2009 Hasler Final

So the end of the 2009 marathon canoe season saw us revisiting Reading Canoe Club for the 2009 Hasler Final. The water was calm, the air was warm and sunny and the organisers presented us with a course that was simple enough, even for us Way paddlers to understand! For the 13km and 20km courses this entailed a top turn before Mapledurham weir followed very shortly by a new false portage in a cow field. And here I detected some trepidation from the organisers on how this would go down with some of their more awkward customers judging by the email,

"Before you start your blog on tomorrow’s race. You will not need hiking boots this time but … a grappling hook and rope would be advised, also a bucket and spade may be useful if you have time to spare. As you do not wear a red vest you should not attract attention from the bovine crowd.
Cheers, BG"

I was later assured that although the cows had been taken out of the field they may indeed have left something behind. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, I resolved to follow the nearest Richmond crew into said portage.

As it turned out, the new get out couldn’t have been more welcome as my crew mate and I were running with a horrible lean all the way up to Mapledurham. Until then we were constantly veering left and were steadily getting dropped one-by-one down the field. And so to the portage, an easy sandy beach, a not-so-bad-earth bank to negotiate, 50 metres of soft (well fertilised) grass and no evidence of the bull, and after putting-in the wonderful realisation that we were sitting square in the boat. With no lean we were able to stretch out and even catch a few crews up again. But alas not enough to get us onto the points table. Get yourself a faster partner and one that looks where he's going next time Marthe!

Well done to all the Wey paddlers who got to stand on the podium. An outstanding performance from Jack and Charlie in Div 3 K2 saw them take silver. In the other races we had two more silvers from James (4K1) and Calvin (7K1), four bronze placings from Richard/Mike (4K2), Rebecca/Seb (7K2) and points for five positions in fourth place from Rob (1K1), Roy/Mike (2K2), and Oscar/Tom (6K2). But Oh dear, without any gold medals this steady performance was only good enough to place us fourth in the club points.

Congratulations to Norwich Canoe Club first time winners of the Hasler Final. With seven gold medals, four silver medals and Tim going home with a bronze won in the Division 1 race, they were only six points shy of the maximum possible.

Thanks to everyone at Reading CC for a really successful event. I love you all.