Thanks to Claudia, Dirk, Hermann and Christa
Vision and contribution to the recreational paddling community
Read About: Money and The Kipawa River, Whitewater Ontario,Les amis de la rivière Kipawa,The Proposed Tabaret River diversion project, Northern Ontario Liquid Adventurers,Canadian Rivers Network The viewpoints and opinions expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Whitewater Ontario or Les Amis de la Riviere Kipawa. Those groups did not vet these comments and would not likely endorse the views expressed here or the manner in which they have been expressed.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Ottawa River Access Point: Courtesy of OWL Rafting
Thanks to Claudia, Dirk, Hermann and Christa
Vision and contribution to the recreational paddling community
Comments on 2007 World Freestyle Championships: Ottawa River
Steve Fisher wowed the crowd and even snapped a paddle blade off while he was inverted but still stayed on the Bus for a few more moves. Esprit cruised by with a 2 boat training trip, one clean the other dumped, great cheers from all the spectators!
The wave started small at 8:00 am but was huge by 11:00am. The show kept getting bigger as the day went.
photo courtesy of Holeriders: Robert Faubert photographer
Freestyle strategy
Aspects of judging
Paddling Conditions
What it takes to win on a big wave.
Mishaps broken paddles, paddle manufacturer anyways?
Hard work = yes
Scheduling = in the hands of the dams upstream
Reporting = event time and date, and location
Level Six
Worlds Website
Chasing Rain
Claire O'Hara
Emily Wall
Fiona Jarvie
Joe Carberry
Team Dagger
Jackson Kayak
GoBoatingAus
Playak
Entropy Gear
The worlds held mid week on a monster wave is the best thing that could happen to Freestyle.
The contestants are doing things that average boaters can't do which makes watching the sport more enjoyable for the average boater as one can appreciate the ability of the players.
The moves are way beyond what average boaters can dream of and on a wave that most boaters are scared of. That is what a pro sport is made of and should give this sport the recognition it deserves.
Joe Kowalski did a great job organizing: Multiple vans and boats shuttled people from the Farmhouse B&B to WT lunchspot, to the island in no time flat. The day went off without a hitch!
Competitors on average, seemed to nail one or two moves per ride. It was humbling actually to see some of these great boaters occasionally flush off before even pulling a move. Buseater is not that forgiving, so you had to be a real fighter to pull lots of moves and hang in there. Often for no apparent reason in the middle of a good ride, a boater would just get kicked, swallowed in the seam and flushed down the toilet bowl. As always there were some insane wipeouts! When the moves went down though, they were huge- lots of air!
Some had some amazing rides, pegging a variety of moves off consecutatively. So it was definately fun to be a spectator... very hard to gauge what points a ride would get though.
There was a condensed format. Each contestant got a practice ride and then four competition rides (the best two of which earned the points) . It took boaters a while to get organised, on the rope... waiting for the judges to score etc, it was a long day. There were cameras everywhere. With nine hours of competition per day.
Some of the WT staff are putting in 18 hour days and they are putting on an awsome time- great event and great parties!
The wave started small at 8:00 am but was huge by 11:00am. The show kept getting bigger as the day went.
photo courtesy of Holeriders: Robert Faubert photographer
Freestyle strategy
Aspects of judging
Paddling Conditions
What it takes to win on a big wave.
Mishaps broken paddles, paddle manufacturer anyways?
Hard work = yes
Scheduling = in the hands of the dams upstream
Reporting = event time and date, and location
Level Six
Worlds Website
Chasing Rain
Claire O'Hara
Emily Wall
Fiona Jarvie
Joe Carberry
Team Dagger
Jackson Kayak
GoBoatingAus
Playak
Entropy Gear
The worlds held mid week on a monster wave is the best thing that could happen to Freestyle.
The contestants are doing things that average boaters can't do which makes watching the sport more enjoyable for the average boater as one can appreciate the ability of the players.
The moves are way beyond what average boaters can dream of and on a wave that most boaters are scared of. That is what a pro sport is made of and should give this sport the recognition it deserves.
Joe Kowalski did a great job organizing: Multiple vans and boats shuttled people from the Farmhouse B&B to WT lunchspot, to the island in no time flat. The day went off without a hitch!
Competitors on average, seemed to nail one or two moves per ride. It was humbling actually to see some of these great boaters occasionally flush off before even pulling a move. Buseater is not that forgiving, so you had to be a real fighter to pull lots of moves and hang in there. Often for no apparent reason in the middle of a good ride, a boater would just get kicked, swallowed in the seam and flushed down the toilet bowl. As always there were some insane wipeouts! When the moves went down though, they were huge- lots of air!
Some had some amazing rides, pegging a variety of moves off consecutatively. So it was definately fun to be a spectator... very hard to gauge what points a ride would get though.
There was a condensed format. Each contestant got a practice ride and then four competition rides (the best two of which earned the points) . It took boaters a while to get organised, on the rope... waiting for the judges to score etc, it was a long day. There were cameras everywhere. With nine hours of competition per day.
Some of the WT staff are putting in 18 hour days and they are putting on an awsome time- great event and great parties!
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Minden work Weekend May 06/07, 2007
As its turns out quite a bit of work was done and more needs to be done.
Anything people can do to help us clean up would be appreciated especially in the washrooms.
To give you an idea of the herculean efforts that took place last weekend...
The pipes in most of the lower washrooms froze out. There were dozens of splits and broken joints. 8 hours of volunteer time was spent on Saturday soldering and repairing plumbing.
Brad and Kim Whipp along with Wayne Donison cut and stacked fire wood. Jon McPhee assisted them and they managed to remove all the dangerous deadfalls.
Bill Ness cleaned and generally buffed the exterior and grounds of the building.
Russ Duhaime and his family raked and removed brush from the general area around the parking lot and building.
Jon's partner Dianne Connors and Bill Ness's wife Rita cleaned the entire upper floor and kitchen using river water as Gary George, the defacto plumber was unable to get the water running until very late in the day. An amazing feat considering the distance to carry the water.
In the end the interior may be presentable, the lower washrooms are still questionable and the outhouses need attention. Porcupines have attacked them as they love to eat plywood.
The campsites are still unraked, the roads need cleaning and some grading, there is brush hanging on all roads and trails and the picnic tables are as they were left last fall.
Firepits are uncleaned, although that is somewhat minor. There are several cords of wood stacked in various places around the site that ought to be moved to the wood shed. The woodshed could stand a restacking and then we could fill it with the fresh stuff.
These are the sorts of things that now need attention.
We still need a solid effort this weekend to get the leaves off and
the sites looking useful. There are plenty of details to address and
many minor improvements and repairs to tables, outhouses, sheds etc. Many
markers and boulders demarking sites need fixing or replacement.