Attached is more detailed administrative information about this weekend’s event, but the most important information is that the river is expected to be flowing at a medium level – this based on the current levels and the forecast of rain in the region this Thursday and Friday.

As the first river K2 event of the 2011 canoeing season and over 27 km of relatively flat water (although there are a good number of very narrow channels, a weir that will probably need to be portaged if paddlers do not want to damage their canoes, as well as a low-level bridge at Alfiesdrift and any number of short, sharp – and in some cases – not so sweet, rapids), combinations will be put to the test to see who will be the hot favourites for the various categories of the Breede River Marathon.

In the Senior men’s class, the hot favourites for this weekend’s event and based upon the K1 season, will be Milnerton’s Lance King and his partner, Paarl’s Heinrich Schloms – both of whom were in the top 5 of this year’s Berg River Canoe marathon. However, the new K2 combination of Peninsula’s Graeme Solomon and Edgar Boehm jnr, placed 6^th and 8^th respectively in the 2011 Berg are as classy a crew and are also long on experience and talent in the sport, so it is expected that the battle for the top two positions will come down to the wire between these two paddling crews. This writer doesn’t have a clue who the other podium place could be as K2 combinations are in a flux at this time of the season, but if Alasdair Glass (Pen) and Andrew Birkett (UCT) pursue their combination from earlier in the year, it could be them. And don’t discount the talented junior crew from Peninsula of Craig Flanagan and Dominic Notten who have been showing good form in training recently as have Milnerton’s Sub Veteran crew of Daan du Toit and Hennie du Plooy, who have also shown their ‘stuff’ during the K1 season.

The state of women’s K2 paddling in the province is a totally unknown factor at this stage as a number of the top female paddlers have opted to paddle in the very competitive Mixed Doubles category, but at last evenings Peninsula Time Trial, the pairing of Kim Brugmann and Angie Austin (Peninsula) showed class and pace, so they may well be the crew for the other women to beat.

The already mentioned Mixed doubles has some top names and talent well spread, so that this ‘race-within-a-race’ (and in other Breede K2 races this season) will be interesting to observe. Former Queen of the Berg, and current Queen of the Dusi and Drak , Maties Robyn Kime, is pairing with Mike Owen (also Maties), which is a dynamic paddling partnership but they will be well challenged by Peninsula’s Ian Trautmann and Natascha Bracale and Milnerton’s Chris de Waal and Lisa Scott whilst their club mates, Etienne Rawlinson and Catherine Treasure, although short on fitness at the moment, have the capacity to build on this as the season progresses. The predication is that the main battle will between the Maties and Peninsula crew’s  with Milnerton’s de Waal/Scott just waiting for a mistake to be made up front, for them to pounce and clean up.

So, more exciting times for Western Cape paddling as the K2 season gets underway and if the turn-out that was experienced at the Peninsula Canoe Club’s weekly time trail last evening (Tuesday 2^nd August), when nearly 150 paddlers were in the water is anything to go by, then this is going to be a cracker – competition-wise and in paddling numbers.

This long weekend races then:

1)    Saturday 6^th August, Rooiberg-Nekkies 27 km K2 – start at Nekkies at 10h30. Registration from 08h30. Host club is Paarl Canoe Club – contact the club chairman, Herbert Conradie on

082 922 9596

2)    Tuesday 9^th August, Wyzersdrift 20 km – start at the Darling Bridge at the foot of Bain’s Kloof (Worcester side) at 10h30. Registration from 08h30. Host club is New Balance Tygervalley – contact club chairman, Henk Roux on