Devon Heaven Hampers

Devon Heaven Hampers is a small company from near the River Dart in Devon offering food and drink sourced locally from Devon, specialising in cream teas by post. Their quality Devon food hampers make for an original gift idea, whether it’s for a birthday, Christmas, Mothers / Fathers day, Valentines day, anniversary or any other occasion. They are an ideal present for anyone with a connection to, or love of Devon, so a great gift for any canoeists who like to get a cream tea after paddling the Dart. Their cream tea hampers also make for a great weekend treat for couples looking for a taste of the Westcountry without having to battle the M5 traffic!

Flowerports WAVE



Do first surfs exist? Probably not but I'm claiming it anyway. The flowerpots wave was spotted a few years back by AS Watersports when the river flooded and the second pots weir washed out. It only took about 6 months worth of rain within a week but this weekend i got to surf it. I also got interrogated by sky news who were reporting on the recent flooding and didn't approve http://news.sky.com/story/1016089/flood-scenes-shocking-says-david-cameron (not sure if link will stay up).

 

 The upper part of the weir

 Breaking out in the beer garden

Sky news

 

2012 British Championships Results

The British Championships were concluded this weekend at Hurley.

It was decided by taking the best 3 results from the following events:

Tryweryn - May
Cardiff - Sept
Nottingham - Oct
Hurley – Nov

Mens

1 Sam Anderson
2 Ben Brayfield
3 Matt Rogers

Womens

1 Emily Wall
2 Islay Crosbie
3 Rachel Bovill

C1

1 Sam Anderson
2 Josh Wedgewood
3 Paul King

Junior Men

1 Tom Goddard
2 Jake Boswell
3 Chris Thorne

Junior Womens

1 Kim Aldred
2 Jen McGaley

OC1

1 Paul King

Jackson Rockstar M For Sale

Cardiff Freestyle Improvements

Cardiff International Whitewater course has recently had some modifications to it making it pretty good for freestyle.

New Feature – ‘Camera’

Its kind of a new feature, there was a little hole there before but it wasn’t particularly good. Apparently, its called Camera and its in the middle of the back straight. I paddled it on 8 and 10 cumics and at both levels it was a nice retentive hole. On 10 it becomes a bit steeper and stickier but is still fairly friendly. I wouldn’t say left or right moves go any better and even on 8 I wasn’t hitting the bottom so was pretty impressed with this new feature.

Modifications have also been made to the feature on the corner of the course by the centre. I had a few goes in it on 10 and it was definitely a lot better than when I’d previously paddled it on 8 or 12. It seemed more retentive and made it easy to get some big air on loops and godzillas. I didn’t paddle it on 8 but you could see from looking at it that it was more retentive and uniform without any waves kicking up in the middle of it.

GB Freestyle Team for 2012

This years Hurley rodeo had to be postponed until February due to low water levels so the GB team for next years European Championships has now been finalised despite not having a date for the Euro’s in Vienna. This years winners of the league series were crowned British Champions and were given automatic entry on the team. Everyone else competed for one less place per category on the team at HPP in Nottingham. Below is what I make the team to be:

Mens

Myself (BC)
James Bebbington
James Weight
Alan Ward
Gav Barker

Womens

Claire O’Hara (BC)
Emily Wall
Lowri Davies

Jr Men

James Benns (BC?)
Bren Orton
Sam Stephenson
Brandon Hepburn

Jr Women

Kim Aldred (BC)
Jennifer McGaley

C1

Paul King (BC)
Dave Bainbridge
Adam Ramadan

OC1

Paul King (BC)
Alan Ward

Dublin Sluice Rodeo

This year the sluice rodeo in Dublin was one of six competitions used to determine the British champion. Unfortunately, the sluice couldn’t run due to an issue with a repair to a bridge upstream so it was moved 40k north of Dublin to Stackallen – not great when you don’t have a car. Luckily a local kindly sorted us out with a lift. The feature was a tiny wave that you probably wouldn’t bother stopping to play on if at somewhere like Nottingham. But the event was still good fun and more laid back than most competitions. It was a jam session format with best 5 moves counting.

The UK did pretty well. Kim Aldred won the junior girls with some nice loops. Clairo won the womens landing a mcnasty in a really really flushy feature. Paul King came a close second in c1 and I won the Mens.

The league is your best 4 results from the 6 comps. I’ve won the Nene, Tryweryn, Cardiff and now Dublin so will be British Champion for the second time regardless of the Hurley result.

Thanks to Adrian Durrant for organizing the event.