An update from pikey

October 8, 2009

By Pikey

A successful two days of coaching was had by me, taking 4 never been in a boat beginners to a standard of confidence and skills to get stuck in on some of the Thames River weirs. Thanks to SquareRock for supplying me with a good selection of Jackson Kayaks and SystemX for the Werner Paddles along with friends lending me their gear. My guys got the best intro to kayaking some great playspots of the Thames.

Starting with the first day simply going over basic strokes and concepts and beginning to learn the principle to roll while playing lots of fun games to help there paddling to improve. Day 2 was straight upto the mighty Hurley weir, practicing the braking in and braking out on the current from the weir, we headed down to temple for some small hole surfing, last weir of the morning was Marlow which is the 2nd biggest drop on the Thames. We practice ferry gliding and more braking in and out.

We took are lunch on a boat ride down to Boulters where we got everyone stuck in the hole, I got to show them what is possible in Boulters. After lots of paddling and getting stuck into the hole we cruised back and stopped at the pub for a nice pint and a chat about the 2 days.

And to let you know how well it went, a week later Paul comes back for another session and has brought himself a drytop and is improving well and the ladies have booked themselves on more paddling courses.

I ran the 2 day course to raise money for the centre I spent my summer working. www.longridge.org.uk, hopefully I’ll be able to do more fun 2 day courses like this or hear of the centre running them in years to come.

Enjoy the pictures.

Pikey

 
Alex happy to survived the experence
Ange loving the downpour and heading for the pour over.
cruising back for a pint at the bounty
paul at marlow weir
Pikey and Ange having a great time
Pikey and Concetta in the pourover
Pikey draging Ange into the pourover, we didnt flip this time. lol
Pikey throwing ends in Boulters
we told everyone that the boats were are children