Sunday, 3 July 2016

How to turn race day Wednesday into big water Beatdown Thursday - Lotte Rayner

Race day Wednesday is one of the funnest days of the week. You get to race all of the other keeners either in a team, by yourself, in a kayak or even swimming down rapids. This Wednesday we had a team race down McCoys rapid. Each person had a section of the rapid to complete, mine was ferrying from the hero eddy on river right, to punch Phills hole through the tongue. In the practice run i had a great line and hit the tongue perfectly. In the actual race, well that was a completely different story... As i ferryed from the hero eddy, the nose of my boat turned a bit too early and i was heading strait for the guts of right side phills (thats the stickier side) i tried to navigate my boat more to the left, but in doing so i was turning my boat sideways. I hit right side phills on my side and got a wee bit of a surprise, and thats when my beat down began. The hole was in complete control of my boat, and was chucking me around like a rag doll, it was sort of fun:) After about a minute of window shading and attempting to get to the tongue, but  failing phills took my paddle, now i was doing the exact  same thing as before but hands free:). After about 15 seconds with no paddle i decided a minute and a half was a solid effort for a beat down and i thought  it was time to leave the hole. I reached for my deck and pulled it. I have to say that my beat down was definitely the biggest, craziest and funnest beat downs  i have ever had.
In Canada it was race day Wednesday, but at my home in New Zealand theyre a day ahead, and of course it was big water bacon beat down Thursday for me:)

By Lotte

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