Blue Paddle

A great few days has just been had training up some new folks from the Cardiff area and a few a bit further afield. Day one was spent out on the mighty Taff getting to grips with the boat handling, day two based at the White Water course looking at rope work and then taking on the rapids a fair bit of swimming and even a flip was managed by my team as the group got in to zone of stadium rafting. Day 3 saw the team heading over to the stunning Tywi valley and rafting 16km of twisting and technical river, this section is great for new guides lots of manuvering without too much risk.
Next is a break in the Lakes and then getting stuck into the training of the guides for Lee Valley White Water the London project.

We are going to run a BCU Level 1 Raft Guide Training Course straight after the Llandysul Raft Race event hosted by the British Raft Race Series the course will be based around the South Wales area and is £200. As something extra to add to the flavor of Blue Paddle’s raft guide courses we now have an oar frame which you will be able to have a go on. Look forward to seeing you all at the races.

We have had some great levels on all the rivers in South Wales over the last couple of weeks. Blue Paddle has been out and about running Raft Guide courses for CIWW, White Water Safety and Rescue Courses for some folks from London and an Old school Level 3 kayak assessment at the weekend. The best river level information is available at these two sources Fishing Wales and here at the EA site, its great seeing the levels but what does it all mean on the river. My plan over the winter is to collect as much information as possible and turn this into something usable for boaters. But for now the section of the Tywi above Llandovery works really well when it is over .60 on the gauge at Dolau Hirion and the River Teifi at Llandysul is in good condition at .05 at llandysul.

We have a variety of courses coming up both being delivered by Blue Paddle and through other centers so please get in contact if you are after a course.

I am very happy to say that we have secured a link with the London project at Lee Valley White Water Canoe Center and will start running raft guide training courses for them starting in November.

As ever kit is needed to battle the on coming cold, Guss formerly of Cheltenam Canoes has seen the light and moved to South Wales. He is now based at Swansea Canoes and is the man to contact should you require any advice or a great deal on equipment.

The Programme

This will run from 9am on the Wednesday 23^rd of June to the evening of the Sunday 27^th June. Our aim is to provide you with a good amount of time learning and practicing your guiding skills on some classic alpine white water. As part of this process you will have the opportunity to take further Level one Raft Guide assessments to progress towards your Level 2 Raft Guide award. Guides with the pre requisites in place will be able to gain Level 3 Training status. For detailed information on these awards please see the attached document.

The rivers in the local area are quite simply amazing for rafting, at the time of year we are going we can expect good sunshine and good volume of water, however we do not control the weather (yet) so our plans may change with the conditions we are presented with. We expect to use the following rivers and sections;

River Durance: Various sections including the sunshine run: Grade 3+

River Guil: Various sections: Grade 2 -5

River Ubaye: Various sections including the racecourse: Grade 3 -4+

Other rivers in the area may be used dependent upon conditions.

There is a great guide book called “white water south alps” by peter Knowles that has loads of information in regarding these and many other great runs.

Our days will consist of loading up the equipment and being out on the water for as much time as possible, we would like you to get stuck in with the chores and organisation of the trip. We will have lunch on the river and aim to get a couple of sections or rivers in each day. These days will be physically demanding and the evenings are for recovery, relaxing and reviewing the action fro the day, if however you have more energy you are more than welcome to head off and grab a quick kayak session in on one of the classic surf waves in the area (the Rab and the wave in Embrum).

Staff working the Trip

Matt Blue                               www.bluepaddle.co.uk           Matt Blue

Lawrence Harris (Hoopla)      www.bullrafts.com                 Lawrence Harris

Paul Marchant (Bob)              Paul Marchant

Assisted by

Bryony Devoy                          Bryony Devoy

Accommodation

You will be staying in a Gite (A house) there are beds and these come with pillows and duvets, you are required to bring your own pillow cases and duvet covers. You can arrive on Tuesday evening the 22^nd June after 4pm and settle in. We will depart the Gite on the Saturday morning the 26^th as our last night will be camping based. I have attached a link that gives you full information about the Gite and the local area. We will be cleaning the Gite ourselves before our departure to keep the cost of the trip down. http://www.alpineaccomodation.com/#

any questions drop me a line

matt

Wow what a weekend of sunshine and action at CIWW. On friday morning a large group of trainee raft guides arrived at the centre for the start of the familiarization training at the new course. There was a definite buzz in the changing rooms as kit was donned and clippy things clipped up! After a briefing from Talc and his crew, the pumps fired up and blasted the course with 10 cumecs of fresh water. Over the next three days everybody got into the speed of the course and became at one with the water a number of times. On saturday British Raft Racing team members Pas and Naomie were the first guides to be assessed on the new white water and passed in good style. So what’s it like to guide? its fast and powerful with fun swirly eddies and challenging moves to be made. There are a three main wave features at the moment that can all provide surfs and flips, the course can be changed around with the omniflot system which is great and the conveyor belt back to the top is just perfect. The centre has a real buzz to it already, this has been created by a lot of hard work from Ben Longhurst, Talc and their team. Hit the link for information on the National Raft Guide School or email info@ciww.com to book your training and assessments to raft at this great facility. Below are some shots from over the last few days.    

From the start pool down the first straightMaking a move in front of the centreGetting to know the features on the back straightIts up and over hoo har!Talc keeping an eye on the troops

Adam, Andy, Rhys, Matt and Rich enjoying the sunshine

A demonstration of the internal z drag

Here we have the internal 3:1 in action, this technique is used to dramatically change the shape of a pinned raft and to shed the water off of the effected areas. A self equalising load sharing system is built at each end (with the bow and stern lines) these are then connected together with pulley by the main line coming from the shore. The effect that this has is first to change the shape of the boat and then to pull it.

A close up of the internal 3:1 in action