One of the benefits of living near the Canadian border is that one can steal the CBC TV broadcasts. I caught the Gold Cup white water slalom competiton from Germany on CBC/TV. WoW, those folks in the K1 slalom kayaks do nothing like what I do with my sea kayak on lakes. The bracing, strokes, banked turns, draw strokes. Brace and power the boat at the same time. HIGH, HIGH braces. AWSOME! Even wierder are the C1 -single handed canoes. These folks kneel in what looks just like a K1 with a spray skirt and a single bladed paddle. They don't have time to swap the paddle left to right; they simply twist over to the other side and keep the same hand position (roughly). I recommend those who have not witnessed this amazing stuff to keep an eye out for the opportunity. bob phillips SE MI *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Phlopz_at_aol.com wrote: > > One of the benefits of living near the Canadian border is that one can steal > the CBC TV broadcasts. > I caught the Gold Cup white water slalom competiton from Germany on CBC/TV. > > WoW, those folks in the K1 slalom kayaks do nothing like what I do with my > sea kayak on lakes. > I recommend those who have not witnessed this amazing stuff to keep an eye > out for the opportunity. You don't have to go all the way to Germany, or even Canada, to see great slalom racing. We've got some of the best in the world right here in the USofA. Here's a link to most of it http://www.whitewaterslalom.org/, courtesy of Rich Kulawiec. Come next spring, when the season starts, contact me and I'll use my considerable influence in the sport to secure you an exciting and prestigious position (read: warm bodies needed) as a slalom gate judge for the Ocoee DoubleHeader and the Southeastern Championships, held on the Ocoee Olympic course and the Nantahala. Steve *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
On Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 09:05:23PM -0400, Phlopz_at_aol.com wrote: > WoW, those folks in the K1 slalom kayaks do nothing like what I do with my > sea kayak on lakes. The bracing, strokes, banked turns, draw strokes. Brace > and power the boat at the same time. HIGH, HIGH braces. AWSOME! > > Even wierder are the C1 -single handed canoes. These folks kneel in what > looks just like a K1 with a spray skirt and a single bladed paddle. They > don't have time to swap the paddle left to right; they simply twist over to > the other side and keep the same hand position (roughly). > > I recommend those who have not witnessed this amazing stuff to keep an eye > out for the opportunity. You're welcome to come and join us in the sport -- beginner races are held on class I water with an emphasis on teaching technique -- a focus that comes in handy when you're running a river and need to go from <1-boat eddy above gnarly drop> to <hypothetical chute through monster hole on the other side and below gnarly drop>. I got my start at the Penn Cup series (http://www.penncup.org/) which consists of 5 beginner-level races held throughout Pennsylvania each fall. Each race includes a clinic the day before taught by successful races (often including people who compete at Team Trials, and sometimes including people who have represented the US internationally). If you're anywhere near the area, you oughta try it. Up in Canada, there's a lot of slalom paddling in places like Madawaska (*beautiful* course in the Chalet Rapids), Minden (world-class steep fast course) and the Ottawa (where Canadian Nationals were held two weeks ago)...plus other places across the country. I'm not sure where the beginner-level races are offhand, but I do try to keep a comprehensive schedule of slalom/wildwater/rodeo events for North America at http://www.whitewaterslalom.org/2000/schedule.html so you might check that if you're interested. BTW, that's not a "high, high brace" that you see people doing: it's a duffek, a stroke named for a Czech paddler who invented/popularized it many years ago. It's designed to accelerate a high-speed turn by providing a stationary point to rotate around. Done well, it gets turned into a forward stroke (by feathering the blade) and allows racers to do upstream gates *very* fast. Done badly, it stalls the boat, flips it, and other less-than-desirable things. It takes practice -- lots and lots of practice. Even then sometimes things don't work out. Slalom racing is done in decked and open boats; the decked boats come in three flavors: K-1, C-1 and C-2; the open boats are OC-1 and OC-2. Most races break these classes down further into junior/senior/master, male/female/mixed, etc., in order to give everyone a roughly equal chance against similar competition. I race K-1 and C-2 mostly, dabbling C-1 (poorly!); each boat has its advantages and disadvantages: K-1: Roughly equal power on both sides; can brace on both sides (although bracing != good because it doesn't push the boat toward the finish line). C-1: Better visibility; superior leverage on blade. But must learn to paddle offside and develop some sort of offside brace (not easy) in order to make left- and right- moves with equal facility. C-2: Incredible power -- can take a stroke on both sides of the boat at once. Very fast in straight line (long hull). Harder to turn; must fit two bodies through gate, not just one. Have ready brace on either side. Must coordinate the roll so that both are going the same way. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. The idea of slalom is combine speed (time is measured from start to finish) with precision (2 seconds/gate if you touch them with *anything*, 50 seconds/gate if you miss them or run them out of sequence). On a class I 22-gate course, this is harder than it looks; on a course like the Ocoee (class IV) with big ugly gnarly munchy holes *with the gates occasionally in the holes* it's very demanding. Racers talk about going "fast and clean", which is, well, the goal. The margins can be quite small: Scott Shipley won the US Nationals in K-1 a couple of days ago with a 233.07; Scotty Parsons was at 234.00. Thanks to Steve for the mention of http://www.whitewaterslalom.org/ ; I'm rewriting it from scratch and have all of the basic info up, but not the picture gallery yet. For photos, I can point you to: http://www.spwt.org/jr-sr-ms-nationals-1999.html http://www.spwt.org/midamerica-1999.html For a (if I do say so myself!) nice closeup shot of a C-2 in action, try http://www.rockandwater.net/pix/riversport-98b.jpg The doofus in the stern c'est moi, being gracefully tolerated by the talented C-1 paddler in the bow (Caroline Ortmann). ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk_at_gsp.org *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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