the REALLY BIG Abbey Rapids

please see email below! Been having a bit of a disaster, but we're not finished yet!



All

I would be grateful if you could forwrad this message to anyone who may be attending this weekend's events and pass on the message sa widely as possible...

I'm sure that most of you will be aware that it's been raining heavily over the past few days and despite our best efforts, the weekend's racing is going to be affected, though we are hoping that it will not be a complete disaster!

We are planning on running several events over the course of the weekend and a summary is detailed below:

Division 4 - this event will be on! But is to be moved to the River Tees Water Sports Centre in Stockton (http://www.rtwc.co.uk/contacts.html). This is a much safer section of the river for the novice paddlers and will not be affected here regardless of the weather conditions. This event will be a short course and is ideal for anyone's first race! We will also be serving a delicious selection of breakfast and lunches from the centre and will have a variety of boats for people to try. I can also confirm that this event will be a ranking event and paddlers will be able to gain promotion to division 3.

Open event - we are planning on only running the division 2 and 3 events on Sunday, so will be running an open event alongside the Division 4 short course event on Saturday at the River Tees Water Sport Centre (http://www.rtwc.co.uk/contacts.html). This will give the Division 2/3 paddlers the opportunity to get used to flex your muscles and hone your skills before Sunday's real event. Entry fees will be £4 per category and you are welcome to try one of our canadian boats.

Division 2/3 - this event has been effected the most. No event will occur on Saturday. The water up at Barnard Castle is incredible! Even the flatter sections are too difficult at the moment. After discussions with the environment agency, they have confimred that the river level peaked this afternoon and despite further rain being forecast, the volume is not suffient to keep the river at this unbelievable level. as a result we are hoping to be able to race on Sunday. We will be erecting the course at an alternative venue upstream of Abbey Rapids on Saturday and having sought advice from the slalom committee, we will be able to run the event as a double on one day. One race will be run before lunch. Lunch will be available at the original site, and an opportunity to refresh, warm up and ready yourself for the afternoons race will be there whilst our team make the necessary course changes before the afternoon's event can take place.

Camping and parking - for all events this will remain up at the Abbey Rapids site. The Barbecue will still take place and we are determined to have a good time. We have lots of gazebos and good cheer to get the shenanigans under way!

So all we need are some canoeists who like water and fun, have a sense of adventure and a pair of wellington boots (Tees Tigers umberellas will be available on the day!)

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns
07733 140 322

I hope to see as many of you as possible over the course of the weekend.

Regards

Nicky

Now then!

Today went mint (for an event organised in a couple of hours!) i think that everyone that attended was happy and we all had a good day.

Right on to tomorrow! the river level has dropped sufficiently and the 2/3 will run as a double. there will be space for a limited number of late entries, but will get under way by 10:30 prompt.

there'll be a long lunch break with some excellent food to be served and the first prize giving, the second event will start at 2pm so that we can get it all fitted in over a reasonable day.

I hope to see you all there.

Regards

Nicky

Hi, here's a couple of photos and a video of Darren (stuck-ish) in a stopper on Saturday.

Would like to thank Nicky and all the other organisers on my mother's and sister's behalf, they both say they really enjoyed it!

Link to Video












Edit: Sorry none of these are of the actual race, apparently taking photgraphs takes too much time if you're competing!

Nice video.

sorry daz i did have a laugh on your behalf

I think that was more like being worked by a stopper rather that stuck in it!