Feed from Time on the water is time well spent

New Boat, New Injury!

So the new boat arrived courtesy of Marsport at the start of Waterside C. We unwrapped it and immediately our mates, plus a few others, admired just how shiny a brand new, out of the wrapper, boat is!

We decided to adjust the seats and tape up the bits that would normally get scratched on the portages and paddle it bare, plus a few gels taped behind my seat. After the start I quickly realised the back of the seat was rubbing, and we still had a very long way to go.

It paddles wonderfully and it so much easier to steer than the blue boat we’ve been using. It’s so much lighter too, which was brilliant on the portages. We were literally sprinting past other crews on every portage. Our main competition started before us so we were never going to see them until the end. We coped well with the weirdness of paddling in an almost pitch black tunnel and the epic portage that is Crofton. We did accidentally put in after the first of the Crofton locks as we saw another boat do it. We didn’t realise we were doing it wrong until we saw a K1 running past and not stopping to put in. Oh well, onwards and upwards.

Throughout the whole race we never once got knackered, dropped boat speed, running speed, complained, none of that. It went pretty much as planned as it could have with a boat we actually hadn’t paddled before.

We ended up finishing third again, in a time of 3:54. Not bad. It was roughly what we thought we’d do. Waterside D is now only two weeks away and I can’t wait, although I would like the open wound on my bum to heal first.

Posted by Webby