Shropshire Paddlesport Blog

I’ve added the ability to search the blog up in the top right-hand corner of the main page. It works like almost any other search engine you’ve ever used - type some words or a phrase into the box and click “Search”.

So for example

slalom

will only bring back postings which have the word “slalom” in the title or in the article.

Using “AND” means that both words have to exist, so

hasler AND national

will return entries with both words (or  partial words - “national” also brings back things containing  “nationally” for example)

Finally if you want a specifc phrase then just include it inside quotes e.g.

“kayak village”

As it gets towards the time of the year when most normal people’s thoughts are focused on Christmas, there are a small (some would say perverse) group of people who are already thinking ahead to Easter. Yes the DW loonies will be considering that as soon as the last of the mince pies have been scoffed and the remains of the turket fed to the dog they will be starting to ramp up their training so that they can spend their Easter holiday paddling 126 miles along the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Thames.

Marsport have long been involved with the DW and their website has always provided a wealth of information for DW paddlers and support crews. This year they have completely revamped their website and as part of that exercise they have invited three different teams, coming to it from very different perspectives, to blog their life in the run up to DW. The first is Owen Peake, Div 1 Hasler racer and current Waterside senior K1 champion. The second team is “Mr & Mrs Stig” a (currently) anonymous K2 team.

The third spot goes to Shropshire Paddlesport’s own Deb May. We had a call from Marsport a couple of weeks ago as they’d read her contributions to the DW thread on the UK Rivers forum and wanted her to reinforce the “anyone can do this if you’re sufficiently determined” idea. When you consider that we started off two years ago with no idea what we were doing and a borrowed boat…

This is a great opportunity and helps to raise the profile of the club nationally. If you want to read her thoughts on preparing for the DW both on and off the water then her blog is going to be here and should be started over the next couple of days.

[Edit] I see that they’ve now added a C2 team as well.

The official results have been posted here for last Sunday’s Ross Warland race - its very interesting to note the number of OOT (out-of-time) results for people who took a rather relaxed attitude to their start time (or found themselves really struggling against the headwind on the way back) and then didn’t make it back before the 2.30pm end-of-race time.

Thankfully that wasn’t anyone from our club - Shropshire paddlesport managed to notch up

Andy / Deb: (2 x 10 miles relay)                          03:53:38

Phil & Alice / Connor & Ellie (2 x 10 miles relay)     04:03:04

Maria (20 miles straight through)                          04:42:24

Anyone who’s been following the conversations about the race on UKRivers (or elsewhere) will know that the overwhelming sentiment about the race was “by ‘eck it were cold”.

This Thursday is the Shropshire Paddlesport Christmas bash.  There will be no on-the-water training.

.. and if you are coming to the bash and haven’t paid Karan, please do so ASAP.

Entry forms are now being taken for waterside A.

Entries are being restricted to 400 boats this year so if you want to do it you will need to apply early.  There were 600 boats in last year’s race and numbers keep increasing year on year so if you want to do it, get your forms in now.

The watersides website is currently out of date - apparently James is struggling to get it updated, but the 2008 application form is there along with 2008 fee rates.

New details might appear on the Reading website in the near future