Credit River Slalom Race 2003
Sunday, March 30, 2003
route:
length: 1.0km, 1 day
difficulty: beginner
participants: Caroline Owen, Chris Mack, Courtney Néray, Karonne Lansel, Keith Nunn, Michael Sims, Michel Néray, Peter Farr, Glenn Meinzer, Keith Watson, Mike Yee, Fred Lum, Katrina Lum, countless others
offsite report: http://vvcc.canoeontario.ca/gallery/credit_race_2003
OR try the Wayback Machine
report:
Race day was only 2 degrees but spirits were high as a number of VVCC members made their way through the gates at the first slalom race of the year.
Thanks to those people who showed up on Friday morning to help put the course up. As usual it was only Jeff and his son there so they really appreciated all the help that day.
The course was designed for open boats, a number of paddlers would find negotiating the gates not a problem so this was a race about being the fastest.
There was a river wide ferry between gate 1 and gate 2, just to get your heart pumping. There was not a lot of room between a few gates, especially 5 to 6 which made it hard to get over in time to make the gate cleanly. There was also a nice combination of 2 downstream and one upstream gates beside a small eddie (gates 8-10) which tested our ability to get thru the downstream gates clean and catch the eddy and then peeling out thru the diagonal upstream gate. The very last gate (gate 16) was an upstream gate situated in the current forcing people to paddle hard to get up and thru clean and then
the final blast to the finish line.
Just as everybody finished their 2 runs the sun started to come out and the wind calmed down a bit so taking down the course went rather quickly and we were soon gathering around to find out the results.
What a great way to start the season, I encourage everybody to come on out next year, always the last Sunday in March.
Thanks for the pictures, I love the expressions on peoples faces ;-)
Cya
Chris |
