We asked you for your favourite Youtube canoeing clips and we got sent this. Which we like. A lot, in fact. Just a salutary lesson for coaches everywhere to keep an eye on the water ahead. You might want to skip to the key bit, which happens at around 00.24 mins.

The Waterside series’ organisers, Newbury Canoe Club, have offered a full refund of entry fees or a transfer to another 2012 Waterside, if you hadn’t already entered any (although to the uninformed eye it appeared to be harder to enter just Waterside A this year because the organisers seemed to prioritise entries from paddlers entering the series as a whole rather than just the first event, which is usually heavily over-subscribed – the race has a cap on numbers to avoid irritating local residents unduly).

To get a refund, you will need to claim it in person at Waterside B, C or D. The alternatives to a refund, as spelled out on the Newbury CC website, are: leaving the money and effectively donating it to Newbury, transferring your entry to another Waterside this year, donating the money to the Canoe Foundation (the official charity of the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race this year).

Refunds are only available until the end of the series. After this time they will be considered to have been donated to the canoe club and put towards ‘unrecoverable costs that were incurred’.

Full details on the Waterside series website.

We’re nothing if not a high-value-added website. So here’s our educational slot. It’s not often you get to write about a major academic study of vegetarian piranhas on a canoeing website but we will go wherever intrepid canoeists go.

Canoes get used for many things but hunting vegetarian piranhas has to  be a bit of a first.

The fish in question is a scary-looking thing but actually it’s no carnivore. In fact, the 30kg tambaqui (as it is called in Brazil but also known as the gamitana in Peru), a close relative of the piranha, eats fruit, berries and other vegetation, making it one of the most highly successful seed dispersal units that nature has created, transporting seeds all around the Amazon basin.

Researchers led by Jill Anderson from Cornell University found the tambaqui can spread seed over several miles, which is quite a bit further than even some fruit-eating mammals that we’d normally associate seed dispersal and almost as far as Asian elephants.

The tambaqui’s size means it can carry vast numbers of seeds – Anderson discovered 700,000 intact seeds from 22 different species in the guts of 230 of these fish.

Anderson, now a postdoctoral associate at Duke University, tagged 24 of the fish with tiny transmitters and tracked them for several days using canoes, as shown in the picture. Because the fish take time to process seeds through their digestive system, the seeds tend to get carried far further than expected – some as much as three miles from their original source.

Anderson’s findings are written up in the Proceedings of the Royal Society and there’s a detailed article on the Discover magazine website too.

(Picture credit: Our thanks to Jill Anderson)

Bell-boat racing at Fladbury

Multiple canoeing world championships medalist and five-time Olympian Andy Train is training hundreds of children to take part in a canoe relay along Britain’s waterways ahead of the London Games this summer.

The four-month relay will use bell-boats, effectively a twin-canoe which were designed by Andy’s father, David Train, the founder of Fladbury Canoe Club. The relay starts in Aylesbury (near Stoke Mandeville, birthplace of the Paralympics) and ends in Evesham, Worcestershire and is part of Get Set, the London 2012 education scheme.

The full story is on the BBC news website.

(Picture credit: Bellboat.com)

So what do you throw a bunch of dragonboaters paddling indoors? The washing of course.

That’s the obvious conclusion, anyway, from watching this video. An interesting development for a sport which thrives on spectacle outdoors, it’s a veritable fight-to-the-death for these dragonboaters.

"Consentual" access agreements? Only if you sign up for spelling lessons

Canoe England has become embroiled in a furious row with some of its members after announcing that it will no longer engage on the issue of access with its general membership via social media.

The organisation said it had had to remove large numbers of comments, posts and discussions that it deemed ‘inappropriate’ from its Facebook page after becoming overwhelmed by the ‘relentless posting of demands, questions and complaints, often when answers have already been provided’.

In a statement it asked members instead to contact it via other forms of communication, such as email, letter or phone.

It added: “Canoe England is not, nor ever has been, a single campaign organisation and, as such, the organisation cannot allow any single issue to continue to dominate its Social Media; it has a duty to ensure other users aren’t discouraged from engaging with the Page by the occupation of any single topic.

“Canoe England has reluctantly taken the decision to remove all the comments, posts & discussions from the Canoe England Facebook Page which we consider to be inappropriate.”

Canoe England said it was looking into other channels through which to communicate with members, insisting that its Facebook page had never been intended as a replacement for more established channels of communication. It said it would aim to reply to correspondence received via letter, phone or email “within 28 days”.

Canoe England said its Facebook page was set up to promote canoeing, enable the sport to engage with others, to facilitate positive dialogue between different members and as a forum in which to share information, ideas and tips. The organisation’s social media guidelines can be found in a PDF on its website.

Writing on Facebook, Graham Stradling criticised the decision: “Sorry CE, this is a failure to understand social media and also I think a failure to respect your membership, people are asking questions because they feel not well supported by their governing body, they are scared about hints that suggest CE is engaged in things that will make their paddling lives worse rather then better, they feel that CE concentrates more towards elite paddlers then recreational.

Darren Clarkson-King, also writing on Facebook, said:  ” It is important to both members and none members…How is this on a different scale to Canoe Wales who, when asked about access, answered in less than 24 hours in a fashion suitable to the reader, with an answer people could understand. I just don’t see what the hold-up is. Membership=fail.”

Several Facebook posters asserted that the British Canoe Union had not replied to questions about access. However, a detailed letter from its chief executive Paul Owen, appears on the Song of the Paddle website forum in which he outlines what exactly Canoe England is doing about access.

Canoe England funds the Rivers Access Campaign to raise awareness of the access issue on inland waterways in England (and Wales) and to bring about a change to the access situation.

As its website states, “the campaign’s aim is that there should be a public right of access along our inland waters, so we can all enjoy our natural heritage…rights with responsibilities.”

There is also a section on the Canoe England website with background information on the  rivers access campaign.

(Picture credit: Welsh Kate at Worldkayakblogs.com)

Meanwhile, it looks as though times on the Thamesides are going to be slow thanks to the lack of rainfall. And anyone looking for a bit of a lift from the River Kennet in the lower part of the canal between Newbury and Reading had better not hold their breath.

Much of the south-east is now in drought and the River Kennet, near Marlborough, has dried up completely. It’s not looking good for fast times on the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race this year.

Eric Farrell

An interesting interview with Eric Farrell on Sportscene’s website. He talks about his involvement in canoeing, from his early days as a junior at Royal under George Richardson to coaching paddlers to World Championship and Olympic medals. Well worth a read.

(Picture credit: GB Canoeing)

Tim Brabants

The Sprintwise blog reports that Paul Wycherley and reigning Olympic Champion Tim Brabants will have their first of three race-offs for the 2012 Olympic K1 1,000m slot in April at the Nottingham regatta.

According to the authoritative  blog, written by Anne Ferguson, former World Class Programmes Manager at GB Canoeing and now working for LOCOG where she is responsible for the design and  delivery of the  London Olympic sprint regatta, the duo race each other three times for selection – the first race will be at the April  regatta in Nottingham, the second and third at the World Cup 1 and 2 regattas later in the season.

More details on this season’s canoe sprint calendar can be found on the International Canoe Federation website.

Michael Herman, still smiling

When people are searching for direction or meaning in their life, they say that they are looking for “a road to follow.” Sometimes they say they like to follow the road less travelled.

In reality, the road less travelled is usually less travelled for a good reason. Perhaps because it takes you so far out of your comfort zone that it’s not quite as much fun as you envisaged. Author Michael Herman was one person who decided he’d had enough of his job. Dissatisfied with his lot, he decided to go canoeing. But not just any sort of canoeing. He set out to undertake a solo sea kayak expedition of the Great Lakes.

For the uninitiated, the Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes in northeastern North America, on the Canada–United States border which connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes Waterway. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth comprising 21% of the world’s surface fresh water.

Herman set off on what would turn out to be a 127-day, 3,200 kilometer trip in which he would experience illness, self-doubt, severe weather on some epic open-water stretches and even betrayal (but you’ll have to read the book for the full details).

The lakes are on the top right so the map gives an idea of their scale

It’s an extraordinary book about an extraordinary trip. Few of us get to put life on hold in this way. Herman’s memoir of his adventure is well worth a read.

No Roads to Follow can also be found on Facebook. And on Amazon.

(Picture credit: Cathie Coward – Hamilton Spectator; map credit: Map Resources.com)