Well, the snow has come already, but it does thankfully look to be staying in the north of the country. It has however meant that the temperatures have dropped quite significantly though. We're certainly going to be close to freezing throughout the night section.
Clothing and provisions have now been pulled together and the support teams briefed on their roles throughout the day and evening.
Our plan now, is to head off from Devizes at about 11-45 on Saturday morning, which on our calculations will get us to Teddington for approx 7-30am on Sunday to catch the tide down to Westminster. The river conditions are looking good and are down off red boards in most places, just Sonning through as far as Marlow still looking pretty high.
We are planning on 3 decent stops for food through the event, at Theale, Windsor and Teddington, and we certainly have contingency for a couple more stops as we need them through the night. As long as we are getting to Teddington by about 8-30 we will be good.
Nothing else to be done on the physical side of things now, just the mental preparations and getting all the right gear together before we set off.
It's going to be fun!
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Sunday 28 March 2010
What are the conditions going to be like?
We went out for a brilliant paddle yesterday from Marlow down to Sunbury, which was completed in just a few minutes over 4 hours. This is very fast for us, and down to the fact that the river was running very fast indeed.
We are expecting more rain over the next two days and this could make for a very full Thames indeed. Apparently the DW race marshalls are meeting up during the week to decide whether they will let the race run on the Thames during the night, or whether they will make us delay for 12 hours and run the Canal section at night and the Thames during the daylight.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but I really hope they keep it the way it is. The Thames is full, but it's not too dangerous at the moment. That said, I hadn't already paddled 50 odd miles before getting onto the river.
Will keep things posted.
We are expecting more rain over the next two days and this could make for a very full Thames indeed. Apparently the DW race marshalls are meeting up during the week to decide whether they will let the race run on the Thames during the night, or whether they will make us delay for 12 hours and run the Canal section at night and the Thames during the daylight.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but I really hope they keep it the way it is. The Thames is full, but it's not too dangerous at the moment. That said, I hadn't already paddled 50 odd miles before getting onto the river.
Will keep things posted.
Thursday 25 March 2010
Night paddle
With the new lights fitted, it was time to try them out and see what the effective lighting was on the Thames.
We decided in advance that we would only be doing a small paddle and making it realistic to our timings for the DW, so headed off from Sheffield Bottom (Theale) with the car parked up at Shiplake.
We gave ourselves 20 minutes of ambient light to get into the paddling and then it was dark. Well as dark as it was ever going to get on the run through to Reading.
The lights work well on the tighter sections, and it was easy to see where the water turned, and the lock sections where lit up brilliantly. On the wider Thames sections, there wasn't really anything to see and we decided it is just a case of stay in the middle of the channel and keep paddling until you hit something.
No further changes required, and a gremlin put to bed.
Not long to go now.
We decided in advance that we would only be doing a small paddle and making it realistic to our timings for the DW, so headed off from Sheffield Bottom (Theale) with the car parked up at Shiplake.
We gave ourselves 20 minutes of ambient light to get into the paddling and then it was dark. Well as dark as it was ever going to get on the run through to Reading.
The lights work well on the tighter sections, and it was easy to see where the water turned, and the lock sections where lit up brilliantly. On the wider Thames sections, there wasn't really anything to see and we decided it is just a case of stay in the middle of the channel and keep paddling until you hit something.
No further changes required, and a gremlin put to bed.
Not long to go now.
Wednesday 24 March 2010
New lights
We decided that in the really rural section of the Thames at night it may be prudent to have some better lighting on the front, not so much so we can see where we are going, but more so we can see the surface of the water better and pick out eddies and currents which may cause us issues on the balance front.
So last night I fitted a bracket to the very front, which allows me to mount two waterproof bike lights giving us a much wider beam (from the two lights) and also meaning that none of the front of the kayak obstructs the beam.
The plan is to test it out this evening, with a run from Theale down to Shiplake, which should only be a short paddle but will allow us to check on the conditions and light arrangement for the big day. Not long to go now!
10 days left!!!
So last night I fitted a bracket to the very front, which allows me to mount two waterproof bike lights giving us a much wider beam (from the two lights) and also meaning that none of the front of the kayak obstructs the beam.
The plan is to test it out this evening, with a run from Theale down to Shiplake, which should only be a short paddle but will allow us to check on the conditions and light arrangement for the big day. Not long to go now!
10 days left!!!
Sunday 21 March 2010
Waterside D
It was an early start to get to Devizes for the 06:00 check in this morning, but Big and I made it and in good form.
We decided that we would aim for a 7 hour paddle today and try and head off early, secretly hoping we would be sub 7 hours in the end.
Getting onto the canal was a nightmare as there was only room for a single kayak at a time to be put in, but after a 15 minute or so delay, we were heading East on the canal.
It was a fantastic morning, with the sun out, still conditions and 15.5 miles to the 1st portage.
After about 6 mile Big was suffering from numb bum syndrome and needed to get out to stretch his legs, but it was only a 60 second stop at the most and we were back on our way to meet up with Simon, Andy and Al at Pewsey wharf. Onemore quick numb bum stop and we reached Pewsey, with an average speed of 5.7 mph.
A good paddle through the tunnel and onto Crofton where the locks start in earnest. The support crew were ready and waiting, and refuelled us, and our camelbaks and off we ran for the rest of the locks.
The remaining paddle from Bedwyn to Newbury was really positive and when the support crew changed to Nat and Gary at Froxfield, we were still up on our 5 mph average speed by a few minutes.
Our favourite stretch of canal seems to be Kintbury through the next lock, which is 1.5 miles and we averaged this at over 6, which is really good having already covered 30 miles.
coming into Newbury, we crossed the line after 6 hours and 42 minutes, up on both our hoped for time and keeping an average speed which will allow us to get pretty close to a 24hour DW.
The support crew were brilliant and have had their first taste of tow path action, and they survived that and kept us going. Top team!
2 weeks to go now, and we're going to concentrate on some night sections of the Thames and also the Theale to Reading section to make sure we have all our timings right.
The countdown begins!
We decided that we would aim for a 7 hour paddle today and try and head off early, secretly hoping we would be sub 7 hours in the end.
Getting onto the canal was a nightmare as there was only room for a single kayak at a time to be put in, but after a 15 minute or so delay, we were heading East on the canal.
It was a fantastic morning, with the sun out, still conditions and 15.5 miles to the 1st portage.
After about 6 mile Big was suffering from numb bum syndrome and needed to get out to stretch his legs, but it was only a 60 second stop at the most and we were back on our way to meet up with Simon, Andy and Al at Pewsey wharf. Onemore quick numb bum stop and we reached Pewsey, with an average speed of 5.7 mph.
A good paddle through the tunnel and onto Crofton where the locks start in earnest. The support crew were ready and waiting, and refuelled us, and our camelbaks and off we ran for the rest of the locks.
The remaining paddle from Bedwyn to Newbury was really positive and when the support crew changed to Nat and Gary at Froxfield, we were still up on our 5 mph average speed by a few minutes.
Our favourite stretch of canal seems to be Kintbury through the next lock, which is 1.5 miles and we averaged this at over 6, which is really good having already covered 30 miles.
coming into Newbury, we crossed the line after 6 hours and 42 minutes, up on both our hoped for time and keeping an average speed which will allow us to get pretty close to a 24hour DW.
The support crew were brilliant and have had their first taste of tow path action, and they survived that and kept us going. Top team!
2 weeks to go now, and we're going to concentrate on some night sections of the Thames and also the Theale to Reading section to make sure we have all our timings right.
The countdown begins!
Monday 15 March 2010
The Thames is still cold!
So on Saturday Big and I decided that we would take on the last stretch of the non-tidal section of the Thames, which meant a paddle from Maidenhead to Teddington.
We launched the Condor and started to make pretty good progress in her, being at least a mile an hour up on the Pope's kayak. The steering was a bit weird as it's a different mechanism and also the rudder is a little understern rudder, which is certainly less responsive that our bigger plate.
We went along quite nicely and once I had the seating and footrests in the right position we shot along.
Wake from leisure craft, which have increased in activity now the sun is out, was no issue and balance was fine.
As we approached Egham, we had a bit of a wobble due to lack of concentration but the correction was easy, although we over corrected and shot in the river on the other side. It was cold.
We managed to get to some trees and pull ourselves out of the water, and humped straight back in and on up to the next lock.
It was here that the issue began. Whether we still had some water in the boat or not, we're not sure, but as we pulled away from the portage at Bell Weir, we went straight in again.
Not to be defeated, we picked ourselves up, drained the kayak, and headed off. About half a mile later a leisure boat was steaming towards us and at one hell of a rate, with a too much wake, we cut through the first wake fine, but the secondary wake (the bounce back from the bank) hit us on both sides at the same time and in we went.
The issue here was that the bank was about 8 feet high and so we were in the water for about 5 minutes before we could get out. This was seriously cold.
But out we got, drained, shivered and back in, knowing that once we were paddling we'd soon warm up. what we didn't realise, was that our shivering was causing too many issues and we were too tense for the boat, so for the fourth time in 30 minutes, we were in again and this time for about 4 minutes. Having spent the best part of 15 minutes in the river in the past half hour was getting pretty tedious, so we decided "enough is enough" and a couple of decisions were made.
1. The condor is not going to be our vessel of choice, especially as the whole of the Thames is going to be in the dark.
2. It was time to call it a day, and jump on the train to collect a car, and come and pick up the boat.
People look at wet people, wearing PFDs on a train in a very strange manner!
Looking forward to getting out this week for a more successful paddle.
We launched the Condor and started to make pretty good progress in her, being at least a mile an hour up on the Pope's kayak. The steering was a bit weird as it's a different mechanism and also the rudder is a little understern rudder, which is certainly less responsive that our bigger plate.
We went along quite nicely and once I had the seating and footrests in the right position we shot along.
Wake from leisure craft, which have increased in activity now the sun is out, was no issue and balance was fine.
As we approached Egham, we had a bit of a wobble due to lack of concentration but the correction was easy, although we over corrected and shot in the river on the other side. It was cold.
We managed to get to some trees and pull ourselves out of the water, and humped straight back in and on up to the next lock.
It was here that the issue began. Whether we still had some water in the boat or not, we're not sure, but as we pulled away from the portage at Bell Weir, we went straight in again.
Not to be defeated, we picked ourselves up, drained the kayak, and headed off. About half a mile later a leisure boat was steaming towards us and at one hell of a rate, with a too much wake, we cut through the first wake fine, but the secondary wake (the bounce back from the bank) hit us on both sides at the same time and in we went.
The issue here was that the bank was about 8 feet high and so we were in the water for about 5 minutes before we could get out. This was seriously cold.
But out we got, drained, shivered and back in, knowing that once we were paddling we'd soon warm up. what we didn't realise, was that our shivering was causing too many issues and we were too tense for the boat, so for the fourth time in 30 minutes, we were in again and this time for about 4 minutes. Having spent the best part of 15 minutes in the river in the past half hour was getting pretty tedious, so we decided "enough is enough" and a couple of decisions were made.
1. The condor is not going to be our vessel of choice, especially as the whole of the Thames is going to be in the dark.
2. It was time to call it a day, and jump on the train to collect a car, and come and pick up the boat.
People look at wet people, wearing PFDs on a train in a very strange manner!
Looking forward to getting out this week for a more successful paddle.
Friday 12 March 2010
Got a bit wet
So we ventured out last night, just down to West Mills, for a paddle in the Condor.
Blair was right, it is a little unstable on the primary stability, but once you are paddling in it it tracks pretty well.
It's is so much faster than what we've been used to, although the steering is no way near as responsive or accurate, but we can get used to that. We did take one tumble into the water but after that things were pretty good.
Today is a day on the Thames. We've left the Rangey up at Teddington and are going to head up to Maidenhead for a 30 miler on the final section of the Thames.
This will mean that we will have completed the entire course from Devizes to Teddington prior to the race.
Hopefully a dry day in the condor awaits, but we shall see!
Blair was right, it is a little unstable on the primary stability, but once you are paddling in it it tracks pretty well.
It's is so much faster than what we've been used to, although the steering is no way near as responsive or accurate, but we can get used to that. We did take one tumble into the water but after that things were pretty good.
Today is a day on the Thames. We've left the Rangey up at Teddington and are going to head up to Maidenhead for a 30 miler on the final section of the Thames.
This will mean that we will have completed the entire course from Devizes to Teddington prior to the race.
Hopefully a dry day in the condor awaits, but we shall see!
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