Playak News Flash 2009-08-30

Playak News Flash - August 30, 2009

News Watch Headlines

PaddleBlogs: Freeky: A jewel of Costa Rica Here is some photos of me (Claudio) and my brother Kurt hucking pozo azul in the area of Sarapiqui on our kayaking trip to Costa Rica .

Werner: Nicole Mansfield, represents the female's perspective at Demshitz While Western NYmay not be the next mecca of whitewater paddling, there certainly are multiple opportunities to paddle some fun stuff even at the end of August without any significant rainfall.

Palm Blogs: Back from Canada Every day we would get on the water at around half 10 and be given the choice to either run the Middle or the Main channels. Both of them had great features on.

Dagger Blogs: Eastern Canada Sessions #1: Taureau The flatwater lasts for a couple of minutes, and then the river slowly and gently narrows and starts to form riffles and eddylines. It just begs you to go downstream and discover what it has in store.

PaddleBlogs: Freeky: Tasting the States Here there are some pictures of some runs in the states , farmlands in the White Salmon WA, Punchball falls of Eagle creek WA and lower mesa falls Idaho.

Eric Jackson: Check out the Event Site for the World Championships… Simon, the event organizer, has been doing a great job in preparing for the big event. Last year's world cup final here in Thun was standing room only and this year, he is building a much larger grandstand for the event.

Kayak USSR: Sayan 2009 - part 1 After that we have done a nice little rapid "Vint" (The screw) and found ourselves close to where we camped last night. We stuffed our panties-singlets in boats and continued the run. After some more boogie water the canyon opened up and we were facing more flatwater.

ERA Blog: What Slalom Gates can Teach a Whitewater Kayaker Looking for something new to use as a teaching tool I stumbled onto the English Gate. The English Gate Sequence is a series of drills done using even just one slalom gate set up on flat water.

Jared Mitchell: The Crooked With the feel of spring in the air and the boys inching to do some paddling Jamie butters and my self headed to the coast for a couple of days first on the list was the crooked. The crooked in the passed hasn't had the best rep with CPIT students but hey that's a whole different story.

Werner: Beau Whitehead Wins Seattle Nash SUP Races Beau Whitehead won all 4 of the Seattle Naish SUP races using the Werner Nitro.

KayakQuixotica: Aries & Dephinius The Aries & the Corelite Dephinius play off the agile Cetus / Scorpio designs. They are re-sculpted to get the most out a high energy environment which means they are aimed to shine in crazy water and tide race play.

Jackson Kayak: Joe Jacobi Joins Team JK Always energetic, helpful, supportive of other athletes, he was a team player in an individual sport. Before I knew it he was on the USA Slalom Team in the C2 class with Scott Strausbaugh and shortly after that on the USA Olympic team for Barcelona with me.

Inflatable Kayak Blog: Inflatable Kayak Punctures in the Water The materials that inflatable boats are made of these days are strong. For example, Sea Eagle uses two types of material on their products, the 1000 Denier Polyester Reinforced Fabric that can stand up to a claw end of a hammer and a Polykrylar material that isn't quite as strong, but is still very dependable.

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Playak News Flash 2009-08-28

Playak News Flash - August 28, 2009

Message of the Day

Freestyle Worlds: All #Thun Tweets on Playak As a special service for the Freestyle World Championships in Thun, I created the 'Worlds Wall'. The wall automatically shows all tweets, blog posts and other news about the worlds. To get included, write the tag #Thun in your tweets or blog post titles. A short list with the latest tweets is shown on the right side of every page on Playak, and there is also a special page with complete details, links etc.

News Watch Headlines

Palm Blogs: World Freestyle Championships: final preparations It's been a busy summer of paddling! I spent most of the past 3 months in Norway where I have been doing a mixture of creeking, extreme races, coaching for Gene17, playboating and freestyle competitions.

PaddleBlogs: Jeroen: #Thun Lower Wave(s) This is a nice wave train after the second lock in Thun, about half a mile from the Worlds Wave.

PaddleBlogs: Jeroen: #Thun Billy Harris Video Update 1 Here is a short video of Worlds Update from Thun Switzerland by your host Billy Harris.

Wavesport Blogs: Need a mental boost? Whitewater kayaking is a mind sport. As a paddler you must be confident in your abilities and able to focus your mind, letting everything else fade away but the drop. Here's a few tips for those who need a little mental boost: 1. When your on the river, know your abilities. No matter h...

Wavesport Blogs: Follow the World Freestyle Kayak Championships in Thun Keep up with the latest World Freestyle Kayak Championship tweets over at Playak's Thun wall. Only a few more days until the event begins. http://playak.com/twitterwall.php

Tribe News: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia The Srepok river, outside of Buon Ma Thot, offers easily accessible waterfalls with many lines to choose from.

AS Watersports: Surf Boats Galore! After trying and loving the shops demo Valley Rush 7/2 Jim decided to go all the way and buy one for himself. Jim went for a clear gel coat with metal flake, and black fade.

LiquidLore: Stave River The second half of the first day was largely wide open valley. A lot was great read and run, with one section in the middle that took quite a bit of time to sort out with several notable rapids in quick succession that required some not straight foward scouting.

LVM TV: The Fall of Kayaking I traveled up to the burrough of Ohiopyle this weekend to check out the Over the Falls festival. A good time was had by all, both the large crowd and kayakers.

Freestyle Worlds Thun: Updated training schedule online Please notice the changes in the schedule for the teamtrainings.

Jimbo Meador: Kayak Fishing is Bigger than Ever Kayak fishing was popular before the economical problems started but there is more reason now than ever before to choose kayak fishing and is demonstrated by the fact that it is growing faster than any other segment of the fishing industry.

Canadian Ckayaker: Maelström's Vaag 174 The Vaag, with it's much greater rocker and smaller hatches is more at home at play in rougher water in conditions where stability and maneuverability are in greater demand.

This mail contains a selection of the most popular kayaking headlines. To see all the latest headlines, visit Playak News Watch.

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Playak News Flash 2009-08-27

Playak News Flash - August 27, 2009

Message of the Day

Freestyle Worlds: All #Thun Tweets on Playak As a special service for the Freestyle World Championships in Thun, I created the 'Worlds Wall'. The wall automatically shows all tweets, blog posts and other news about the worlds. To get included, write the tag #Thun in your tweets or blog post titles. A short list with the latest tweets is shown on the right side of every page on Playak, and there is also a special page with complete details, links etc.

Attention Blackberry & Yahoo mail readers I made some small changes in the programming of the News Flash, which will hopefully make it better readable for Blackberry and Yahoo users. Feel free to send me feedback.

News Watch Headlines

Johnny Misadventures: Ashlu Creek It was a short run. Really continuous and really cold water! The run was pretty tight. We got to run through the start of a dam.

Johnny Misadventures: Skookumchuck! The trip started off with just Rain and I heading north from Vancouver to catch the ferry. After the 45 minute ferry ride we drove north along the ocean to Egmont. When I got to Egmont I met up with a few paddlers from Calgary that I met on the Slave River.

Werner: Werner's Dan Gavere SUPing Punchbowl Falls Werner Paddles very own, Dan Gavere is again pushing the limits of River SUPing. He recently ran Punchbowl Falls on the West Fork of the Hood.

Teva Blog: Casper van Kalmthout final report from Canada For worlds training I spent 5 weeks in Canada last month. Canada no doubt will be the best place to spend your summer if you're intending to train on wave moves.

Wavesport Blogs: My North America roadtrip I left to California to run some overnights and spent one month in granite and kayaking paradise.

Teva Blog: Kayaking in the Soca Valley This river is not high super full on, but river offer so many different section, that everyone can find white water for himself.

CKS Squad: SUP Workout I truly think that most paddlers will really enjoy the SUP trend and that we will see more and more of these in people's arsenals. It's going to make class III super interesting again for many expert paddlers, and class IV downright hair raising.

Lowri Davies: #Thun Sneaky Practice ...Prior to arriving in Thun, I spent a lucky few days at Bremgarten before the crowds arrived...

Jackson Kayak: Wausau 09 This year's trip had a few new twists to it that added a bunch to the experience. The freestyle clinic was in enough demand that we had to add a third instructor to be able to handle everyone. On the morning of the first day of the clinic I was interviewed on the morning show along with Dave Lemke, the Wisconsin World Kayak ambassador.

KayakQuixotica: Hello Madison The interesting thing about paddling in Madison, Wisconsin, is how quickly you can go from urban water nightmare to lost in the wilderness.

KayakQuixotica: "T" Rescue While Kayaking Another problem in bouncy water is having that poor soul out there where their kayak could lift on a wave, then come down on them like a tree falling or worse if they have a rudder, a falling axe.

This mail contains a selection of the most popular kayaking headlines. To see all the latest headlines, visit Playak News Watch.

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Playak News Flash 2009-08-26

Playak News Flash - August 26, 2009

News Watch Headlines

Wavesport Blogs: Skook Training The beginning of the tide provides a smaller wave to train on and peak tide makes for a larger wave that allows you to work the rust out of your moves before taking them to small waves.

Palm Blogs: Hot Dang Summer At least the River Kinglass that we paddled the next day was really full of water…Not! Oh well at least it was an adventure and there were some very very cool rapids up there somewhere.

Jackson Kayak: The Mon-Star is ready We brought you the Super Fun, the Mega-Rocker, and the Super Hero. Today we bring you the Mon-Star! Finally, be comfortable, be retentive, be fast and, most importantly be prepared to FLY!

Eric Jackson: Soul of Kayaking, Part 2- River Running Segment A river is like a liquid conveyor belt that meanders through its valley offering up the best views of that valley, along with the opportunity for a paddler to ride it down at his or her leisure.

Werner: Werner Team paddler, Kelsey Thompson, talks about training for the Worlds Check out Team paddler Kelsey Thompson reporting from his training mission at the Skookumchuck wave in BC Canada. Kelsey, in his first year paddling for Werner, made the Canadian freestyle Team and has been training to throw down in Thun, Switzerland with all the best names in freestyle kayaking at this month's World Rodeo Championships. Good luck Kelsey, bring home the Gold!

Indigenous Boats: Tub Boats I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Doug Brooks at Carpenter's Boat Shop in Pemaquid, Maine, last month. Doug is a highly accomplished builder of both Japanese and Western traditional boat type replicas, whom I wrote about previously . He spoke mainly about the building of the ...

Tony Paradise: Beating Bill Headed towards Cape St. Francis Hurricane Bill was busy churning in the Atlantic in the area of Bermuda today and forecast to hit Newfoundland Sunday night Monday morning. It'll be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hits us but it'll still be too windy to paddle, maybe for a coup...

PeakUK: Phonics Monkey with Liquid Projects Here is the video which helps to learn how to Phonics Monkey in the third installment from the Liquid Projects boys Joe Bradley and Alan Ward.

Mats Bengtsson: Learning the kayak eskimo roll The eskimo roll is thus something I see as a solution when the initial handling of the situation was not good enough to keep me on the surface, and when I need a better way to get up than just getting out of the kayak in the water (doing the wet exit).

KayakQuixotica: The Amazing Colossal Shop We get used to it of course. But if there is one thing that folks from distant lands can never imagine, it's how amazingly large Rutabaga is. I mean it may not be the Amazing Colossal Man, "I'm HUGE!" sort of large but it's certainly, "plan your whole day to buy a kayak large". It's small and...

Wilderness Systems: Hurricane Bill Passes Hatteras Island MY man Rich and I decided to use the nice clean swells generated by Bill to do some reentry practice. We decided to hit the southside of Cape Point. There was a total cover up of 3-6fters coming in. We got in some good practice for over 2 hours and added some nice new bruises to boot. Bein...

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Playak News Flash 2009-08-24

Playak News Flash - August 24, 2009

News Watch Headlines

Wavesport Blogs: First Descent: Paiute Creek There are three kinds of un-run rivers left in California: Ones that are de-watered, ones that are probably no good, and ones that are far from roads. Paiute Creek fell in to the third category. Our hike-in was over Paiute Pass, two passes north of the Middle Kings' Bishop Pass.

Wavesport Blogs: How to Become a Better Paddler There is of course not a set recipe to become a better paddler, and I can only speak out of my own experiences. However, I hope this might be helpful, or inspiring, to some of you out there.

Dagger Blogs: Paddling as cross-training Paddling is great cross-training for other sports. It builds upper body and core strength and is great for balance and endurance. It is a fun way to get out and enjoy the outdoors and a nice break from the gym.

Jackson Kayak: Kananaskis River Festival Hundreds of kayakers showed up to demo Jackson Kayaks from Tony Palmer owner of Undercurrents paddling store. Tony's entire JK Demo fleet was on the water including the Dynamic Duo all weekend long!

playak.tv: Tricks workshop First in a series of videos for tvfreestylers on how to do some of the basic freestyle moves..

Atlantic Paddle Surfing: Fun Glassy Waves It was great to get back into the water with my replaced Kialoa Methane Paddle. Just in time for the waves.

surfski.info: Getting out through Surf... Advice from the Pros Many paddlers around the world never have to tackle the surf line, so we thought it would be interesting and instructive to ask some of the top paddlers for some tips.

PeakUK: Kayak Surf World Champs In the team event however I was able to contribute heavily with numerous first places to ensure that Team England took the crown of world champions for the first time since 1997 something that all team members are incredibly proud of.

NC Paddle Surfer: Hurricane Bill Huge at CB Inlet We all had the session of the year today at CB inlet. Somehow Brad and Brian have a knack for being the best photos.

CKS Squad: Colorado Junior Kayaking Championship The Colorado Junior kayaking championships are a chance for paddlers under the age of 18, to compete against kids across the state in three disciplines - boater cross, downriver racing and freestyle.

KayakQuixotica: Old Is Fine, Sometimes It's Flakey Old is fine too. Just as we would expect in our consumer driven society, companies become hard pressed to find something new and exciting to rabbit on about in order to sell their products.

Dash Point Pirate: Quest for the Golden Harpoon Head! Kayak Academy's "Greenland Week: Instruction with the Masters" is going to wrap up this weekend.

This mail contains a selection of the most popular kayaking headlines. To see all the latest headlines, visit Playak News Watch.

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