Shropshire Paddlesport Blog

If you think that you might get bored the day before our own club race (and you’re not busy helping us get it set up) you could always pop down to Worcester and have a go in their mini-sprint regatta.

Saturday 27th June 2009

Worcester Canoe Club

Grandstand Road

Worcester

Worcestershire.

WR1 3EJ

• Registration open from 12pm - 1p.
• Racing 1.30 - 4.30.
• 4.30 - 6.30 “the plastic boat challenge”

To quote Sue Hawthorn “Don’t expect split second timing, don’t take it too seriously, do come and have fun”

Andy & Deb have more info so call us if you’re interested.

One of the things about being based on a skinny canal is that working with *really* big boats is a bit tricky - if you try to put something like a K4 in the water at the shed then you have to go all the way up to the winding point by the aqueduct before you can turn it in that direction and if you’re going down the canal you’re limited to picking it up and turning it around by hand.

So, as a result, we don’t have K4s at SHP, however when Deb and I were at Nottingham for the coaching conference we got talking to some people from other clubs and came away with an invitation to “come down and play in one of ours”. So with her “girly rep” head on Deb set up a trip and last Sunday she, Ellie, Alice and Emily took a trip down to Burton to have a go in their K4.

As it turned out it was an absolutely beautiful day for paddling and the people from Burton were incredibly welcoming and helpful (even to the extent of lending is one of their Junior girls so that not everyone had to be on the water all the time). Much paddling was done and no falling in happened so all in all the day must be viewed as a success.

We even have pictures…

Well Saturday morning dawned beautifully sunny up at Queens Head, but of course it was all still frozen. Despite the beautiful weather if we had gone ahead I think we’d have had quite a lot of teams chosing not to travel because of the bad weather forecast and also the sound of a large number of very expensive boats being chopped up by the icy waters of the Montgomery Canal.

The usual suspects turned up anyway to stand around and gossip in the sunshine and to turn away anyone who thought there might still have been a race on, but thanks to emails, the blog and some heroic ‘phoning around by Bruce the message seemed to have got through to everyone that we’d cancelled.

It was very pretty up there though…

Winter view of the road bridge

Is the pub open yet...?

Mike is organising a club open canoe trip on the 28th (Sunday) December at the Poachers Pocket near Chirk. This is a beautiful bit of canal and should be well worth doing. And it involves a pub so it must be good. Please contact Mike by the 27th if you’re interested.

Deb and I are both struggling with “the lurgy” so we won’t be out paddling this week. We hope you all have a pleasant and restful Christmas however and wherever you are spending it, and we’ll see you all in the New Year.

When Deb and I used to belong to the Potteries paddlers in Stoke on Trent, one of their trips was a “sociable” paddle on New Year’s day morning - a nice gentle couple of hours paddle ending up in the pub for a warm up (or a hair-of-the-dog) depending on how alcoholic your previous night’s partying was.

Does anyone fancy doing the same this year somewhere around here? Something not too strenuous (and which hopefully doesn’t involve breaking any ice)…

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.