OK – its the start of a New Year and always wanted to take part in this event.

I have paddled all my life ( but only sporadically of late) and wouldnt mind doing this event in 2012.

I am interested in entering the Doubles event and was thinking of doing it in my weighty Canadian.

Problem is = 77 portages

Which gets me thinking would I be better to do it in a Double kayak?

Anyone on here done this event?

For a start I’d suggest doing it the other way round if you don’t want to paddle upstream.

I thought it was from Devizes?

😛

A canadian would suck I’d have thought.
You want a K2 or something.
A double sea kayak would have some speed too.
ukriversguidebook.co.uk will answer your questions..

I thought it was from Devizes?

Why is it the other way round in the URL then? 😛

My sadly no longer with us uncle did this in his 20s and had a ball! He did it with a mate in one man canoes of some description (no idea what they were as it was 30 years ago!). I remember him telling me all about it when I was younger including a farmer who shot at them for upsetting his cattle as they paddled by!

Most people do it in K2s. However if you check the results you’ll see significant numbers in canadians http://www.dwrace.org.uk/results/2011/Results/OverallSubClassResults.html

I suspect most (all?) of those are in racy models though – eg sit and switch marathon racers – rather than heavy GP ones.

I’ve not personally done it, though know plenty who have (though all in racing boats), including the 2nd place crew from a few years ago and last year’s winning single… oh, and also these chaps http://theepictri.com/

I did K2 (a good ten years ago now) which was pretty tough. I do remember seeing people in all number of crazy contraptions who looked like they were making life very hard for themselves. But not as hard as the army lads who were doing it in some kind of crazy inflatable boat, working 4 times as hard as us and going at half the speed. Respect.
I’d go K2 personally.