New Zealand...

Warming up!
I guess it's been two months that I've been here and I still didn't write a thing! Well...
That is a good sign you know! My mum would say: If I don't hear from him he's doing well!

After spending a few weeks rafting, getting certified and doing a rescue course (NZRA!) with the boys from Mohaka Rafting on the North Island I am now set for the winter, working for paddlerzone in Christchurch, living on a beach with decent surf and creeking two days a week at least on the coast. Not too shabby!

Got to take out both the Nemesis and the Element out in the surf quite a bit and loved it! Can't wait to get my hands on some composite!

Anyways, my focus for now, especially after talking to my closest friends that were involved in a whitewater accident lately, was more on personal boating. I didn't take pictures, did a few runs on the westcoast but really just enjoyed hiking up, being all exposed out there and then picking some sweet lines down. I also paddled with a bunch of different people every time, which doesn't make the media easier. All apologies but no regrets.
So for now there is only a few shots from my trip so far, I have a good crew coming together for after new years, so we hopefully will be able to get some good runs (heli, maybe multiday...) in!
Enjoy!

Toaroha, First drop out of the canyon, pic: Gareth Cox

Gareth "Gaz" Cox, same drop!

Jye Mitchell enjoys the westcoast's beauty

everybody looking up? put some work in.
fly, walk, paddle, walk, scramble, paddle - westcoast!

bruce dando on his way up

gorgeous! 10 mile creek
kevin smith and myself, pic Jye Mitchell

order reversed: still 10 mile. a bit too much wood and metal for me!

in graham charles' words:
kayaker's nightmare number? traffic jam!

arthur's pass: views like this make the weekly 3 1/2 h drive fun!

kevin smith, pic sam?

me, about to get sacked landing upside down
damn freewheel attempts!

styx, classic run!

Peace,

Sven

garburator!

while i am sitting here on new zealand's countryside at mohaka rafting, enjoying good food (sheep), nice views and learn some technical rafting so that i shall become a kiwi raftguide i got this mail with pictures of micha schomann.

micha visited me in canada for two weeks midseptember to bum around a bit and enjoy the eastern canadian playboat classics... and boy did we get lucky!
our adventures included but were not exclusively limited to: sleeping on a roof downtown montreal, enjoying huge bonfires at big owl's rafting, driving through (rotten) cornfields, getting bitten by cats and....

SURFING.
A LOT!

Lachine, Habitat, Cornerwave, Babyface, ran the Rouge and then BOOOM! Garburator came in! last time i surfed this wicked wave was in 2007, and i had almost forgotten how it feels! well, easiest way to explain it would be: FAST!
like really fast.
while you don't have a lot of time to setup as you're screaming down the pit it does allow for some good air. other than a lot of waves i know you always project forward, upstream, which makes it hard for combos but a lot of fun for airscrews, cleans, back pan ams etc...
anyways, micha in the end sacrificed some precious surfing time and busted out his photo skills! and as photos really only make sense if they get looked at:
HERE YOU GO!

all pictures courtesy of micha schomann









peace!

sven

another season done...

nobody around anymore at big al's rafting, so i found some time to go through a few of those pictures of this summer. not too many, i've been working a lot lately and didn't get to do a lot of big trips, but that is about to change. RIGHT NOW!
another month of bumming around and putting those ninja wave tricks out on some big stuff before i take off to New Zealand!

just for technique this summer has been wicked! learnt a lot and definately changed my style of boating quite a bit. i guess it was just a different mindset coming from a very relaxed environment here. i still can't believe how easy life is around here. nothing really to worry about, go rafting, kayak after, have a beer at the fire, good people everywhere. i kinda wish this would last longer.
anyways, enjoy the shots...

mr. patrick carter slaying the mighty phil's hole

cornerwave. favourite trick of my summer.

love that shot! pic tiia koskela

pic tiia

alex davies throwin down

wipeout

this was a great view on the way to our put-in

fernando torres, dragons tongue

me. same.

dropping the elevator shaft, pic fernando

peace, out!
Sven

i love pictures!

just really wanted to share those, super stoked on them!
i was out surfing odyssey, a nice little wave that is not being surfed too much as few people know about it. the sun was setting and there was no good photo light at all, so my friend hadleigh thompson tried playing around with longer exposure and i think the shots he got are awesome!
thanks a lot buddy!
no too many, but here you go.

i guess you could tell that i'm having a good time.
yeah ottawa!

yep, right. different wave.
stumbled upon this while cleaning my computer.
buseater
that boat flies.
photo daniel inskip.

off to the sauna.
more soon.

peace,
sven

cornerwave and competitions?

i just got a bunch of shots from colin moneypenny on the oks competition on cornerwave last week. thanks a lot!
cornerwave is one of my favourites on the ottawa. quite the dynamic wave with a sweet surfer's left shoulder, fast and incredibly steep and green in the right levels. competition levels were a bit too high, so it was comparably slow and foamy but still good enough to throw some stuff on.
i've been learning a lot on that wave lately, so i tried to put a few new tricks into my rides.
in the end it placed me 4th, which, considering the other competitors, is quite alright i guess.
i guess they didn't even score some of my tricks (flipturns i think), which might have put me even further up. final ranking for the top five was EJ, Stephen Wright, Joel Kowalski, me, Nick Troutman and Moe Kelleher.

it was a small event, mainly organized for a bunch of juniors paddling with the keeners and also part of the junior olympics or something like that, so there was a lot of waiting and cheering for those kids involved. this also made the pro mens class pretty small, and i guess a delay of 4(!!!) hours until the whole thing started didn't make it any better.

it's weird, cause i usually don't consider myself a competitor, but this time, on this wave, i really wanted to go out and see how good i can do. which means that i was keen!
however, from showing up at 9:30 in the morning and finally competing at around five there was too much time wasted! sorry wilderness tours and oks, nice that you were organizing this, but some preparation and a clear schedule would make this whole thing way more enjoyable!
seeing good boaters as well as spectators leave because of so much waiting makes me think that this is not the greatest way to push our sport. it would be easy to get people involved, especially on a spot like mccoys on the ottawa, so many people came paddling through, got excited that there was stuff going on and then left kinda disappointed when they realized that nothing was happening for the longest time.
anyways, in the end i had a blast and was happy with some consistent rides.
and i think next time there's a competition around i'll still go out. i always do.
i just hope that more people will do so as well.
for the fun of it.

anyways, here are some of colins shots.






peace,
sven

summer can come cause spring was sick!

wow!
time's flying by these days! how is it mid june already?
my life's been a rollercoaster this year! after costa rica and nicaragua i spent quite some time just bumming around in germany, had an amazing time back home in augsburg, got a bit of play in and did a sick trip to corsica (check kanumagazin.de). big thanks to felix hunziger from steep'n wild for saving my ass by giving me riot demos! without him i would've been sitting dry for the spring!
well, after that i headed off for my summer residency. i flew into canada in early may and showed up just in time for some buseater action. it's been over a month now, i've had a few more of those big wave sessions, been surfing high tension on the gatineau, partied, instructed, rafted. and did a little roadtrip out to new york and vermont. no boating BUT i picked up new boats!
yep, i switched this year!
riot has been great over the last years, they've supported me so much! i still think that they have great designs and i hope that they recover well!
however, options came up, and after paddling daniels nemesis for a bit i tried fluid kayaks.
and here i am, two brand spankin new babies with me, nemesis m and solo l. thanks go out to david arnaud and celliers krueger, thanks for all the patience til it actually went down! i didn't get the solo out yet, but the nemesis is really amazing! considering the size of it i was surprised by it's combination of good speed, ridiculous bounce and serious edges. the first rides on buseater were straight up crazy compared to the big astro.
after getting used to it i could get more pop out of combo moves, launch bigger, carve faster. up to the point where it opened up triple combos for me! so i'm pumped to take it out on all those different waves we will have over the summer.
now i just need a new video camera... don't drop cameras out of three meters on rocks. doh!
apart from that things are still the same. thanks to kober paddles for that sweet scorpion neutral bent, awesome blade!
and to artistic sportswear for supplying everything else! head to toe river gear.
anyways, her are a few shots from this spring...

fernando torres on the edge
iron ring, ottawa

flashback
photo by caley mulholland

combos in pics? hard.
halfway through a flash forward to back stab

dave nieuwenhuis showcasing some local expertise!

finally getting those airscrews straight!
photo by daniel inskip

iron ring again
photo fernando torres

big bus.
photo emre bosut

getting used to the edges...

thanks to everyone who provided the photos! i'll try to not slack off as much as usual and keep those updates going. with a few motivated photographers around it should be a good summer for that!

peace out,
sven

a canadian season...

alright, same vid as in the post before, but now in a little bit higher quality.
still haven't figured the ideal filesize-quality ratio out, but also didn't want to make it too big. anyways, have a look yourself.

anything else?
well, after all my gear is here now i am pumped to take off for an 18 day spring roadtrip in three days...
austria, switzerland, italy and then CORSICA!
which for you dear readers (does anyone actually read this or is it more about the pictures, the videos...?) means that there will be more posts!

wow!

a canadian season starring alex davies, sam ewings, neil gibson, andy hill, stephan paetsch, sven perschmann and darcy scott-northmore!


a canadian season from sven perschmann

peace,
sven

back home and a new vid

hi folks!
don't really feel like writing a lot right now.
but i finally managed to find the time to finish the clip of my last summer in canada. and i am happy with the result! a higher res version should be up soon.
apart from that no big news these days. after spending three months in costa rica i took over a month off from kayaking, the longest time in the last three years or so!
and now i am back in augsburg, staying with a bunch of good friends, boating quite a bit.
and looking forward to corsica end of this month!
anyways, lean back, take another sip from that coffee and join our trip.

my canadian season from sven perschmann on Vimeo.

right.
something was missing.
what's a post without pictures?

well.
i have a video.
should be enough, shouldn't it?

ahm.
whatever.
micha schomann and myself.
black forest.
photos by micha and me.
makes sense.