Floods spoil river race
The race organisers had no choice but to reroute the race to above Parys and avoid the exciting white water section
JOHANNESBURG Canoe Club hosted the SA K2 River Championships race on the Vaal River on the weekend of November 11 and 12, scheduled to be a distance of some 67km.
While Robert Hurry and Stuart Macwilliams from Kempton Park looked forward to the race through Parys where wild white water was extremely challenging and exciting, the race course had to be moved to the flat water of the upper Vaal due to flooding.
They nevertheless enjoyed the workout and remained friends despite the tough slog, finishing the 47km race in a time of 3 hours 39 minutes. They are both relatively new river paddlers and are still earning their stripes and gaining experience.
For months South African paddlers have been concerned and dubious about whether the Vaal Marathon would take place and would successfully be the hosting race for the SA K2 River Championships event, due to the drought and excessively low level on the dam.
The water level in the Barrage section of the Vaal River, below the dam wall, has, however, been relatively full during past weeks with all the rainfall which did not pour into the Vaal Dam catchment area, but below, into the Vaal River from the Klip, filling the Barrage containment above Parys.
The canoe race started just below the Barrage in good, fast, swift water flow, at the Cote de Val resort, and finished on day 1, after 37km, at Smilin’ Thru resort.
Things unfortunately changed dramatically overnight due to the deluge of water that arrived from the Joburg and surrounding areas into the Barrage catchment, forcing water management to open sluices and release 300 cubic metres a second.
Paddlers in Parys watched overnight with concern as the river water levels rose to more than 2m, sloshing over the banks in some areas, making the river in Parys a potentially dangerous stretch of wild water.
The race organisers had no choice but to reroute the race to above Parys and avoid the exciting white water section, where massive boulders were covered by layers of water and a swim would be potentially disastrous.
The race was shortened on day 2 from 30km to a mere 10km stretch to Likkewaan Kanoeklub on the outskirts of Parys.
Paddlers were forced to paddle upstream against the strong current for a couple of kilometres to spread the field. The strong and tough triumphed while other paddlers were quite exhausted.
