Freddie Brown
PADDLER 89
to reaccelerate the boat as I headed for the finish . It was far from a perfect run , but I now knew what I could do to fix it on my second .
Alas , the second runs were not to be . In the scheduled hour between our first and second runs , the river continued to rise and rise and rise . The river was no longer lapping at the feet of the starters ; it was now flooding them . All the timing equipment had to be moved , and the second run was abandoned . Our final times for the last of the 2024 ECA cups would now be taken off the first run alone .
Freddie Brown
SERPENTS TAIL
As rivers rise , the racing lines down them can change quite dramatically . In the case of Serpents Tail , the rapid we were racing , the line entry to the crux shifts from hard right over towards to left . Both lines converge to fire you through the tight constriction at the bottom , but the change to that entry move is significant . As we sat in the warmth and shelter of the Chain Bridge Hotel watching the river rise , the debate in the British Camp was whether it was worth abandoning all of our practice down the right and whether the river had risen enough to do a ‘ Hail Mary ’ down the left .
In a standard sprint race , you get two runs , and your final time is taken as the best of the two . But with the river rising as it was , we were almost guaranteed to get a faster second run . Therefore , we were split between two schools of thought : Play it safe , do the first run down the right , then try the second run on the left , or do both runs down the right , with the first run acting as a bit of practice for the second .
By the time I ’ d made it to the start line , the river had risen even further and was starting to lap around the feet of the volunteers on start duty . I decided to go for the second option , and when the whistle blew , I set off for the left line .
Unfortunately , everything went askew quite quickly . Not only does the line down the crux of Serpent ’ s Tail change with the level but so does the little lead-in rapid . As the river widened and the waves grew , I was lost and astray from the primary tongues of flow that would carry my speed . Still , I dug deep and worked myself back online to drop into the main event of the rapid . The last time I had run the left line was well over a year ago , but my memory served me well , as I skirted the large holes down the main ramp of the rapid .
However , as I crested the final wave , the river revealed that the end of the rapid , which had previously been the constriction , was now a chunky hole feeding into an undercut on the right . I managed to sneak in a righthand stroke , keeping the bow up and narrowly avoiding the undercut , but my speed stalled out on the boils behind this , and I once again found myself fighting
A HIGH-WATER DEE LAP
It was a disappointing end to the race series , but the mood quickly shifted – just because the racing was over didn ’ t mean the fun had to be ! We quickly assembled a rag-tag group of British , French , Dutch , and Czech paddlers to enjoy a rare delicacy : a highwater Dee lap .
We set off in a mega-train so long that it was impossible to see both the start and end of our soggy conga line . It was hard to believe how quickly the river had risen , and the rocks we had stood on earlier that morning to scout the Serpent ’ s Tail rapids were now deep under the water . We continued down the river , hooting and roaring our way down the full classic course .
Now free of any ill-placed rocks , the Dee was a fastflowing joy ride down to Town Falls in the heart of Llangollen . We collected ourselves at the bottom with big grins , excitedly swapping the little trials and tribulations we ’ d experienced during our descents . The rain didn ’ t abate overnight , and the river continued to rise . We awoke early on Sunday to scout the river and squeeze in a practice run before racing commenced .
CANCELLED
However , by the time we ’ d made it to the top of the course , we received the message from the race organisers that the classic race on the river had been cancelled , the river was now too high , and there were no longer any safe , access or egress points from which the race could be run to a reasonable degree of safety . It was a bitter pill to swallow , but at least there was a backup option : to run the race on the canal .
Phil Dean and Leon Tomlinson at Serpents Tail
PADDLER 89