The Paddlers, old friends & acquaintences

For the record, we followed the progress of Cat & Gilly paddling for Loughborough University, who have trained along side us at the Meadows Gym & NKC all winter.
They finished in a time of 19:55:24. This put them overall 11th, 1st in the Ladies class & 1st in the Universities class.
Along the way we met many friends & acquaintences amongst both supporters & paddlers. Brian Greenaway, now in his 60th year won the 100+ class with his partner Andy Worth. They were 12th overall & 5th in the Veteran class in a time of 20:36:26 . He started doing DW when he was 15 & has completed it at least once every decade since then.
Richard Golder was doing the 4 day event, finishing 4th in the Senior Men in a time of 16:32:19. Although we passed their second day finishing place, the timing meant that sadly, we saw nothing of him along the way.

John Day, Paul Ralph & Ian White were among many others watching Brian Greenaway & Andy Worth start.
Brian Greenham was to be found in the middle of the night as a marshall at Dreadnought Reach. He has completed DW 8 times, has won it 5 times & has the lowest average time of 17.9 hours. Ian White, another member of the exclusive 1000 Mile Club (8 times or more DWs) also with a low average time and a win to his name, was to be found all over the place as the Chief Umpire.

Other ex-DW paddlers were in evidence as Officials at various places on the course. Ron Daines was up to his neck in it as one of the marshalls hauling exhausted paddlers from their boats at the end.

Ron Dains helps undo Gilly's spraydeck at Westminster County Hall Steps.



Many others were there as coaches or supporters, such as "Big" John Day, supporting Brian Greenaway & of course, JH (John Handyside) as Cat & Gilly's coach. Tony & Kay Spencer supporting Hereford crews ... the list goes on.

JH with Cat & Gilly at Froxfield Locks on the canal.

You can distinguish the supporters who have paddled the race themselves from the "friends & family" supporters. The ex-paddlers are in all the right places, at the right time, not in the way, always cheerful when the paddlers are there & working hard. The others have louder voices, stand in the way of other crews, shine bright torches all over the place & say the worst possible things at the worst possible times. In the early dawn, before there was any real light, in the bitter cold of Penton Hook Lock I heard one woman say to one of the haggard looking young paddlers she was supposed to be supporting, "Get on with it! You're such a drama queen!" when he asked for something different to drink because his drink was cold. He'd just paddled 93.4 miles - I bet she has never been where he was at that moment!
Another statistic - NKC have had 21 Senior (non-stop) K2 crews complete DW. Kath & I were one of those. Kath has finished 3 times. Will you be next?