Children's whitewater workshop

In search of mushrooms, waves and stoppers

... is everyone here, then?

When you're looking for moving water on which you can learn and practise whitewater paddling well, it's not so easy for us in Frankfurt.

Except during high water, there are hardly any spots where clearly recognisable and manageable current features appear. Now and then we make do by using the narrowing in the river between 2 bridge piers. There, depending on the flow, we can practise a rope ferry, i.e. traversing. But even there the current is usually such that no clearly recognisable current tongues or eddies – and certainly no waves or drops – can form.

Moreover, such a passage, which of course has to lie outside the shipping lane, is naturally also used by rowers and stand-up paddlers. We then tend to bounce back and forth like ping-pong balls.

And when we do have high water – which, for the trained whitewater athlete, doesn't necessarily become riskier up to a certain water level – it would still be the case that if something happened, for whatever reason, the instructors would find themselves confronted with negligence. Especially in training with children and young people.

That, of course, we cannot and will not take responsibility for.

So we always have to look for the moving water elsewhere.

Unfortunately, in the nearby surroundings there's no good spot that's safe, easy to reach, or sufficiently predictable.

Since we always have to travel somewhere even with absolute beginners on „moving water“, it's also always associated with a lot of effort and cost. Loading boats and gear and then usually driving around for at least 1.5 hours. A whole day can go by for one hour of practice.

The middle part of the whitewater channel in Huningue

So our visit to the practice course in Huningue (German: Hüningen) in the three-country corner near Basel is always exciting, but also always logistically challenging when you want to go there with several people. And for half a day this effort is rather less worthwhile.

After appropriate advance planning, we therefore drove with our little canoe beginners to the youth hostel in Lörrach last Friday afternoon. Of course we only arrived there after dinner, so after check-in we visited a tasty Italian restaurant nearby. The hosts were very flexible, we even got a large banquet table, and the prices were also in the moderate range.

The next morning, after breakfast, we drove to Huningue to the whitewater practice course. We first explained the course and the various current features to our beginners. Main current tongue, eddy, shear zone, mushrooms, wave, stopper and whatever else there is. Then on to unloading, changing and buying the permit.

For our beginner canoe youth, it was off onto the whitewater for the first time this time.

But since we had completely fresh whitewater kids, we limited ourselves on the Saturday mostly to teaching the basic techniques: anyone who hadn't yet been able to practise getting out with a spray deck extensively was first confronted with our „spray-deck test“.

Several times our novices had to practise getting out underwater, with and without a hand on the rescue loop of the sprayskirt (spray deck). To simulate the current underwater, they were also pulled now and then, since the current can make coming forward and reaching the rescue loop more difficult.

It then continued with rope ferry (traversing), eddy turns, entering the current, behaviour when lying across in front of an obstacle (rock), and mostly at first in the lower part with the lowest difficulty level of the course. Through the odd capsize – of which we'd actually expected many more – we also practised emptying the boat in different ways.

With a brave leap into the current: we practise behaviour as a swimmer in whitewater and a rescue from land with a throw bag (rope)

As heterogeneous as our group was, so varied were the first successes in applying and transferring what had been learned. So it quickly turned out that some could go a little further up into the „next-wilder“ water, while the others were still busy consolidating the basic techniques.

In the 2nd shift in the afternoon we practised whitewater and eddy swimming and being rescued from the current with a throw bag.

Rescue with the throw bag

We were enormously lucky with the weather and with our talented children and young people. The accommodation from Friday to Sunday was pleasant. The parents of all of them came along too and supported us instructors very well. This was hugely important, as it let us concentrate fully on the safety and training of our youngsters. We'd happily wish for that again for this age group.

We had neither losses nor more serious injuries to record. All in all, although a little tired, we were all able to set off on the journey home towards Francoforte happy and content on Sunday afternoon.

Many thanks to all the mentors, helpers and our great participants and parents