{"id":1861,"date":"2016-08-24T10:48:28","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T10:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/?p=1861"},"modified":"2016-08-24T10:48:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T10:48:28","slug":"new-weir-adds-excitement-to-hansa-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/?p=1861","title":{"rendered":"New weir adds excitement to Hansa Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the massive field descends on Cradock for the Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon on 7 and 8 October, the paddlers will confront a brand new obstacle as the race committee continues on its mission to eliminate portages around the numerous big weirs that span the river.
\n\"2016BarodaWeir\"<\/a>
\nDuring the winter months when the water supply from Grassridge Dam is cutoff, committee members have been working on the construction of a new chute down the Baroda Weir, 500 metres after the start of the second stage of the famous two-day, 82km race, offering a new challenge to the paddlers and another exciting spectator point on the final stage.<\/p>\n

The brain child of new race committee chair Roy Copeman, the massive Fish Chute allows paddlers the chance to shoot the five metre high drop for the first time, down a tried and tested design of steps built within a diamond shaped fish chute, before dropping into a rapid below the weir.<\/p>\n

Once construction was completed, the new chute was tested by members of the Fish River Canoe Club, who gave it a unanimous thumbs up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weir works really well and is a lot of fun ,\u201d said Greg Louw, a Cradock local and K2 winner of the Hansa Fish with Andy Birkett last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chute itself is a lot like the Marlow Chute, but the gradient is gentler.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets interesting below the weir though!<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get to the bottom of the chute there is a strong flow of water coming in from the right, which picks your boat up and pushes it left. They you get dropped over a rocky ledge, which is where the biggest stopper wave is!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is going to be fun to watch A Batch going down there as there will probably be a bunch of boats going down side-by-side,\u201d he speculated.<\/p>\n

Initial video footage released of paddlers testing the weir showed a number of rocks protruding from the rapid below the chute that would pose a risk to any craft that capsize at the foot of the weir.<\/p>\n

Louw has however confirmed that true to the race committee\u2019s form, these rocks have since been removed, making the rapid below the chute safe for paddlers and any accidental swimmers.<\/p>\n

The race has always attracted a big field because it offers a guaranteed water released from Grassridge Dam which makes the 82 kilometres of flowing water, exciting rapids and weirs a favourite on the domestic and international canoeing calendar.<\/p>\n

The first major chute constructed by the race committee was at the massive Marlow Weir, close to the famous Marlow Agricultural College on the outskirts of Cradock.<\/p>\n

In 2010 the race committee added a novel two-step weir down the Collett’s Weir that has now become known as Double Trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a paddlers race and we want to try and reduce the obstacles that force the paddlers to make a compulsory portage,\u201d said Roy Copeman.<\/p>\n

\u201cDay Two of the Hansa Fish has always been known as the Weir Day, as there were a number of big and very distinctive weirs that the paddlers have to shoot on the way to Cradock.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow there is another one!\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2016 Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon takes place from Grassridge Dam to Cradock Sports Complex on Friday 7 and Saturday 8 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the massive field descends on Cradock for the Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon on 7 and 8 October, the paddlers will confront a brand …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/2016BarodaWeirSLIDER-150x50.jpg",150,50,true],"full":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/2016BarodaWeirSLIDER.jpg",1050,350,false]},"categories_names":{"2":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/?cat=2"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1864,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions\/1864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}