After a slow Drive down in the Van from Runcorn I arrived in Cardiff on Friday night just in time for a blast round the course. It was the first time I have been to the course in Cardiff and I have to say I was impressed, not just in the course but the facilities as a whole.
The festival kicked off on Saturday morning, Paul Smith and Myself unloaded all the demo boats and set up the stand. We had with us all sizes of Jed, Varun, Zone the Venture Surf Jet and both the new large and small Loki!
The whole day was pretty hectic, the course started on 4 cumecs proving very popular with paddlers and soon most of our demos were on the water leaving us free to chat with paddlers and other retailers.
After Lunch the course was ramped up to 6 then 8 cumecs. which opened up the playspots and most of the power of the pumps which supply the water for the course.
At 3.30 the competitions kicked off with the Ducky Demolition Derby. Then the Palm Team Races from 4. The team races consisted of one Pro paddler, 2 normal boaters and a junior. I headed up the Pyranha team unfortunately during the first race one of our team got pushed against a wall and swam so we didn’t do too well in the time trial. In the individual boaterX we had a couple of good results with 2 second places in both the junior and one of the normalls. In the pro race I managed to squeeze into first place with a bit of a fight with Josh Wedgewood from Team Fire it Up at the Finish Line (well spraydeck).
After the Festival was over there was a freestyle event, part of the UK freestyle League for results from that check out https://www.facebook.com/pages/GB-Freestyle-Kayaking/347721655253588
Andy