Kern River Festival report...

[Space Canoe]

KERN RIVER FESTIVAL REPORT
Hey everyone;
well, it's good to be back home! All the way, driving down from San Francisco to L.A., I was thinking about avoiding the Kern River Festival which was held this past Friday Saturday and Sunday. But I'm trying to sell some CD's to raise money for Seth and Joe to go to the Worlds, so I thought I'd take the long drive up through the canyon.
Friday they had all the playboating; it was windy, cold, and not one C-1 play boat showed up! 16 expert kayakers showed up and I have to confess that I'm basically clueless as to how the scoring goes. Tricky Wus seemed to be the item of the day and a few people tried loops on what were probably far too small waves. But it was impressive, nonetheless. Tao Berman seemed to be doing the most stuff, and he took second in the semi finals, but he took fifth in the finals. Jay Kincaid took first, Dustin Urban was third, and I can't remember who took second although Macy from Necky told me about ten times. Tao also spent the entire morning doing volunteer work for all the other "Citizen" races which I thought was pretty impressive, given his (at the least) mini-celebrity in this sport. He's off to Japan for awhile; apparently their fanatical love of all things American includes Whitewater boating folks. Macy also showed me a new platform from Necky that could be easily applied to C-1 rather than just for kayaking. Sir Adam, I will send some pictures for your perusal. Liquid Logic and Kingpins seemed to be pretty popular. Is it me, or is using the word “pin” in a boat name a little sketchy?

Saturday morning I show up to find out that there are no races at all, only practice for the slalom events. I did get to watch Ryan Bahn, a 22-year-old C-1 paddler who made the national team and who looked hot, to put it mildly! He confessed to knowing absolutely nothing about the C-forum but swore to make amends, so hopefully Sir Adam will be getting some info from him soon.
At one of the booths, there was a man, Peter Zwagerman, from Arizona Canoe and Kayak, in Tempe AZ, who is trying to get a whitewater course set up there. He had been down to Australia to see Penrith and apparently has had some success in getting the city government of Tempe on board. Anyone who has any knowledge about this kind of enterprise should get ahold of him at

http://www.arizonakayak.com/

He's a great guy and would appreciate any help anyone has to offer, I'm sure.
He was also selling a device called a kayak pack or "YakPak” which looked pretty cool in terms of helping to carry an 8 foot or under boat down to the River.

http://www.kayakpack.com

Shoulder straps, a mesh bag that goes down into the cockpit so you can stuff your gear in it, and a lumbar pad and paddle clips to add-on if you so desire. It seems to take around 5 minutes to set up. Sir Adam, I send some more pictures for your perusal.
Sunday they had the expert and citizen slalom races and enough C-1s showed up to have a combined expert/citizen class. Ryan looked really good and there was another fellow named Tren (sp?) who used to be on the Junior team, apparently, and seemed pretty hot as well. His C-1 had just a kneeling thwart and 2 big knee inserts. There seemed to be a lot of GalaSport and Double Dutch boats, and spoon blades.
Eric and Rebecca Giddens, our Western contribution to paddling (San Diego) gave us all lessons in how it should be done. Eric took first in the Men's K-1 Expert and Rebecca, sadly, took second …………….
in the MEN'S K-1 Expert and first in the Women's K-1 Expert. As one of her competitors said about her when looking at the alphabetically arranged Class division sheet: " Thank God my name is Karen, 'cause that's the only way you're ever going to see my name above hers". They are just truly wonderful to watch; I especially like how they stick their stern underwater when coming around an upstream gate (I think it's called a Milan move?), so that the boat both brakes and pops forward through the gate.
Anyway, it turned out to be a great weekend and I can only wish that more single bladers will show up next year!
Ric Taylor

[PAC]

RIC
Thanks for the update. Sounds like lots you had some fun.
Hey I saw your post on BT on the CD deal but didn't see it here. You want to include you C-brothers and sisters in on your fund raising project?
Post your address and I get a check out to you!
Thanks!

PS: Anyone up for passing aroung the helmet at the Armada to help fund the lads' travel over the pond?

[sbroam]

I've had the pleasure of sampling some of Ric's music - good stuff!

Ric - have you ripped any MP3s that would let folks get a sampling of your stuff?

I'll bring what I have to the Armada, too.

Scott

[Space Canoe]

Thanks, PAC and Scott; as to "ripping off an MP3", that's so far beyond my computer skills at this point that I wouldn't know where to begin, and I really don't want to make this a bully or badger or overly promoted type of deal, I was just proposing one method of raising money for "the boys".. I don't think I'm going to post here, because when Sir Adam brought up the original post asking about ideas for raising money, I did post this idea there, and not one single reader expressed any interest. So, no harm, no foul. What I might do is put a link to one of the ads on the other forums. And anyone who lives in the Washington D.C. area should check the Monocacy Canoe club’s page. They're going to have a "Joe & Seth - Dollars for humiliation" event
http://www.monocacycanoe.org/mccboard/m ... /9404.html
that might interest you and raise some money as well.

Ric Taylor

[PAC]

RIC
I understand - no problem.

I'll search the BT posts, get the details, and get a check out to you for music sweet music! The PAC-man

PS: the cookies are still in suspended animation waiting the Armada!