Practice

To further fit in with my little plan I've moved my Saturday outing to either go with whatever the club is doing that day or to go with the local club paddle if nothing more formal has been arranged. Up to now, of those Saturday club group paddles I've been able to do, I've taken it on in whatever form it comes. Mostly they have been on the canal, so when one on the Thames comes up it's a bit more welcome as it fits in nicely with my little plan to get more exposure on the river where I sorely need experience of the much more exposed conditions.

Twice on previous Thames excursions I have nearly come to grief from the wash of larger boats, which were going much too fast, and was only saved from swimming by a mixture of a lot of thrashing with the paddle and sheer luck. On both occasions, although I had turned into the oncoming waves and was trying to 'ride them out' but lost headway. I was then just sitting there, bobbing up and down, trying to counter the wave and, seconds later, the following rebound wave off the bank.

Last week I managed to tag along with the Improvers group who were heading upstream towards Shepperton. The advice I got on taking a wash was that I should keep paddling through it, and having now tried it out, it does seem to work. On each occasion as a large and/or fast boat passed by, I first steered closer to the bank then turned into the wake and met it as near to 90 deg as I could. I also found that timing my paddle strokes to enter the tops of the waves seemed to help. Having passed through the main part of the wake I found that by turning back 90 deg towards the bank I could meet the rebound again at right angles which helped get me through the subsequent chop.

The Saturday club outing this week was on the local stretch of Thames water upstream to Shepperton.  The original plan to explore the minor waterways off the main stream came to naught as the group of ten of us became somewhat fragmented. I ended up with two others making our way around the mile-long Desborough loop and calling in at Shepperton lock to take tea at mid paddle. The round trip ended up at about 12miles in varying conditions including rather more windy conditions than I would have liked.

At the moment only two outings are on the calendar for the end of August and the start of September, one is on the Thames and the other on the Basingstoke canal with over twenty portages. Both look challenging, but good practice. I'm pencilled in for both.