Aire Waves

archives

Automatically keep upto date with the LCC Atom Site Feed

Aire Waves

Leeds Canoe Club Blog. We paddle... lots!
Airewaves used to be Leeds Canoe Club's magazine letting people know what the club was upto. Its quite hard work pulling together a publication letting people know what the club is doing and publishing dates in advance is always hard as things tend to change. Step forth the blog.. Push button publishing for the masses. So here is the idea a few people in the club take it in turns to write up trips and talk about things in the club.

Friday, June 20, 2008
Grand Canyon, May 08

Having done numerous kayaking trips in the UK and Europe, and mainly in low volume creeks, it was about time to broaden our horizons and see what other parts of the world have to offer. So in May, me & Gill, joined the WaterByNature trip on the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon to find out what big volume paddling is all about..
We paddled 226 miles over 14 days, and hiked through many of the side canyons to explore the tributaries, waterfalls and absolutely amazing scenery.
A typical day was to get up when the sun came up, have a big American breakfast, paddle about 10 miles, stop for a 2 hour hike, have lunch, paddle another 10 miles, put up camp eat the fantastic fresh food cooked by the guides, have a few beers, margaritas, wine in the evening and crash out under the stars on a beach by the river when the sun has gone down.
There is a lot of flat water, but there are also a lot of rapids ranging from grade II to grade IV+. If you didn't fancy a rapid you could always portage or climb onto one of the gear rafts (similarly if you didn't fancy the flat water!). Some days you could float for hours without rapids, other days you were getting big, and I mean really BIG, volume wave trains every half a mile. 20ft waves, rafting eating holes, big boils, whirlpools, and rafts were the main hazards on the water. Rattlesnakes, scorpions, red ants and the sun, where the hazards off the water
Travelling with our own boats couldn’t have been easier. No problems on the BMI flight from Manchester to Las Vegas, or on the shuttle bus from las vegas airport to the hire car centre, and our hire a car was big enough to fit 2 creek boats in the back!

# posted by andy @ Friday, June 20, 2008 0 comments

Friday, June 13, 2008
Sowerby Bridge slalom 8 june results

LCC members picked up the following trophies from sunday's division 3/4 slalom
1st Div4 - K1M - Scott
3rd Div4 - K1W - Lisa
1st Div4 - C2 - Cat & Mick
1st Div3 - C1 - Andy
!st Prem/1 Judge - Gill

# posted by andy @ Friday, June 13, 2008 0 comments

Thursday, April 03, 2008
Allt a Chaorrain - Video

Hey All

I've put together a quick video of some of the footage taken from us (and a few of Leeds Uni people) running the Allt a Chaorrain, a tributary to the Etive.
Its a great little section, requiring more balls than skill to do some of the drops (especially 'Speed' and 'Chasm')

Watch and Enjoy!!

And if you didnt do it this year, we will mark it on our diaries for the Scotland Trip next year!!!

# posted by jh_dempsey @ Thursday, April 03, 2008 0 comments

Monday, January 21, 2008
BCU to UKCC switch over

Coaches

The following are what I beleive to be the Level 2 cross over requirements, from the old BCU scheme to the new UKCC scheme.

Having asked lots of questions of lots of people I've tried to put together a route through the mire. The following is my iterpretation of a way to acheiving the UKCC status and not an explanation of what the changes are or whether they are good or bad.

The main answer I got back was that there is no panic and that you don't have to rush the switch over, you can leave it as late as 2012. However you won't be able to award any certificates as the BCU won't recognize the old scheme.

Level 2 cross over for those holding the BCU level 2 coaching qualification.

1) hold 2 star in both Canoe and Kayak, or have the new UKCC joint two star award.
2) Register with the BCU as a coach
http://www.bcu.org.uk/bcu/CoachingItemPDFs/upload_1788.pdf
3) Attend a transfer course, which is designed to bring you up to speed with the new UKCC ways of working
4) Attend a Child protection course.
5) Enhanced criminal CRB / Disclosure check
Click here for link to CRB Form

Items 1,2,3 and 4 are to be made available at the Aldwark weekend
Click Here

Item 4, I understood as being slightly different to this. The new UKCC method of progressing a coaches knowledge relies on CPD (Continuous Personal Development). You the coach would be required to achieve a certain number of training hours before progression or revalidation. The hours are accrued by attending courses, there are many available, such as Coaching young people, White water safety and rescue, and Pool Life guard. These can be even be back dated through a Accredited prior learning (APL) or the Accredited prior experience and learning (APEL) schemes. http://www.bcu.org.uk/bcu/2027-5-self-assessment.aspx - The Aldwark people are pushing the Child Protection course though, and I would suggest that as every thing is still a little uncertain that we should attempt to use this as a way forward for those wanting to push though the conversion to UKCC. If your not in a rush to switch, I suggest that you stand back and let the smoke settle.

Aspiration level 2 coaches and below

You don't need all the items described above to continue as you are, but to progress and pass the UKCC Level 2, you will need them. If you want a more precise route to conversion let me know your level and I'll send you out some thing specific.

Aspiration level 3 and above coaches

Your route through still hasn't been decided, but I would suggest that you try and follow the above list in preparation for the cross over, as its likely that you'll have to jump through the same hoops and a few more newer ones.

If you have any questions please ask away, If you know I've got some thing wrong let me know and I'll try and rectify it. I'm also going to put this on the blog, as there is a space for you to leave comments that you might think helpful to others.

# posted by Martin @ Monday, January 21, 2008 0 comments

Monday, November 05, 2007
Upper Tees - In Spate

As the beginners learned their kayaking basics down at Sowerby Bridge, a handful of more advanced members set off to the Upper Tees. We thought the water level would be just above "low", a nice level that means no scraping but plenty of potential adrenaline.
What we found was a water level anything but low!! S-Bends was underwater!! Water flowing faster than you could sprint!!

So we decided that we would give this a go...

The first drop didnt cause too many problems. A line down river left, just avoiding the tree, gave a nice easy run down the drop.
After this, it was a nice bounce down to the S-Bends...

"Its a bit different!"
The usual rock face on river right was now forming a huge pourover into a bus-eating stopper, and numerous other smaller stoppers lined the path from top to bottom.
It was decided that the "usual" route down the bends provided the best option, so off went Nick to show us how it was done. Nick gets a nice run down, bar for heading a bit too far left and almost running aground, causing a couple of 360 spins on his line down. Next up was me, in my tiny playboat. All i remember is the back of my boat feeling like it was being stamped on as i passed through each stopper. It felt like i took half the rapid vertical.
Next up was Gavin. The start was good, but all went a bit wrong about half way down. The roll up was successful, but no sooner was he up, he was back under again. After failing the next roll and fearing a rock near the bottom, the deck was duely pulled, and the boat chasing began...

The boat eventually grounded itself on one of the few areas of rock in the river, and from there followed a whole series of throwlines to swing both paddler and boat back to the side to be reunited. Sadly, Gavin and his paddles were not to be reunited. They had gone floating off downstream, and were never to be found...

So along comes Low Force.
At usual levels, most of us in the group wouldnt have to think twice about giving it a go, but at this level, most of us were a bit nervous to say the least!! After much deliberation, we plucked up the courage and decided to give it a go.
Mark offered to be the first to go, and made it without too many problems. Everyone else then followed, taming what seemed to be a monstrous waterfall.

With the water levels so high, a usually unrunnable channel appeared, with a good 10 foot drop to finish off. With most people in high confidence after low force, it was decided to give it a go.
Ben E was first down, choosing to run the drop on the right. Everything looked good, even the landing of the drop, but the water had other ideas and decided to try and drag him back. He fell to the right, using his fingernails on the rock to keep him upright. With much persistance, and a little relief, he managed to claw himself away to safety.
Along followed Mark, who went for a line just a little more to the left than Ben E. Seemed like this didnt help too much, as he too fell onto the rocks, and had to claw himself out.
Next up was Nick, who then decided he would go even further to the left than the previous two. For this one, i was above the falls ready to jump in, so never actually saw what happened. All i do know is that he got a good thrashing in the stopper, causing the deck to be pulled.
Full of confidence from Nicks swim, it was now my turn. Didnt want to be too far right, and didnt want to be left either, so decided all i could do was to run it at an angle from left to right. Looking back, i hit it at too much of an angle, causing a frantic splashing of paddles to escape the stoppers clutches. Just about got away with that one!!

From here on in, it was relativley easy going down to our usual get-out

Various video was taken on the day, some from Gavins camera, and some from my Head-Cam. These have now been put together into a short video, which can be found below. (Alternativley, right click the link below and select "Save Target As.." to save the video to your hard disk)

Video: LCC on the Upper Tees in Spate

# posted by jh_dempsey @ Monday, November 05, 2007 0 comments

Recent Posts

archives