La Malate!

saturday, sept 2nd, 4 o´clock in the morning. martin's trying to pick me up, deaddrunk...
well, at least we´re finally on our way. us that is ahoi-riders martin koll, micha schomann and myself. the last three days we were hoping for the water to come back up for la malate on the river doubs in northern france. we constantly checked the gauges and weather forecasts for doubs area. at first it looked as if we wouldn't have too much luck. we already were ready to go throughout the week, but then the levels dropped on us.
so it wasn't until friday evening until some heavy rains brought the already high water back up to perfect levels for the wave. we immediately decided to drive that night, 600 km to go, three guys in a tiny opel corsa, a weekend to spend.
it took some time though til we got there. we were not on the water before 2:30 in the afternoon, spent too much time picking up my astro 58 and trying to avoid the expensive highways in switzerland and austria didn´t help either. oh, and no worries, martin got sober again, he seemed to enjoy a pretty good sleep in the trunk of his car...
nevermind, this wave is one of europe's best, a huge green wave feeding into a massive hole.
at levels of around 500cm³ you kinda have eddy support, but you don´t really wanna go through this hole. so we carry back up after every single one of our rides.
and it´s so worth it!
after getting used to the sheer size of the hole we´re all fired up and everybody tries to push themselves a lot. but i guess pictures can tell a bit more, and how about a video?
also check out ahoishop for some more pics of the other guys.

all pics courtesy of micha schomann, freestylefoto

peace, out
sven

Video Canada 2007

okay, it's been a while...
the summer´s been crazy, i´ve made many good friends, had a hell of a time on the ottawa and in montreal and the best is: i'll return next summer!
i´m back in germany since october, having a blast hanging out with friends and enjoying the good life. also quite a bit of boating, though it took my astro ages to make it here. guess my idea of sending it through a friend via container wasn´t the best at all.
i´ve edited a clip of my canadian summer, it's already been published on ahoishop, and now i finally got it into the right format and pretty decent resolution for my blog.
enjoy!

peace, out,
sven

Lachine...

hmm, sunshine, montreal, good waterlevels...
this seemed to become a good morning, and it was.
went out to lachine rapids today for a relaxed surf and had the wave almost for ourselves.
the astro is so at home on these waves...
all pictures by dave pierse and myself. i love this spot!

the waves... the st. laurence is kinda wide.

big joe, the right shoulder launches...

just to give an impression on how wide the river is! spot me...

good night,
sven

Magnum and Rouge!

yey, i´ve had the magnum out for the first time last week!
i´m super stoked about that boat, pretty much feels as if riot´s built a boat exactly for me...
fast, responsive, everything just fits.
we ran the seven sisters section on the rouge river in quebec at probably around 30cms, nothing too hard, but a fun run!
pictures are not the best as it got dark while we ran the last and steepest section, a sweet gorge with six drops.
enough said for now, gotta get some breakfast and go boating at lachine. enjoy!

first drop in the steep section

going straight into the 2nd

entrance to the third

storing boats downtown montreal, fernando´s lovin it

peace out,
sven

Dumoine River, Quebec!

hmm, season´s almost done.
two more days at owl rafting and then i´m off to quebec, montreal and hopefully some creeking, too. i´m exited, as i just got a magnum, can´t wait to bring that baby out.
last week we already were out to run the grande chutes of the dumoine river, about 1 1/2 hours away from the ottawa.
this section of the dumoine, which apparently is a really nice touring and canoeing river is usually a pretty long portage. the whole section is about 1 km long and offers some excellent whitewater.
so five of us went to see wether it´s worth it. that is stephan "foerster" paetsch, andy, lachie and wylie from riverrun and myself.
took us close to two hours including filming, pictures and safety to run everything, plus two crashed boats and some minor bruises. unfortunately i didn´t make it to montreal before to get my own creeker so i had to borrow emre´s jefe. did the job, but i can´t wait to be in my own boat!
all pictures are by myself, wylie or lachie, thanks to you guys for some wicked shots.

locky scouting the 2nd big one

foerster running the first slide
the put-in is just above that bridge

lachie in the first slide

this and next shot: me running the 1st slide

foerster entering the crux rapid of this section

this and next shot: me running the must-make boof out of the entrance slide
the landing zone is a little bit shallow...

foerster coming out of the big one

happy foerster, yeah

foerster styling one of the bigger rapids a bit further down the run
a really nice boof into s-turn slide

andy in the same rapid

did i mention that the big one is kinda shallow?
yappa´s boat had to take a beating...

peace, out
sven

summer`s gone?

not quite, but days are getting shorter again, we´re actually wearing tops again on the ottawa and i finally found some time to update my poor blog.
i bought a new camera last week and had it out on garburator at some really nice levels. it´s probably an hour until i go again and i just can´t wait.
so for those who don´t know about the wave: it´s on just above the infamous buseater wave, which at summerlevels is basically just a pourover. garburator is extremely fast, got some really weird shoulders and it´s definitely a wave to go big on.best levels are probabl around minus 1 1/4 feet on the ottawa gauge, i´ve surfed it from zero to minus 2 1/2. i love it.
my best shots are just video, and i probably won´t make it through with my vid in the next week so it´s just pics now. please enjoy.

oh, and just to make everyone at home a bit jealous, this is how i wake up in the morning and how i go to bed in the evenings. life is good

peace out

Chambly, Richelieu River

the icebreaker weir above the wave

greetings earthlings,
sunshine, bigwater ottawa, minibus, that´s basically what i would be enjoying right now, except for being sick and unable to go rafting or boating. arrgh!
but i finally found some time to get some pictures off my mp3 that fabi krummreich shot during our stay in montreal.
introducing to you: chambly wave on the richelieu river, about 15 km away from montreal.
detailed descriptions can be found on playak.com. sweet wave without eddy support, but really worth it, especially as lachine rapids were still too high. the wave changes from really foamy to totally glassy, depending on levels. message end.

blunt

pistol

donkey

canada

Wow!
Finally I found some time to update this little site...
right now i´m sitting somewhere in ottawa in the trunk of my car, using some shops wifi. thank you whoever you are.
the last month has been pretty busy, i think i took like four days off from kayaking within a whole month. now everyone´s gone back to germany and i found some time for myself. while trying to get my hands on my working permit i´ve been camping on some walmart parking lot in ottawa city. now i know what i have to do next and that is to go to the states! right after this update i´ll stuff my boats into my van and go to the rouge and hook up with foerster, then montreal again and then off to boston next week. pretty excited about that, first time i'll see the atlantic from the other side. guess i should take a bath or something.

i don´t want to get in the details too much but here are some pics of my random adventures in eastern canada after the worlds. the event was great, though i didn´t finish too well, sweet to watch everyone tear apart minibus. got no pictures, my cam broke down and i had my rides so early in the morning nobody was awake to shoot pictures. bad luck! thanks a lot to Ansgar Linder, Remi Wegmann, Simon Strohmeier and Stephan "Maus" Haderer for all the other nice shots!
i just can´t remember who shot what and when, so these go without chronological order.

this is how we do it!
my lovely aerostar was absolutely overloaded, it was fun though!
at some times we were six people, all the stuff everybody needed during his stay in canada and seven boats! the weather served us well though, so we could sleep under open skies almost every night.

Lachine!
those rapids are crazy if you don´t know them!
one time i tried to catch a wave above the normal rapids and got stuck in a whirlpool for quite a while, being sucked down sitting in my boat several times. the result was that i missed the usual waves had do a nasty ferry to shore and then walk back up again. it took me an hour!
as the water was to hig we were mostly surfing pyramid wave, which is not too big but steep, green, pretty fast and almost absolutely symmetric. helix. i love the astro!

Upper Petawawa!
these three pics show what this run was all about.
1. ninety kilometers dirt road
2. 1 1/2 hours walking up
3. paddling back down
the day was really worth it, sun, water, some small carnage, playsessions. sweet.
it was actually bigger volume than that pic, this was just some sneaking.

Ottawa!
this will be my home for the next months, though it won´t look anything like this again probably.
moonshine at wilderness. langzeitbelichtung!
and one stoked look on coliseum, main channel with big water.

oh, there were days without sunshine.
rouge river, high water, curler wave just before the take out.
i still hate myself for not having surfed it more often, but we already had one broken paddle and a popped skirt on that river so i was a bit scared.

Gatineau River
we got there with no idea what the run was all about nor where to put in or take out.
we got three words before though: bonnet rouge and isabelle.
it worked out fine, though there was a LOT of flatwater on the run it was pretty funny.
the drop was a small side channel, no pics from the actual run, was nothing spectactular. but it had nice beach at the takeout and the sun was strong enough to enjoy it.
maus and i chilling.
if you ever get there: bonnet rouge and isabelle is all you need to know. oh and perhaps maniwaki...

last but not least: ottawa city.

i´m out, sven