A fun canoe and kayaking club based at Chiswick Pier
Wishing a very merry Christmas to all our members and coaches. It was great to see so many of you at the Christmas meal, and kudos to the hardy Santas who paddled beforehand. We’re still heading out over winter (rain, snow or shine) and have a final paddle of 2022 planned on 30 December. Keep a look out also for our first paddle of 2023…
There’s nothing quite like an evening paddle, watching the sun go down and paddling home in quiet darkness. In winter when the sun disappears early it’s more important than ever to have lights with you when heading out. To join any of our night paddles you will need: 2 x white lights (no red or coloured). 1 for front and 1 for back Lights should have steady mode. Only the rowers have flashing lights Headtorch – you can … Read more
It is with huge sadness we pass on the news that Dean, our much loved coach and friend, has died after a very short illness. Most of you will have paddled with Dean, or seen him paddling his canoe We-no-nah up and down the Thames over the last 10 years or so. He used the river as a space to think, to breathe, to be alone and to come together with friends. Dean was our … Read more
Date 15 May 2022 Lovely weather for a paddle and to start with a lovely tide and then the tide gods turned against me. I had cancelled the club session I normally run on the grounds it was too dangerous a tide. I wasn’t wrong and that was a mere 7.7 m one I guess not helped by the previous night’s rain and it felt like every other boat that could float was out on … Read more
We all know that coaches know everything about kayaking, right? Well,,,,, up to a point. We do know what’s needed to get you onto the water safely, how to paddle, sometimes in a straight line and get you back home again, but even those who think they know everything can learn from the best. So some of us coaches recently took a busman’s holiday to Southwater Park in the leafy Surrey Hills and got some … Read more
Canoe Session at Chiswick Pier Canoe Club Date 8 May 2022 Five open boats paddle the mighty Rover Thames at Chiswick with Coach Steve A great day on the water with all the club’s open canoes in operation. Now this wouldn’t have been possible without our club’s kit man (Julius):and his efforts to kit them each out with kneeling thwarts. We had two people completely new to paddle these canoes, one who hadn’t paddled one … Read more
Only a few members wanted to brave the rather chilly-looking conditions today, but it turned out to be sunny and no rain! The ebbing flow meant it only took us 40minutes to get to Putney, so we decided to carry on to explore the river farther than we normally get on an average Sunday paddle. We went past Wandsworth bridge to the Heliport. Everyone had brought a thermos with hot drinks so we stopped there … Read more
Thanks to Glen who has spotted this useful document created by the River Thames Society listing all access points on the river Thames. It has also been added to our useful documents list.
The first paddling session for 2022 run by Coach Steve These sessions are built around improving the level of club members paddling skills. This specific session, due to the almost ideal tide was run in whitewater boats. We started out by fitting each other into the club’s boats. This is probably the most important part of the session for without a good fit, it’s much harder to manoeuvre the boat around on the water. Next … Read more
Having run the last session of 2021, I thought it might be useful for some club members to know what we get up to. Although we don’t travel huge distances, we spend our time working on paddling technique. That might be turning and edging the boats or simply improving forward paddling, it really depends on what those that sign up for the session require. The last Sunday prior to the Christmas break was in fact … Read more
