Post
by davebrads » Mon May 14, 2007 10:28 pm
Confession time
Once upon a time, a long time ago, in the days of 4m boats that did not turn too fast, and Ace helmets (I'm not sure it was that long ago, I put that bit in for a bit of colour), a sequence of gates was set up on the Graveyard. The sequence was based by the island. A downstream was hung just above the left hand corner of the stopper, and the next gate was an upstream at the top of the right hand eddy. Anyone that tried to do it direct, either missed the eddy, collecting a 50, or else only just made it, and spent a good 10 seconds clambering their way back up the eddy to the gate. A lot of paddlers broke out right and surfed across the wave into the gate, this being the safest option, and probably no slower than the direct route. The only person that could get the move direct was a certain Mr Wignall in a shortened boat that his dad had made for him as a playboat, sub 4m boats being allowed for the first time in all divisions except Prem.
I chose to take the direct route, but rather than try to miss the gate, I paddled hard left to right, collecting the left hand pole on the way, moving it a good metre. It gave me an excellent line into the upstream, and I achieved my best ever result in a kayak, coming third.
Should I have been given a 50? Would you have spotted what I did?