The first thing I must do is thank everyone who helped make the day such a success…

Squarerock – For providing prizes and Demo boats
Ophion – For providing a paddle as a prize
WWTCC – For providing many prizes
Pyranha – For sending down a box of goodies
Nookie – For posting out some kit and nookie condoms!
KayakoJacko – For providing the bibs for the event.

Finn, Mandy, Jo Meares for helping me sort out registering everyone.
Craig and Pikey for helping to Judge and score.
Mike for helping time-keeping, being really enthusiastic and helping with scoring.
Rob, Pikey, Mongo and Amy for taking photos with my camera.
Craig for bringing down Jackson Demo Boats.

And everyone who came down and got involved!

I hope everyone enjoyed the event, I had a brilliant day, and due to everyone being relaxed and helping out, it wasn’t stressful to run the event and even managed to get some time on the wave myself, really couldn’t have done this event without everyone’s help so big shout out to all the supporters, sponsors and helpers.

The sun was out, blue sky, a perfect 3 gate level for competition and fun. 50 people down at the weir during the day and a good few made it to the pub afterwards, lots of friends made and old acquaintances renewed, and after the tragic events of the week preceeding in Scotland, I really wanted this event to be even more about smiles and fun and just generally getting everyone on the water and enjoying themselves as a tribute to someone who never paddled without a smile on her face, and I’m humbled to say from the feedback from everyone I think we managed that.

I think 6 comps was a little bit too much to ask, especially expecting people to get big boats down to the weir as well so unfortunetly as we were running a bit late (mainly because we had more people than I expected, and a bit of general kayaking faff) I had to drop the Big Boat Comp. I hope the rest of the events were enough for everyone

The Old Gits comp featuring old-skool moves was won by Mally, best move being an old-skool paddle throw, glad your paddles are easy to spot! Freestyle pairs was thoroughly entertaining with some very impressive synchronised moves, especially from Sam and Pikey who managed a synchronised blunt and Helix, but the move that got the most points was a double kiss from Jo and Flic to the judge.

The Spin-to-win competition saw an interesting array of styles and techniques, from elegant clean spins to the brute force approach (Rob). Some notible efforts from Nicola, Robin and Jo meares, but the top 3 were in a notch above (might have to exclude sponsored paddlers from that next time).

The knock-out-comp was an interesting event, something I invented to try to level the competition and allow everyone to compete at their own level and stand a chance of winning. At registration each paddler was asked to name their 4 best moves, 1 that they could definetly do on the wave, 2 that they thought they could do and 1 which would challenge them. 4 moves, 4 rounds, you got 2 attempts to do the move to be able to move through to the next round. This lead to a lot of novices choosing basic moves like front surf and spining, and the more advanced (or cocky) paddlers putting blunts (or Helix if your name is Pikey!). This lead to a few suprise early exits and we saw a range of paddling abilites in the final round. Only 6 people managed all 4 moves they had named, and there was a short final to decide the winners, but in the end there was almost nothing between the top two and as the event was supposed to be fun and not about technical marking, we stopped it there and moved onto King of the Wave.

3 minutes of carnage on the wave saw 4 people on the wave in the final moments, then we were down to 2 with Matty paddleless holding onto Flic’s deck and trying not to get flushed off the wave but in the end Flic Triumphed to be Queen of the Wave!

At Prize giving we had some fantastic prizes courtsey of the above sponsors, Changing mats, dry bags, books, t-shirts, boardies, hats, key rings, condoms, stickers, roof bar protectors, an Ophion Paddle and paddle gloves (which keep your paddle dry )

The novice prize went to Louise for really impressing with her determination and really trying in the pairs and knock out comp. The special prize of the Ophion paddle went to a Junior paddler, Gabriel Metcalf for getting stuck in and not playing the safe option on the knock-out-comp and impressing with his determination and almost getting a Trick-woo in the last round.

I hope this event inspires others to go out and attempt to do something similar, it was pulled together in just 6 days, after a few emails a few post online with a nice glossy looking poster and a lot of support from the community. It would be great to see more like it and I’m sure the support will always be there, bring on the next event… Hurley BoaterX anyone?

Old Gits Comp
1st Jonathan Males
2nd Chuckey
=2nd Gordon Hoddinott
3rd Jacko

Freestyle Pairs
1st Felicity Meares and Jo Meares
2nd Josh and Sam
3rd Sam A and Pikey

Spin to Win
1st Sam A
2nd Rob Harris
3rd Matty Nicolas

Knock Out Comp
1st Sam Anderson
=1st Matty Nicolas
3rd Pikey
4th Rob Harris
=4th Nicola Beeby
5th Ben West

King/Queen of the Wave
1st Felicity Meares
2nd Matty Nicolas
3rd Dale Mears

King of the Rodeo
Gabriel Metcalf

Novice Award
Louise Royle

Photos – Dave ‘Scout’ Wortley, Rob Harris, Mongo, Pikey and Amy Bowditch.

Facebook Photos

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/album.php?aid=164056&id=507807426

Flickr few more than on facebook. (low res, if you want high resolution please PM me)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30267298@N05/sets/72157623717638609/

If you want to use any of the photos on your blogs etc, please link back to the albumn they came from. I really welcome any feedback from the event and hope to run another one like it some time.

Scout

PS Matty Swam….