August 27, 2004

Over 100 of the best freestyle boaters in the US have decended upon Watertown, and registration is going to be closed at 6pm tonight. Kristine has put together the training time slots for today and will finish tomorrow's as soon as registration is closed. There are heats of 8 or 9 people until 7pm tonight, then open training to your heart's desire. Anybody not registered by 10am this morning have to wait until 7pm to train (not a popular policy for those just showing up, but necessary to have any order to the madness!)

I got to watch some of the best boaters paddle already to get an idea of their skills on this wave. I saw some nice Helixes, tons of great blunts, backstabs, some aerial, and a few aerial clean blunts too. Dustin Urban did a cool WAY past vertical Pan Am and almost stuck it, landing backwards. It looked like it had potential for a shallow wave like this one. Jay Kincaid is the master of the clean blunts, I must say from what I have seen so far, while Bryan Kirk seemed to have the best Helix, and Chris Stafford had the best righty moves, while Andrew Holcombe has the overall package and does everything really well (I like to call him the "ICE MAN"). Although I saw him "hot" yesterday for the first time in my life in a discussion about moves.

I looked up to the top of the cliff on river right to see "Stoney" the "Dam Guy" and through a series of simple hand signals, got him to raise the water 100 cfs, since it was getting a little low for the second time slot.

You would think this is a NASCAR race with the number of TV cameras running around interviewing constantly for the news, TV shows, etc.. I have had to start turning down TV appearances locally, with the 6am news looking to have me in the studio tomorrow. I told them, enough is enough, if I am going to get up at 5:30, I am going paddling, not to a studio. Who would have thought that there would be too much TV to deal with at a kayak event?

Well, today Tommy Gunn was having a jam session in his backyard, to warm up for Saturday night, fully amplified, very cool. His Guitar player is awesome. Yea, TV was there too.

Tomorrow is my aniversary, 16 years, I will tell you what I did after Kristine sees it, not before, in case anybody decides to email her or something.

:) EJ

9 People Training Heats

Andrew Holcombe

Cameras Everywhere

Chris Stafford Settting up a Flip Turn

David and Phyliss Knight (Designer Exraordinaire!)

Did he just...

Jay in Action

Jay Kincaid

Jay lining up a move

Jesse Murphy Taking a Break

Jimmy Blakeney and Todd Baker

Pat Keller, Jay Kincaid, and Chris Stafford (all current or past US Team Members)

Riot Paddler looking the part

Stephen Wright (with the right stuff!) and Brian Kirk

Ted Devo

The training Scene

TV is going nuts in Watertown

Watching their competition train