2009 News
British Canoe Union Foundation
23/12/09 - Many thanks to the British Canoe Union Foundation for its grant to purchase two small slalom competition kayaks and accessories.
Maud ElkingtonTrust Donation
15/12/09 - Many thanks to the Maud ElkingtonTrust for its donation of £500 towards the purchase of a new slalom competition kayak.
2009 National Canoe Slalom Rankings
03/12/09 - The national canoe slalom rankings have just been published. Congratulations to Matt Cook on his well-deserved end-of-season promotion to Division 2. The Club now has six members in Division 2 of the national league. The full line-up is to the right.
Mark - That's £45 pounds-worth of competition bibs that you're going to need. You'd better start saving now!
John Stoner
Stone Canoe Slalom, 11th October 2009
Break Out Canoe Cub won four prizes at this, our last canoe slalom competition of the season. Coach Peter Smith won the divisional veteran's prize in Division 3 and now has sufficient points to ensure promotion to Division 2. Matt Cook put in an excellent performance and came in just half a second behind Peter. Matt now needs to achieve a position in the top 30% at his next competition to ensure promotion to Division 2. Mark Stoner came second in the Men's Division 4 C1 event and is promoted to Division 3. Mark and Sean Millward won the Junior prize in the Division 2/3 C2 event, and Robbie Cook and Jacob Boswell achieved second place in the Division 4 C2 event.
Robert Parkinson once again narrowly missed out on promotion to Division 3 - if he'd managed to avoid hitting those two poles, he'd have been up! Our next best placed Scout after Robert was Patrick Marriott - an impressive achievement given that this was his first competition, and that he is still only twelve years old! Oliver, Will and Alex were also competing for the first time and put in some good performances. George Hill and Nick Willford achieved personal best results.
This was a one-day event. We arrived on the saturday to ensure plenty of practice time and camped over. Our evening was disrupted a little by the local youths attempting to drive a digger around the adjacent sports field. Robert offered to go and sort them out; but after careful consideration we decided instead to remove the keys from the vehicle.
Thanks to Lyn and Steve for helping out with the transport, and to Mathew for once again organising the camping and catering.
Coaching and Skills Awards
05/10/09 - Congratulations to Louis Berridge and Mark Stoner on becoming BCU Level 1 Coaches. Well done also to our first Scouts to achieve the BCU 3* skills award: Erin Scott, Louis Berridge, Jacob Boswell, Matt Cook, Robbie Cook, Sean Millward and Mark Stoner.
Double success for Erin at Harefield
16/08/09 - Another excellent set of results was achieved by our slalom squad at the Harefield national Division 3 and 4 canoe slalom competition last weekend.
Erin achieved first position in the women’s single kayak class (K1) on both days. These two results, combined with a first place at Peterborough gained earlier in the season earn her promotion to Division 2.
Mark Stoner was also promoted to Division 2 K1, after achieving second place in a field of 33 on the Saturday, and third place on the Sunday. Other successes included promotion to Division 3 for Jacob Boswell, and promotion to Division 2 for pair Mark Stoner and Sean Millward in the double canoe class (C2). Nick Willford, who acquitted himself well in his first canoe slalom competition, also deserves a mention.
On the Sunday, Erin's confidence was running high; so high in fact, that she decided that she had time to add a display of hand rolling to her second run! Luckily her first run was sufficient to secure first place in the Women's Division 3 category.
These excellent performances resulted in Break Out Canoe Club winning the London and South East regional inter-club Grand-Prix competition (L&SER) - inspite of being based in the Midlands! We are now third overall.
A respite from the recent wet weather provided us with a warm and sunny weekend. Given the lack of facilities at the slalom site, we decided to camp at the local Scout campsite, where we made use of the hot showers and flush toilets. Luxury!
Many thanks to Mathew and Lisa Leggatt for arranging the camping and looking after the catering, and to Jo Willford for helping with transport.
Erin and Sean Win at Orton Mere
On the weekend of 21/22 June we travelled to Peterborough to compete at the canoe slalom competition being held at Orton Mere weir. Impressive performances all round resulted in our winning a total of eleven prizes:
- Sean Millward 1st Men's Division 4 K1 (Saturday)
- Matt Cook 2nd Men's Division 3 K1 (Saturday)
- Mark Stoner U18 Men's Division 3 K1 (Saturday)
- Erin Scott 1st Women's Division 3 K1 (Sunday)
- Peter Smith 2nd Men's Division 3 K1 (Sunday)
- Mark Stoner 3rd Men's Division 3 K1 (Sunday)
- Matt Cook U18 Men's Division 3 K1 (Sunday)
- Robert Parkinson 3rd Men's Division 4 K1 (Sunday)
- Dale Cooper U18 Men's Division 4 K1 (Sunday)
- Sean Millward & Robbie Cook 1st Division 4 C2 (Sunday)
- Mark Stoner & Louis Berridge 2nd Division 2/3 C2 (Sunday)
Mark, Louis, Matt, Robbie and Sean
Sean won the Men's Division 4 competition by a clear 19 seconds, and was promoted, joining nine other Break Out Canoe Club members currently in Division 3. Robert would also have moved up a division, had he not got lost towards the end of the course on his second run! At the end of the first runs on the Sunday we were not only within sight of wins in the Women's Division 3 K1 and the Men's Division 4 K1, but we were also holding first and second positions in the Men's Division 3 K1. In spite of some spine-tingling performances, Mark and Peter were overtaken during the second runs.
The organisers kindly leant us a canadian double canoe on the Sunday, enabling Sean and Robbie, and Mark and Louis to enter the C2 event. Both pairs did very well, considering that this was the first time that any of them had knelt in a slalom competition boat. Peter Smith, Mark Stoner, Erin Scott and Matt Cook are now all within sight of Division 2, and with another set of results like these, will get promoted at the next competition.
Thanks once again to Alex for doing the chip run on the Friday, and to Lyn for providing camping support. Thanks also to the local pub for just being there, meaning that we didn't have to rely too heavily on the slightly less than celubrious public conveniences!
Stone Canoe Slalom, 24th May 2009
Another weekend of good weather, together with four prizes made for an excellent event at Stone in Staffordshire. We arrived late on the Saturday afternoon and had the course largely to ourselves enabling a couple of hours of quality practice time. We camped on the Saturday night and competed in Sunday's competition.
In the Men's Division 4 event, Joe achieved second place and was promoted, Jacob was fifth, won the Junior prize and missed promotion by one place, and Sean achieved his best result yet with a position of eighth. Coach Peter Smith won the men's Division 3 event (by a tenth of a second!) and is on course for promotion within four competitions. In the same event Mark achieved a commendable seventh position. In the Women's Division 3 event Erin achieved fourth place in a very strong field of eight competitors and won the Junior prize. Overall, this was one of the strongest ever performances by Break Out Canoe Club.
Many thanks to Mathew Leggatt for providing camping and catering support.
Joe Kidman receiving his prize
Erin at Cardington
Cardington Slalom, 9th and 10th May 2009
We won four prizes at this competition, all coming on the Sunday: Erin was second in the Women's Division 3 K1; Robbie came third in the Men's Division 4 K1 and was promoted to Division 3; Joe came fourth in the Men's Division 4 K1 and won the under 16s category; and Mark was awarded the under 18s prize in Division 3. Our commiserations go to Joe who missed out on promotion to Division 3 by one place on both days of the competition! Congratulations also to Louis who on the Sunday achieved his best result yet in Division 2 K1 by coming 12th in a field of 26 competitors.
It was an excellent weekend, with some wonderful weather. We camped on the Friday and Saturday nights. Lyn Courtney provided camping support, and Alex Scott did the chip run on the Friday night - thank you both for your help. On the Saturday evening we walked through Priory Park to the local Beefeater restaurant: an expensive, but worthwhile treat. Thanks also to Bedford District Scouts for the welcome and support.
The slalom course was interesting. Cardington was the first artificial course to be built in this country, and makes use of a flood relief channel next to the River Ouse in Priory Country Park. Plastic artificial boulders create the rapids. It was a tough course for Division 4 paddlers, as I think that Joe would agree, having kept us entertained by capsizing four times! It was also a very 'tight' course which favoured the modern 3.5 metre slalom boats.
The official photographs are here.
Nene White Water Centre
15/02/09 - Our first trip of 2009 was a visit to the Nene White Water Centre near Northampton. The trip had been cancelled on two occasions earlier in the year due to the rather cold weather conditions. It was still pretty cold on this occasion, but all survived, in spite of the fact that the hot showers were out of action! Joe decided instead to have a bath in the river water.
Congratulations to John Jackson and Jacob Boswell who both successfully negotiated the grade three fall for the first time.
