Jackson Kayak

Every year Eugene Buchanan of Paddler Magazine puts on a cool event in the tank at Outdoor Retailer. Each company is allowed to enter one person in the event in the women’s and one person in the men’s class. In order to seed the competitors in some kind of order, everybody must tip over and stay upside down as long as they can. The order in which we must compete is the order in which we roll up. So far I am undefeated, and intend to stay that way, in the breath holding competition. I just look around and wait until everybody has rolled up, and then wait another 30 seconds or so to be sure I didn’t miss anybody. Seems like an easy tactic to use to win to me, I think others should try it, then we would have a real competition!

After the paddlers are seeded, prelims start. This time it was an interesting format. Dan Gavere on the microphone, Clay Wright as Chief Judge, and Amy Jimmerson was official scorer. The women were given a set of moves to do and once completed- they had to slam dunk a little basketball in the poolside hoop.

Women: The women who were in the game were Emily Jackson, Karen Roy, Eleanor Perry, and Laura Nash. Emily was last in the breath holding competition so she went first.

The moves were, cartwheel, clean cartwheel, bow stall, and five rolls. Emily was very cute doing it, but not super efficient with her time. She set each move up carefully and wasn’t the fastest at getting the ball in the hole that I have ever seen, but she did the moves quite nicely. She was eliminated while Karen Roy and Laura Nash went on to finals. They then did a 45 second freestyle ride with Karen Edging out Laura.

Men: The men competing were Corey Volt, Dustin Urban (both in Dagger boats?), Josh Bectel (Pyranha), Bryan Kirk (Wavesport), Yonton Mueller (Liquid Logic), Joe Stumpfield (Fluid C1), and Eric Jackson (Jackson Kayak)

In the Prelims: Our moves were 5 clean ends, 5 loops, 5 rolls, and then dunk the ball, Josh Bechtel had a good time at 103, Dustin Urban has a 57 and, I was doing really well until I was about to dunk the ball after 4 rolls. I swear I counted, 1, 2,3, 5 by accident! I practiced counting after that. But I managed drop the ball, do another roll, and come in at 58 seconds for second in prelims.

In the finals- it was a 45 second ride, anything you want. I did the Party Trick, Zero to Hero, bow pirouettes, a big loop, split wheels, tricky woo, stern stall and pirouette, some fast clean ends, and an out of the pool dismount that made boats go every where as I slid into the crowd, cool. Dustin had a back to back tricky woo sequence, a good loop, and lots of nice clean moves, and clean splits. Josh got a little flustered after missing a couple of moves but put on a good show and kept on smiling.

What was the verdict? TIE! Yes, the judges found that Dustin and I tied and wanted to see more action to break it. Luckily it was an objective test to break the tie, which was to do the 5 clean ends, 5 loops, and 5 rolls and then dunk the ball. This time I didn’t forget to count right and went for speed nailing each end fast, and then each loop on the first bounce each time, and the 5 quick rolls, only to roll up and realize that I had to paddle past Dustin to get the ball, but made it. He finished and then got a holding foul for trying to stop me from getting to the basket, I kept the ball in my possession and the competition was over.

They announced that I was the “World Flatwater Freestyle Champion” which is a trend that I am not impressed with, the idea that you can call an event a world championship when, in fact, it isn’t open to the world that way. So, although it sounds great, I am declining my given title of World Flatwater Freestyle Champion, because I am the Paddler Magazine Outdoor Retailer Flatwater Freestyle Champion, and $100 richer, thanks Paddler!!!

Did I say that I had an advantage by paddling the fastest cartwheel boat that loops easier than anything else, oh yea, the All-Star does the trick.

Pool Rodeos draw sophisticated spectators drinking martinis