Canoe with a View : : Canadian Open Canoe forum

Last Saturday I Headed off to the Wye with my local club, for a run down from Builth Wells before the season ends and that section of the river is closed to paddling.

C-WaV members, Chillean and Chris Griffiths are also members of DEVA..

It was a great turnout, around 14 paddlers with six in Opens....

This section is really nice, providing a little more in the way of moving water than from Glasbury down...

The sun kept threatening to break through the low lying mist, but it was reasonably warm and everyone had a great time...

Here's a few shots from the day...

Carl, an old schoolfriend, playing peek-a-boo in the waves...




Derek...




Peter..




Mick..




Chris Griffiths in her Mohawk Solo 13...




Simon, looking at the headgear I think he was expecting more sun...




And Chillean...




While the main group finished off a pleasant lunch, three of the open's went ahead to scout out what's known as "Hell Hole".....

Later, as we approached, the group was called over by one of the scouts to be informed that there was a boat broached in the channel, this turned out to be one of the scout's boats... The paddler was safe and sound on the bank..

On inspection, the only thing that could be seen was the painter occasionally surfacing on the opposite side of the channel, so two of us headed over to see if it could be hooked.... Which, after many attempts, it eventually was and a line attached, with much hauling and pulling in different directions and at different angles about 1/2 a metre of the bow appeared, but whichever direction it was pulled in, the boat wouldn't free itself...

After about half an hour of trying various options a 3-1 on one bank and an improvised vector from the other brought some movement, but not where we expected it, four or five metres downstream of the boat a tree trunk surfaced....

At this point the boat moved and we managed to get half of it out of the water.....




It soon became obvious why extraction was proving so difficult, the branch you can see to the left of the boat was still attached to the tree, it had gone under the seat and punched straight through the hull of the corelite boat....

We eventually managed to retrieve the boat....



... and it's already well on it's way to being repaired...

It was an "interesting" day out, I think the guy's and gal's that were with us certainly found it entertaining...

Oh, the title...., taken from an 80's album of similar name by "Landscape"..

Cheers
Red.

Must have been a fascinating day all said

Thanks for sharing with us Red

Excellent Blogg Red, Starting to see a recurrent theme here. I assume the tree was hidden there as firewood and you weren't expecting those in front to find it 1st. We're going to have to sort out a better way of collecting it though, getting Ric' to dive onto trees as he passed was, I admit, less effective than I'd hoped. The 'lmpale a canoe then haul to surface' method, whilst effective looks a little time consuming. Another consequence of the 2nd method is that we could quickly run out of Gaffa tape for running repairs. Much as I hate to admit to such un-bushman like thoughts, I'm starting to consider taking precut and dried logs as can be bought on Morrison's petrol station forecourts.

River looks like fun, although the tree in water doesn't.

Glad to hear it was only a boat that suffered and nothing else.

Cheers
Tim

nice one red
having just read the thread on access, i note you say the river is approaching closed season?
by whose authority?
just a thought---its the way my mind works

(08-03-11 05:24 PM)andym Wrote: [ -> ]having just read the thread on access, i note you say the river is approaching closed season?
by whose authority?
just a thought---its the way my mind works

A good question Andy....

The Builth Wells council remove the right to cross their land with a Canoe/Kayak to put in at the car park, I've not looked into it but I think they're probably on sticky ground as the space is public....

Cheers
Red.

Quote:The Builth Wells council remove the right to cross their land with a Canoe/Kayak to put in at the car park, I've not looked into it but I think they're probably on sticky ground as the space is public....

It would certainly be worth looking at. OS maps show public rights of way on them.
Having not been there (yet) is the car park public land
and is the land you cross to get to it public land

Manc-Topcat

(08-03-11 05:24 PM)andym Wrote: [ -> ]having just read the thread on access, i note you say the river is approaching closed season?
by whose authority?

Not sure on this particular river, but usually 'closed seasons' are on the authority of defra, in order to protect fish spawning.

(08-03-11 05:24 PM)andym Wrote: [ -> ]having just read the thread on access, i note you say the river is approaching closed season?
by whose authority?

Not sure on this particular river, but usually 'closed seasons' are on the authority of defra, in order to protect fish spawning etc.

On the Wye and Usk it's the work of the Wye and Usk Foundation, a distinctly anti Canoeing group.

If I remember rightly, the signs at Builth are council signs although I could be wrong...

Cheers
Red.