doubs!

i just got an email from simon strohmeier with pictures from la malate. thanks man!


la malate is a small village at the doubs in northern france and inhabits one of the biggest waves in europe. unfortunatel it only runs a few days a year as it needs quite a lot of water.


we hit a perfect level a while ago where it was an awesome green wave next to an enormous hole.
it was scary as hell, i had never dealt with holes of this size. but once you got used to it you could catch some serious amount of air. i´m still stoked when i look at those pictures. enjoy.

the winter is gone...

okay, i have to admit that this site wasn´t so busy in the last months. it was wintertime here in germany, and though it was warmer than average there still was no water.

we did some boating, but it was only on the eiskanal, augsburg or eisbach, munich, nothing worth writing about.
and even now no picture updates, but soon, very soon..



nevertheless we competed in the 10th International Filmfestival in Rosenheim and placed 2nd in the newcomer class with our movie "besessen". i´m still pretty proud of that. maybe our clip will be published on Jens Klatt´s new Painkillerz movie, we´ll see.

i´ve also completed two new sponsorships for 2007.
i liked my robson kit last year, but it was not totally what i wanted. thank you robert for supporting me throughout the last year though!

so from canada on i´ll be with riot kayaks and i´ve already recieved my shiny kober paddle.
thanx to arnd schäftlein and thomas funke for that!
i´ve had arnd´s astro 54 for a while now and really like it, even though i think i´m just a bit too big for it. i´m really looking forward to test the astro 58 and the flair 57 in montréal, this will be so much fun!
from kober i´ve chosen the spirit, which is a rather classic shape. it´s really stiff and the blades are big, sweet paddle with lots of power. and i got a prototype colour - from the outside it´s silver, but as soon as light shines through it turns orange! this is a straight shaft right now, but i´ll get one with a bent shaft soon.
artistic still supports us, they´ve redesigned many products such as drytops, drysuits and pfds for 2007. we´ve had a few prototypes last year and the new material is awesome.

now back to kayaking!
as i said, the winter seems to be gone. i just returned from france where we had five days on some of europes biggest waves, la scie and la malate. actually i was really scared by the sheer power of those monsters. Nevertheless it was some of the best wave riding and biggest air i´ve ever had. i´ll post some pictures as soon as i get them. The ones in this update are just two impressions of our tour, i didn´t take any action shots, that was simon´s job...


later,
sven

kuchl, upper wave

morning view

pic: micha schomann


we´ve been to kuchl, austria last weekend. in the last years there would´ve been snow in this area now, water levels been way too low and you would have thought about anything else than kayaking.
this year we were lucky though.
i hooked up with hannes kaiser to spend the weekend in kuchl. when we got there, the salzach was still too low for the standard waves to be in, so we spent our time on the upper wave, recently referred to as "minus one".
this wave is not too big, it´s got a sweet pile and a nice shoulder on surfer´s left.
but damn is it fun!
the sun was shining, it was even pretty warm that day, many boaters hanging around.

hannes carving

pic: micha schomann

in the afternoon the original kuchl wave, "number one", came it, which is way bigger and can send you quite high if you get it right. but it was getting cold and dark now, so we left after a few runs on that one.

sven

pic: micha schomann

we met with micha schomann, who already was in that area for a whole week with his girlfriend, stayed at their place, visited an austrian church choir (!?), drank some vine and had good fun that evening.

watch my eyes, too tired?

pic: micha schomann

next day, same procedure. "minus one" in perfect sunshine first, then later "number one" without any sun in the valley. micha was keen to shoot pictures that day and all i can say is: it was really worth it. thank you.
watch out for micha, soon he´ll be online with his very own website all around freestyle photography.

back pan am

pic: micha schomann

unfortunately, the sun was too low to shoot pictures of number one. whatever.
all shots in this post are taken on the upper wave. did i say it´s sweet? it is.

i love that shot. sidekick.

pic: micha schomann

blunt

pic: micha schomann

hannes and i in our winter gear

pic: micha schomann

the class of 2006

this is a clip originally edited for the pinkbunny4 movie we´ve shot throughout the last year. pb is a project of me and my friends, including skateboarding, bmx, mountainbike, kayak and lots of trash.

i´ve edited two kayak parts this year for pb, one of which you now can see. the first half shows some creeking on corsica, the second half is all about freestyle in augsburg, germany and the alps.

the clip is dedicated to georg marburg, who died last year in an accident. he was an outstanding person, a great friend and a dedicated boater. he will never be forgotten!



paddlers are:
micha, krischn, paolo, fabi, ansgar, sven

last two weekends: wrapup

i just got some pictures from simon strohmeier.
the last two weekends we spent in the ötz valley and in südtirol, running kühtrain and heiligkreuz gorges on the ötz as well as the passer gorge.
it was quite intimidating but a good experience. all of the guys i was running those rapids with made me feel safe as they really knew how to tackle the harder stuff.
i really love running whitewater in my sportster, this boat gives me the confidence i need.
guess i gotta do some more riverrunning. just too much fun and too little practice.
enough said, the pics will speak for themselves, thanx to simon...



1st try passer, too high, we hiked out.
pic simon strohmeier


daniel running kühtrain gorge
pic simon strohmeier


me running kühtrain. guess daniel didn´t
like that drop. pic simon strohmeier


perfect line. stöckel. heiligkreuz. pic simon


me on the same drop. pic simon

bootfahrer is online

hi everyone,

bootfahrer is on! this site is mainly about me, sven perschmann, and my friends´ boating experiences. i´ll try to update as often as i can, there will be videos, pictures and trip reports as well as some updates on my gear. of course this takes some time, and now the 2006 kayaking season is almost finished, so it will be hard to find stuff for the winter, but we´ll see.
i hope you´ll all enjoy this page and if you don´t just shut up and do it better.

later, sven

btw.: bootfahrer, though situated in germany and dealing mostly with german visitors and content is written in english, as i´m an student of the english language and got to practice my writing.