Younguns At Nene

    Today was the day for Younguns, I always look forward to the Nene event as it is always a good laugh and I always have fun paddling with my friends on this course! I started the day off in a JK Rockstar just to test the depth and also so that I could play in the top feature. Getting in the Jackson made me think about replacing my Jed with the new 2015 Rockstar when it gets into the UK!


    After playing around in the rockstar I got into my Guigui to start training for the competition in the afternoon. The Nene pour-over is a tricky feature to do things in, this is because it's incredibly sticky and steep. I was able to get a few loops but they weren't very impressive. Mcnastys were hard for me as I kept catching my paddle blade on the feature as I'm not used to having it there! The feature was however great for phonics monkeys! You were able to get your rotation started really easily but yet again the loop was then an issue. I as ablate try the new 2015 Guigui Helixer just before lunch break! I thought it was good for some things like lunars but I felt that I needed to test it at HPP before deciding on my next boat.


    After lunch we started on the competition rides. It was really relaxed on who did their rides and when which was a good environment to mentally be in! For  my ride I was just aiming to get some move in and scoring! I started off with a loop to cartwheels which I think scored. Then I managed to score a phonics which was great, then I did a tricky woo, but knew it would have scored in an ICF competition! For my second ride I was aiming for the same ride, but with a meaty face surf at the end! The loop and cartwheels worked but unfortunately the phonics didn't. I did however manage to do an amazing face surf, then got throw about for a bit before getting spat out of the feature!

Having a laugh with Charlie before my rides
Starting a McNasty
Looking to finish the Phonics
    After all of the competition rides were over and done with, the best even of the day could start; the ball game! This year we did a bit at the top of the course and had to get as many balls into our boats to win! Of course I did terrible and got about 3 balls. The floor of the course was so slippery I just kept sliding about whenever I got into the flow!! We then moved down to the pour-over to do the main timed ball game.


    We all got into teams of 4 to play the game. Our team was: Emma, Sophie, Charlie and myself! As all of the other teams had their balls getting stuck in the pour-over charlie and I decided that we would start by jumping in there. We then swam about for a bit trying to get all of the balls back into the box, of course it took longer than we thought it did!

Emma throwing a ball
    We then had a downstream race. We had never don this before which was good that there were new ideas going into the competition! There was one twist though, we had to hand paddle down the whole course! This was so fun to do, especially because I didn't get stuck in the pour-over when going down it! After the race it was time for prize giving.
Under 18's
1st Charlie
2nd Myself
3rd Sam Valman

Big thanks to Matt for organising such a fun event!!

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