C-Forum

Everyone within a weekend's driving distance of the Chilliwack River hopefully already knows about this event, but here it is for Cboats, in case anyone forgot, or better yet, wants to make a trip! It's mid-Sept every year.

Come try the slalom gates in your open boat! It's a fun event on a beautiful rapid, designed just for "weekend warriors" in open canoes! It's class II+, low water. About 12 gates. Just for fun.

It's a great place to practice, demo boats, camp out, and meet other open boaters from Portalnd, Seattle, Bellingham, Vancouver Island, and BC's Interior. Still waiting on Yukon and Alberta or farther afield (I'm hearing rumours of the UK and Toronto!) - you fly in, we'll provide the gear!

Please spread the word! We're trying to build some community out here and make the small world of ww canoeing even smaller!

http://www3.telus.net/~soloboat/

https://picasaweb.google.com/Beaver.Can ... SlalomRace#

Looking for a partner or other info? Here's the local forum:

http://paddlenet.myfastforum.org/


Cheers, Pat.

Wiggins,

Are you around on Sept 18th and interested in the slalom - I'm looking a tandem partner.

Too bad they don't have a class for pairs over 400 lbs!

TGG, if you're around, hopefully some of the Kamloops boaters are trying to talk you into coming out?

Pat.

Roscoe and I are planning to be there. It should be fun, and if its not fun, at the very least it will be entertaining....

I'm also planning on being there to poorly represent eastern Canadian boaters.
I'll be part of the "entertainment".

Hi Keez,

Looking forward to meeting you this weekend! A big goal of the T5O is to help make this small world of open boating even smaller, so it's great to have you here to meet some more Western people. I was hoping just to get some people from Kamloops, Seattle and Vancouver Island paddling together more - throwing in a little Toronto is a nice bonus!

Great timing that you happen to be in the neighbourhood, glad Heather could talk you into racing! I don't know about you, but my goal this year is staying ahead of Heather, and my hopes aren't high!

Pat.

Hey Pat,

One of these years we will meet... I still need to address my issues with the Canadian government. When I do, I will definitely be coming to your event each year.

This is just some friendly taunting here, but Heather is going to kick your butt!! I don't really know your skill level (I'm sure you are very good). But I saw her paddle in Colorado and was very impressed. She should give everyone a run for their money.

Sounds like a great time. All the best.

Alan

Heather will probabley kick all of our butts ....so I think we should tie a lead weight to her boat.

Heather's been paddling hard for a few years, getting in lots of days, on lots of different runs, with a variety of great paddlers. She's becoming a regular in Milkman's videos! And she knows folks from Colorado, Mexico and Costa Rica - she's becoming BC's ambassador of ww canoeing! And we couldn't have a better one (sorry Einar, always better to have a woman representing!). Her resume is becoming intimidating!

I, on the other hand, am a house-bound, seriously out-of-shape dad who's paddled a handful of times in the past few years, and not much on the challenging stuff. And these were good years - I'll get out even less for the next few

In my head, there'd be no shame at all in not doing as well as Heather. But in my heart of course - I don't want to loose to a girl! Actually, gates aside, on the rare days when I do get to paddle, I just hope I'll be able to go on the same runs as Heather (and the others who we've learned with) without being a liability!

Heather's not the only one who may shame me - there's people who we've helped teach that may be paddling circles around me now! Not to mention some people who are new on the scene or have come out of OC retirement! Though I think that all already happened at last year's T5O, so I guess I should just get over it! Maybe I can hold some off for another year. On the brightside, the farther back in the pack that I finish, the better job I'm doing of growing the event and helping ww canoeing develop here!

She'll probably hate that I've written this, and I'll probably regret it because she's got a competitive streak!! Anyway, the rumoured races between Eddy McSlalom, Smerda and everyone else will thankfully overshadow our little race!

P.

Here are some great shots taken by Curtis McHale from our friends at FVWW:

http://fraservalleywhitewater.com/forum ... tamihi-5-0

Thanks for the posting the pics Mike. Great to finally meet you yesterday, though everyone was so busy racing I feel like I hardly talked to anyone!

It was great for cboats locals like me & Einar and others (well'c, skooks) to meet cboaters from Toronto (Keez) and the UK (Outrage Dave) who were able to visit our race and hit a few gates (literally). As well as other BC cboatsers who'd I'd never met, like Mike and Pierre LaPaddle.

Nice to get everyone together to bond over being humbled by the gates!

Pat.

p.s. I didn't get a good look at the results, more to come later. But it takes a perfect run to do well, and I didn't have a good run - 1 with a stupidly blown line, and 1 with an unfortunate touch.

p.p.s. Regardless of the canoeing for normal people, we were outclassed by some actual race boaters, especially the 18-yr old from Colorado (Charlie), not to mention the woman (Laura) from Western Canoe & Kayak who got all the gates on her stand-up paddleboard!

Pat,
it was a pleasure meeting you and i have to say that you guys put on a great event. thanks
i was wondering where/when you'll be posting the results so us mere mortals can compare ourselves to real racers.
Geoff

Hi Grandpa Keez,

Glad you enjoyed our little stretch of river!

It can take a little while to get the results posted, based mostly on the time of the volunteers who put it all together late at night etc.

The slalom club (CCE) needs to transcribe the race sheets and send us a spreadsheet, and then we need to put in a presentable format and post it. Some years it's taken CCE a while to send us the spreadsheets.

If you didn't hear at the race, the additional wrinkle this year is that CCE did our placings based on 2-second penalties and the combined score of 2 runs, but our rules are 10-second penalties and using only the best run! So, there's a bit of extra work to do there.

On the brightside, many of the results may change, so if you didn't place on Sunday by the CCE rules, maybe you're a winner under the T5O rules!! With 10-second penalties, the value of a clean run has gone way up, and people who blew one run are back in the running! Unfortunately, we may have to uncrown the King that was announced at the race! We'll see.

I'll post here and our local Paddle Net when the the results are on the T5O website, and there will probably be some discussion on Paddle Net.

So, are you going to visit your daughter every September now?

As posted above, I'm not interested in comparing myself to the few real racers, I'm looking over my shoulder the other direction, comparing my races to the other hacks who are coming up behind behind me!

Pat.

Herewith, some Saturday shotz of the Practice runs.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1169935705 ... acticeRuns#

Lotsa fun!

Matter of fact, all MY runs were clean. (Next year, I'll actually get in a boat, and try it on the water.)

Rick

Looks like a really nice stretch of river for a slalom race.
Whats the temp of the water.
Its hard to tell, some people had short sleeve shirt and others had dry suits.
In any case if I'm ever in the area I'll be there.

The water temperature wasn't bad, considering I spent most of the day standing in it as a volunteer.
The mix of dry/wet suits probably comes from the fact that we promote year round paddling and encourage new paddlers to get a good drysuit early, even before you get your "gotta have " boat. Your drysuit will outlive many of your boat choices and doubles up your season locally.

T50 had it''s best year in it's 4th year, thanks to Yboats imagination and startup energy.
It is a scenic site and even has a bridge over the finish gate. See ya next year.