed to stay upright down the course and was even surfing some waves on the way down. We tested out the new looping pool feature which is going to be used for the Eurocup event this year and the European Championships next year. Unfortunately it isn't a wave, but due to the deep shape of the course bed downstream of the feature it would be very difficult to form a wave without pouring a load of concrete in. However, they have done what they can with whats available and it seems to have turned out OK, although I don't think it will be the best showcase for moves in a competition. When the course is on full release with lots of water going down it is quite retentive and pretty quick and a bit feisty - moves go both ways, but because the feature is deep it is quite hard to get any air for loops. Apparently when the course is lower it is a bit flushy.
I start my new teaching job on Monday so maybe it's not a bad thing that Hurley isn't running at the moment!
To a summer of pourovers and hole moves....
Flea
There is of course the local pourover at Boulters which is always OK for a good post-work summer dunking (and is actually between work and home for me so may be visited quite often), and of course the artificial course at Nottingham (not so local and unfortunately no waves, but again good for a bit of summer hole boating). I headed up to Nottingham on Monday for one of the youth freestyle events which are happening in various places around the country. The GB team attended this event to help out with a bit of coaching and for a demo event, it was good to meet up with the team again, and amazing to watch some of the young kids paddle. I didn't think a g-force 5.9 would look huge on anyone until I saw a tiny 8 year old paddling one! His feet only just reached over the seat! Still, he managed to stay upright down the course and was even surfing some waves on the way down. We tested out the new looping pool feature which is going to be used for the Eurocup event this year and the European Championships next year. Unfortunately it isn't a wave, but due to the deep shape of the course bed downstream of the feature it would be very difficult to form a wave without pouring a load of concrete in. However, they have done what they can with whats available and it seems to have turned out OK, although I don't think it will be the best showcase for moves in a competition. When the course is on full release with lots of water going down it is quite retentive and pretty quick and a bit feisty - moves go both ways, but because the feature is deep it is quite hard to get any air for loops. Apparently when the course is lower it is a bit flushy.
I start my new teaching job on Monday so maybe it's not a bad thing that Hurley isn't running at the moment!
To a summer of pourovers and hole moves....
Flea
posted by flea at 10:55 AM 0 comments 