A Special General Meeting will be held on Thursday 5th November at 6.30 for 7pm at Milnerton Canoe Club.  The purpose of this meeting is to finalise the 2010 WCCU Calendar. All WCCU Exco members as well as WCCU members are invited to attend this meeting.  Please find attached the proposed 2010 Calendar for your perusal. Any comments regarding this calendar are invited and need to reach the WCCU secretary by no later than 19th October in order to be included in the agenda.  Please RSVP to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it by 30th October in order to ascertain numbers.

Below are version E (15-10-2009)

Download Preliminary Calendar 2010 Jan-Jun

Download Preliminary Calendar 2010 Jul-Dec

With little preparation and little understanding of the Liffey, we booked our tickets and were off to Ireland. We were fortunate enough to have someone lend us their car and it was not just any car but the new Range Rover Sport. Local legend Fergus, was the key to our success as he helped us with everything, from boats, tripping, race entry etc. While driving around in luxury, we made our way along the river scouting out all the weirs. Boy, they are not small!

The following 18 paddlers have been chosen to represent the Western Cape Canoe Union at the 2009 Fish River Canoe Marathon, this years S.A. K1 River Championships, taking place on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd October, 2009 on the Fish River in the vicinity of Cradock, Eastern

FISH RESULTS HERE

Lance King – 6^th Overall – 4^th from left 

The final day of the 17th World Canoe Marathon Championships was held today, with three races being contested - the Senior Womens´K2, the Senior Men´s C2 and the Senior Mens´s K2.

South Africa had top rated crews in both the Women´s and Men´sK2 events, they being, Michelle Eray and Bridgitte Hartley (the leading World Cup Women´s sprinter in 2009), Carol Joyce and Jen Hoson -  all members of last years women´s canoe team to the Beijing Olympic Games, whilst the Men´s crews consisted of Shaun Rubenstein (World Canoe Marathon K1 champion in 2006) and Ant Stott (World Canoe Marathon K2 champion, 2008), Hank McGregor (World Canoe Marathon K1 Champion, 20039 and Grant van der Walt, (the 2009 World U23 K1 Canoe Champion). 

With a line-up like that, the entire team and its supporters were on tenterhooks and knew that they would be witnessing K2 canoe racing of the highest order in both events - they just did not realize before the event just how good the racing wuld be.

In terms of the competition, spectators were not to be disappointed, as both races had lined up canoe world champions from both the sprint and marathon arenas from those countries hat have been the traditional canoeing powerhouses and what did transpire was just that - exceptional canoe racing which was breathless to observe.

But in the Women´s event, the South African teams both suffered equipment failure - Eray and Hartley within 200 meters of the start when the pin holding their steering gear came loose and they lost control of their steering and on the 3rd lap, Joyce and Hodson suffered a similar problem with their steering when the plastc washer holding the pin of the ´T´ bar sheered off, whilst they were holding 6th position overall and looking good. For both teams, these were shatterring blows, causing Eray/Hartley to abandon their race, whilst S.A. Masters paddler, Malcolm Stothard, was able to repair Joyce/Hodsons canoe, so that they could at least finish their event. However, the repair took the better part of 8 minutes, meaning that their race was run from that point. Neverthess, they soldiered on to finish, but disappointment does not cover the emotions experienced by these paddlers and supporters alike.