This weekend coming (Jan 30-31st), FlowFree are helping to organise the first ever Canoe Wales Universities Competition and party weekend.

The weekend will involve a range of disciplines with the idea being to give people the opportunity to try disciplines they may otherwise never get to try while allowing those with experience to showcase their discipline and excel. We will take the results from each event to determine an overall winning University and to award the best paddler in each category. However, the focus of the weekend is most certainly on making sure everyone has fun.

Below is the timetable and other useful info for those coming along – but first… We are still looking for helpers! We need people to help with the time-keeping, judging, scribing, running etc. No special skills or knowledge required, although if you know anything about sprint, polo or WWR you will be very much loved. In return for your help, we can offer you free accommodation and food for the weekend, plus free entry to the Saturday night party and may even be able to cover reasonable fuel expenses or a few beers. Please get in touch if you can help!

Getting There

The event is taking place in Llandysul, mid-Wales – get directions, please see http://www.llandysul-paddlers.org.uk/centre/how_to_get_here.htm. Camping is available on site and all events will take place pretty much on site too; so once you are there you shouldn’t need to drive anywhere!

Timetable

Below is a provisional timetable – please understand that times are liable to change so it is important that you come to the briefings and keep an eye on notice boards for an changes to the timetable. You will notice that some events on the lake and the river over lap, this is to make sure we fit everything in. We will do our best to ensure that no-one has clashing events but each competitor’s own responsibility to check and bring it up with an organiser as soon as possible.

Friday

Camping will be available, so come along as early as you like. There a couple of pubs within walking distance or the usual campsite capers.

Saturday

8.30am-9am: Final Registration – club captains please come and confirm your entries. Make sure you know the names of everyone competing and what they will be competing in. We will particularly need final team-lists for the polo event.

10am: Morning briefing – to be attended by all competitors, in the area outside the outdoorkit4u shop. Start lists go up.

10.30am-12.30pm: Polo group stage. Lake.

11am-3pm: Slalom. 2 timed runs on a short course. You may use any boat, some slalom boats will be available to borrow. River.

2pm-4pm: Flatwater sprint. Lake.

4-6pm: Floodlit it’s-a-knockout. We hope to have time for a fun its-a-knockout type event. Details will be announced on the day.

6.30pm-late: Food & party time! Porth Hotel, within 5 minutes walk of the camp site in Llandysul. You will need a ticket to get food, so make sure your club captain has registered everyone and that you do not lose your ticket!

Sunday

9am-12pm: WWR. One timed run in any craft, some WW racers will be available to borrow.  River.

12.30-1.30pm: Head-to-head. Seeded heats of 4, top 2 from each heat will go through to next round, and must make their way back to the top of the course immediately. River.

2-3.30pm: Polo finals. Top two teams from each group battle it out for 1^st,2^nd,3^rd and 4^th. Plus Ladies teams final. Lake.

4.30pm: Prize giving. Stick around to find out who has won each event (we’ve gt some cool prizes to give away) and which University has won the overall prize!

Other Stuff

We have plenty of recreational kayaks available for use and a few slalom and WWR boats as well, so you can try out each discipline for real – or you can stick to the boat you are used to.

There is a paddling shop on site (outdoorkit4u) who will be offering 10% discount all weekend. On top of that, we have a couple more outfitters coming down with stands to sell gear and lend out demo boats, such as the new Jackson Kayak playboats.

You are free to use the river or lake between events, however be aware that the centre also has a course running so they may ask that you do not use part of the lake at certain times.

To download the timetable as a Word doc, click here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Conwy Falls has been an infamous site for kayakers for many years. The waterfall itself has had a handful of successful descents but upstream of the falls lies a nasty rapid, which in recent years has been the scene of an increasing number of incidents. You see the nasty rapid I talk about lies just around the corner from the take out of the classic Middle Conwy, under Penmachno Bridge. The incidents occur when paddlers miss their intended take-out eddy: if you notice your mistake fast enough you may be able to get yourself to safety, however if not you will most likely end up stuck down here:

The problem with ending up sat on one of those inviting rocks or in the eddy behind it is that you are unable to get out due to the sheer sided river banks. It is at this point that Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue, the fire services or another suitably skilled and equipped rescue team has to be called out. In the last of these incidents, a member of Ogwen Valley MR was seriously injured.

So why is it that so many people end up here? Well, I think there are several factors: if the river is high the takeout eddy is the middle of a fun and bouncy rapid; the large Penmachno bridge that some people presume they will see is actually virtually impossible to see from the river; some people do not walk down to see what the take out looks like from the river so do not recognise it when they get there; and occasionally there will be further circumstances such as a swim in the rapid above. Many guides to the river make note of warning makers (wooden posts at 200m, 100m and one at the take out eddy) – but over time these old posts, which were originally painted bright white, have become faded, dull and hard to spot.

There has been much discussion about what could be done to help reduce the number of incidents and often that discussion ends up focusing on the moral issues of whether something should be done at all. Here at FlowFree, we felt it was time that talk was turned into action. We respect that the river is a natural environment and paddlers should be responsible their own safety, and the safety of those they are paddling with – but we also could not sit back and watch more paddlers getting into trouble on our local river.

Rather than putting up new warning signs, we decided that the best course of action would be the make the existing warning markers brighter and easier to spot. Here’s some photos of our work:

We left the 200m and 100m writing on.

200 metres to go!

100 metres to go!

TAKE OUT!!

Please note that although we hope that this will help people to spot the markers more easily, it is should not replace the need for all groups to be familiar with where the take out is, especially on a river where it is so critical. If you plan to paddle this section of the Conwy, please take the time to walk down to the take out eddy (from Conwy Falls Cafe, walk over Penmachno Bridge and turn left onto a well-worn path then follow the path down to the river and then walk upstream of the yellow mark a bit to familiarise yourself with the view of the eddy from upstream). The section has two harder rapids, usually graded as Vs: immediately after the second of these, there is a grade III+ (fairly chunky in high water) which eases to grade III – stay alert and start looking for the markers and your take out eddy as early as possible in this rapid . If you are not familiar with the river, you may consider hiring one of our local river guides to ease the worry of missing the take out and let you relax and enjoy the river.

We hope this helps to prevent further accidents on this fantastic section of river.

An unfortunate sheep takes a closer look of a syphon under Penmachno Bridge

Hello and welcome to the latest FlowFree newsletter!

After a busy autumn with consistently high river levels throughout November and December, things froze over for a good few weeks here in North Wales. Check out our blog for some amazing photos of some well known North Wales rivers frozen solid!

Now that things have thawed out and the rain has returned, we have plenty of courses and trips to look forward to as spring approaches.

Last minute spaces
Fancy improving your skills on some classic North Wales rivers next weekend? We have last minute spaces available on our White Water Improvers course – 30-31st January. Book asap to avoid disappointment.

You can now book online
We improved our booking procedure to allow you to pay for your course online using Paypal or your credit or debit card. We’ve also added an online booking form, so you can complete the whole booking procedure online within minutes. The printable booking form and alternative payment methods of bank transfer or cheque are still available, check out the booking info page for full details.

Gift Vouchers
We now offer gift vouchers in a variety of values – perfect for giving to loved ones on special occasions. Not only can they be used towards all of our advertised courses but also for one-to-one and bespoke courses.

New course calendar
We’ve added a Google calendar to our website with all of our course dates on, making it easy for you to see what we have going on around any particular date. You can also easily add the course details to your own calendars at a click of a button. We’d be keen to get feedback on this new feature, so please check it out and let us know what you think!

BCU White Water Safety & Rescue
FlowFree are now offering BCU White Water Safety & Rescue courses always staffed by a combination of experienced safety specialists and active white water adventurers to ensure you get a good balance of technical knowledge and practical application.

Current dates:
6-7th February
10-11th April

For more information, see the BCU courses section of our website.

Ladies Weekend
Back in December, we ran a bespoke ladies weekend course for Birmingham Canoe Club (pictured left). Working alongside their coaches we did workshops on everything from core boat control, ferrygliding and eddying in and out up to some playboating for those prepared to stick their head in the icy waters! The big hit of the weekend was the “stern squeeze” introduced by Lowri – some of the girls couldn’t resist calling “And squeeze!” in the voice of an aerobics instructor every time they used the stroke! From the emails we received from the ladies after the course, it seems a lot was learnt and everyone had plenty of fun. We hope they are still calling “squeeeze!” at each other down rivers for years to come…

Our next weekend of Ladies Specific courses is set to be 24-25th April; with a Confidence Booster day and WW Skills Development available in either 1-day or 2-day options. If playboating is your thing, we’ll have a Ladies Playboating day on February 21st. Check out the Ladies Courses page for more information and prices.

Bespoke Courses
Whether it’s a one-to-one or a course for your club, our bespoke courses have been very well received with very high return custom. Due to their growth in popularity, we have now added our standard bespoke course prices to the website.

We hope to see you on the water soon!

Kind regards,

The FlowFree Team

As I am sure you noticed, the past few weeks have been rather cold in the UK. Here in North Wales was certainly no exception as the snow fell and the rivers and lakes froze over; we swapped our kayaks for snowboards, skiis and winter boots. Here’s a few photos of popular North Wales rivers – can you spot a line?!

Public Toilet Falls on the Mawddach. Photos: Patrick Clissold

It has been a winter of extreme weather… back in November / December we had floods of epic proportions. Here’s some more North Wales classics, in less-than-classic conditions:

Miner’s Bridge!

Mincer on the Llugwy

Fun lookin’ boils downstream of Pont-y-Pair in Betws

Now that things have thawed out, we’ve been back on the rivers enjoying the best of North Wales with runs of the Ogwen, Conwy and Nantygwryd (we’d hoped to paddle from the top of the Nantygwryd to our house in Llanrwst but the lakes by Plas-Y-Brenin were still frozen!).

If you are feeling a bit rusty after the chilly Christmas break, why not brush up your skills with one of our skills courses? We’ve just added plenty more dates to take us up to the summer. Also – check out our new google course calendar!

See you on the water…

We’ve made booking with us even easier!

You can now book instantly online using paypal or a credit / debit card. Once you’ve paid, just complete the online booking form on the page you are taken back to and you’re done. No need to print anything off. No need to post anything. No need to even use the phone! You can book yourself a superb day or two on the water from the comfort of your home in just a few clicks.

Of course, if you prefer the human touch – you can still pay by cheque or bank transfer and our printable booking form is still available too.

For full details, see www.flowfree.co.uk/booking-info.

We just wanted to let you know that FlowFree now have access to a small range of the latest white water and freestyle boats for you to demo, including the much sought after 2010 Jackson Star range (2010 Star, AllStar, SuperStar and MonStar all available, plus 2007 Shooting Star). For more information or to reserve a demo boat for a particular course, please email us on info@flowfree.co.uk

Well it’s been quite a while since we’ve put anything up on the blog; but that’s not to say we haven’t been busy! With degrees, competitions and most recently trips to Norway and France the FlowFree team have barely had a chance to catch their breath! To see some impressive photos and read tales from their adventures so far, take a look at their personal blogs.

A few weeks ago, Becky Russell and I ran some Ladies Specific Courses in glorious sunshine on the rivers of North Wales.

Saturday’s Confidence Booster was a particularly fun day on the water, with ladies ranging in experience from just a few beginner rivers to those who’d paddled for years but now felt their confidence waivering. With low ratios, we were able to cater the day around these varying backgrounds and soon had everyone happy, smiling and progressing with their paddling. At the end of the day, almost everyone went for a body-surf in the bottom wave of Mile End Mill – a sign of improved confidence, high spirits and unusually hot weather in Llangollen!

Charlie Gwilliam looking determined

On Sunday it was time to focus on White Water Skills such as driving the boat across eddylines, boofing and using the river’s features to our advantage to make our paddling more efficient and dynamic. Thanks to Tom Wardill for some cracking photos from the day.

Lowri explains the next challenge…

Ladies Specific Courses are always a joy to coach and extremely rewarding as the atmosphere of peer encouragement and a fresh perspective never ceases to provide great progress in the paddling of those on the course.

The next Ladies Confidence Booster is set to be October 10th with a Ladies Playboating day on the 11th. Keep an eye on the ‘Ladies Courses’ page for more dates to be added soon!

Myself and Jon Davies have recently returned from guiding one of Flowfree’s Steep Long Weekends in the Massif Central in Southern France. We had a real range of weather from pleasantly hot to sideways “coffee shop” rain. Starting off with some classic bedrock on the middle Tarn, we also paddled the fantastic upper Borne, Mimente and a section of the Upper Ardeche. High water levels scuppered our plans for a run on the upper Tarn, so we made do with some fantastic alpine-style boating to round off the long weekend. Keep your eyes open for next year’s trip, coming Easter 2010….But for now I’ll let the pictures tell the story…

Nick drops into the Moyen Tarn. C’est Bon!

Tom lines up on “Rib Cage” of the Haute Borne

More fun on the Haute Borne

FlowFree-Ride on the Mimente

The next Canoe Wales (formerly known as WCA) Freestyle Development Day will be held on the Morriston Weirs on the Tawe in Swansea. Directions can be got here: http://www.swansea-canoes.co.uk/map-directions.htm - as soon as you come off the roundabout, go past Wychtree Street and park on the left hand side near the foot bridge. Walk across the foot bridge and up the path to access the weirs.

There are three weirs, water level will dictate which weirs we use and what sort of features they produce. This is a friendly spot so people of all abilities welcomed, but confidence on white water is highly recommended.

We welcome anyone with an interest in freestyle and particularly youngsters, anyone who’d like to get into competing or coaches who wish to learn how to deliver better playboat coaching. Those wishing to attend as a student should live in Wales and/or be a CW/WCA member. Coaches are welcomed from anywhere; those wishing to observe and get coaching tips can come for free. If you would like to help with providing the coaching, please get in touch and we’ll also cover your expenses.

The day costs £15 for adults and £10 for U18s, which includes quality coaching from a range of experienced coaches and use of a small range of demo boats.

Meet at 9am outside Swansea Canoes.

Please let me know if you plan to attend by dropping me an email on wca-freestyle@flowfree.co.uk or joining the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=50563572846

The first WCA Freestyle Development Day of 2009 will be at Mile End Mill on the Dee, where we will be based throughout the day. Park in the White Water Active / Paddleworks car park as usual and meet at 9.30am in the cafe.

Mile End Mill is ideal for aspirant playboaters of all abilities, with 3 features which are great for learning all sorts of new moves or even having your first surf (if the river is very high, those without a confident white water roll will be advised not to attend. I will update on water levels on the Thursday before.) We welcome anyone with an interest in freestyle and particularly youngsters, anyone who’d like to get into competing or coaches who wish to learn how to deliver better playboat coaching. Those wishing to attend as a student should live in Wales and/or be a WCA member. Coaches are welcomed from anywhere; those wishing to observe and get coaching tips can come for free. If you would like to help with providing the coaching, please get in touch and we’ll also cover your expenses.

The day costs £15 for adults (coaches attend for free) and £10 for U18s, which includes quality coaching from a range of experienced freestyle coaches and use of a small range of demo boats. It does not include the charge made by White Water Active to use their site.

Please let me know if you plan to attend by dropping me an email on wca-freestyle@flowfree.co.uk or joining the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49882181829#/event.php?eid=50993751346

Any questions, drop me an email.

Hope to see you there!