Crew 2 - Boat maiden voyage - Reading to Marlow

Nick & Len at Dreadnought Reach, Reading in a new Ace Explorer 515.

Sunday, January 18th ... the forecast for the weekend was horrendous with gails and heavy rain anticipated for Saturday night and Sunday morning. However, didn't want to wimp out so kept to the plan. Luckily the day dawned sunny, clear and just a bit nippy, not too bad at all. We met in Marlow at 8am for a cup of tea and some 'team talk'. Then we proceeded to load up Sandra’s smallish car with 4 large blokes and 2 even larger canoes …bit of a squeeze! We were dropped at Dreadnought Reach near Reading and we were given our first opportunity to ‘test drive’ the new vessel. It is ok, but there are several issues with the rudder which need to be sorted out on dry land. In the meantime I carried out a ‘Heath Robinson’ bush repair to make it work for the training run. We covered 17 miles with relative ease, hampered slightly by the sticky rudder. This was the first time that Nick & I have paddled together so it was very interesting. There were only 5 portages on this leg and each one seemed to have a resident ‘DW expert’ who had actually never taken part in the race but advised how tough it was – just what we needed to hear! The stretch at Henley was the hardest as the river winds around and then we were exposed and paddling directly into the very chilly north wind. Back to Marlow in approx. 3.5 hours which included (lots of) chatting at the locks and a lunch break. When we stopped it was quite alarming just how quickly we got very cold. Once back in Marlow, Sandra attended to her crew with welcoming (and deserved) bacon butties and cake! Well done Sandra I knew you were taking your role seriously! Lessons learned today….. Re-assess the clothing, grease the ruddy rudder and most importantly, if anyone standing idle at a lock asks if you are training for the DW …. Lie!