boundless: our life sucks!

boundless: our life sucks!: boof to swim!  thomas platsch the middle palguin and action... timo chargin' on the upper palguin kein komMentar ...

denk.com :: kanu . kajak . tourenski . bergsport . outdoor: BOUNDLESS Teaser #3 - New Zealand

denk.com :: kanu . kajak . tourenski . bergsport . outdoor: BOUNDLESS Teaser #3 - New Zealand: Die nächste Station der beiden Weltenbummler David und Flo. Around the world ... this is our dream. With our kayaks we want to discover the...

boundless: Huckfest on the Palguin River

boundless: Huckfest on the Palguin River: „Chile! Things here will always work out – but different then you think!“ That is the lesson we learned so far. But that is the way we tra...

Boundless World Tour: Nepal - Teaser #2

David Ernst und Florian Petry sind mittlerweile in Chile angekommen. Als nachträgliches Weihnachtsgeschenk haben Sie uns heute Ihren neuen Teaser geschickt. Auf dem Progamm: NEPAL

Zet Kayaks im SWR Fernsehen

Hier ein Link zu meinem Interview mit DASDING.tv im SWR Fernsehen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkXAjlQloUQ&feature=youtu.be

Ötztal and Sickline race - Veloc twice on the Podium and most successful boat!

Looking back to the 2011 Adidas Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championships first thought that comes to my mind is that I had great times in the famous Austrian Ötz valley where I spend plenty of weeks this year teaching kayaking. It was great to see so many paddlers from all over the world coming into town just to compete on the Wellerbrücke.

With a starter field of around 140 kayakers out of 25 nations the Sickline race is one of the biggest extreme races in Europe. More and more slalom paddlers who just had their peak of the season few weeks ago in Slovakia came to compete against the whitewater pros. In the end it was full-time whitewater paddler Sam Sutton (NZL) who took home the win followed by Mike Dawson (NZL) and slalom paddler Paul Böckelmann (VELOC) from Germany in third position.

Although the organizer still didn´t manage to setup a own women category down the whole course eight girls showed up. So at least they let us race down the qualification course and ranked us in a separate result list. Martina Wegman from the Netherlands won the women class her third time in a row and slalom paddler Caroline Loir from France came second. Myself (VELOC) had a very bad first run and even my reasonable second run didn´t bring me further up than in third position.

Luckily it´s not all about racing. In the week before the race I had my first time down the whole Wellerbrücke - including the section above the race course. The Wellerbrücke is one of those famous and well known short and steep sections of the Ötz river about which almost every European kayaker knows a story to tell. Some early snow and warm weather with around 25 degrees kept the flow quite high before the race. Usually the section was run at flows less than 180 cm so I first thought that again I will not get it done this year. But having a good team around was pushing the limit and after the first crew went down with a flow around 2 m more and more paddlers followed. So finally I got started, followed the guys and got to know that even the upper part is all good to go. I didn´t end up in a cave, sieve or on some rocks - all stories just fairy-tales again…

All pics by Arnd Schaeftlein

Devils Extreme Race Lipno CZ - European Open

Last weekend the European championships in extreme kayaking took place in Lipno.

My name is Bernhard Steidl from Kajakschule-Tirol.at and I got the chance to have an interview with current overall winner of the Devils Extreme Race and European Championships in Extreme Kayaking Anne Huebner.

Mr. B: Could you give us a short impression of the event?

Ms. A: During this weekend Lipno turned out to be a huge festival for all kind of wild water sports. I heard a lot about this event but never made my way to this awesome place. It was amazing to see paddlers from all over the world traveling to the small Czech town Lipno to take place in the annual release and to see all kind of various vehicles floating down the river.

Mr. B: How was the race?

Ms. A: Well, after winning the first and most challenging competition on Friday night the first kayak race started on Saturday morning kind of early at 9 am. It was the slalom competition. Every competitor had to touch 5 banners on the way down to the finish banner. One of the eddies to take was really hard to get in so I missed it - luckily I was not the only one and still made my way to the finals later the day. After a short rest I felt well prepared to go hard and managed to have the fastest time down the course in the sprint. Louise Jull from New Zealand came second and Katerina Migdaouva from Czech Republic third. Next day was boater X and team race.

Mr. B: That means you won the European Opens and took home the first place in the European championships in extreme kayaking. Congrats! I heard about some difficult rapids like "bloody hand". Is the river really that hard?

Ms. A: No, it is mostly a class 3 river. I think the main reason for those scary names is that all kind of boaters from class 2 to 5 are trying to go down that river. So there might have been some accidental swims etc.

Mr. B: I would have tons of questions but unfortunately we have to go kayaking now. So only one last question: What are your plans for the next month and the winter time?

Ms. A: Try to get some money to enter the next competition, for example sickline and later make my way to the southern hemisphere - chile again… ;)

Mr.B: Sounds awesome! Thank you for the interview!

All pics by Arnd Schaeftlein