The EXE Descent is a canoe race, the English equivalent of the Irish Liffey Descent, which takes place every November, between Tiverton and Exeter in Devon. It is 19 miles long and attracts up to 700 entries each year. This is an account of a WCCC contingent that entered in 1994. It was obviously written by the novice of the group and its publication in this Club Newsletter is an attempt to inspire others to have a go.

EXE (anything but) STATIC

"How do you fancy doing the Exe Descent?" asked Trevor in early September. I quite like Trevor, paddled with him once about a year ago but had to be carried out of the canoe for a 1 hour massage after trapping a nerve. I hadn't the guts to give an immediate "NO" in case he took offence. That was my first mistake!! The longer you leave it the harder it gets to wimp out. That seems to ring some sort of a bell regarding a similar invitation to paddle from Devizes to Westminster. Who said intelligent people learn by their mistakes. Who said I was intelligent - evidence would suggest…………

The real reason for not saying an immediate no was the four pints of beer I had just consumed. Canny lad is our Trevor! Intelligence is inversely proportional to alcohol content.

Training consisted of three trips around Derwentwater in awful weather. Trevor obviously thought that horizontal rain was sufficiently moving water for a novice like me. Of those three trips, only one was in the actual craft, that armour plated, low line, pebble dashed, disposable Canadian canoe. He obviously didn't want to frighten me too much. However, we were repeatedly reminded, by all those who gleefully watched our training session, that we only had about 30mm of freeboard - in calm water! Emptying routines became part of our regime. I cheated and did some extra training on the Tyne Tour, the Bellingham to Barrasford section of 15 miles solo and totally alone on the river. I was happy with a paddling time of 2 hours 10 minutes which gave me some confidence. There was no sign of Keith Morris, that Level 5 Coach who had won the previous day's solo race. Perhaps I frightened him off……….

The WCCC contingent consisted of, besides Trevor and myself, Mike Dooley (a current Club member) and that veritable sage Tony Kavanagh paddling a touring K2 ( a euphemism for collapsible without warning K2) and Doug Hardie who was paddling a very heavy and slightly perforated river racer. Doug's wife and daughter, Pauline and Ione, were a combined chauffeuse, navigator, support crew (for all of us), enthusiastic cheer leaders and official Club photographers. The Christmas shopping trip had to be abandoned due to lack of time.

Trevor and I set off at 0530 hrs and after exchanging extremely detailed CV's arrived at Tiverton some 6 hours later. After a quick look at the first four weirs we met the rest of the contingent in the pub for the prearranged lunch date. That quick look did nothing for my appetite. There was a nice mixture of subdued amusement at and quiet support for my apprehension. We split up and worked at our own individual team tactics for each of the 11 weirs we were to face. Trevor and I decided, based purely on the experience of his previous 9 attempts, that we could not survive the last four weirs with only 30 mm of freeboard. (I was still wondering about the first seven!) However he seemed to know what he was talking about ---
--------------mistake number 2. No, that is unfair, we made a plan, nearly stuck to it and it paid off.

The chicken huts that Mike said was the only place he could find to stay, turned out to be luxurious pine-log cabins, the 3 Hardies having one and the 4 hairy men the other. I declined the double bed with Trevor in favour of the Zed-bed. It was shear luxury at £12.50 per head for B & B.

Having seen the river that day, I was not at my most confident. I am a weak swimmer and the brown swirling water with the 5 foot standing waves in places did nothing for my confidence. Trevor rang his brother, who works for the NRA in Devon, to ask if he would join us for a drink that evening. Alas, he declined saying that he had just been moved from amber to red alert in the Exe valley as they had just been promised 30 mm of extra rain that night. Not many of the other 700 competitors in the race knew that! Even at what we had seen earlier in the day, Trevor and I were worried. We knew we could not finish the 19 miles without some protection against the ever diminishing 30 mm of freeboard (or so it seemed).
At the planning stage (the last minute) I had grabbed some sheets of rigid polypropylene to use as a means of decking the canoe to keep the slopping water out. The centre section was taped up and a 'windscreen' was fitted to the bows to keep the stoppers out. The canoe with it's black sheeting looked really good in the dark!

We asked local advice and enjoyed a superb evening meal in the oldest Inn in Devon. Pauline ordered the Brill and Tony, the fish lover, swore he would never forgive her. I kept thinking about the condemned man eating ………….
I got to sleep about midnight but, to my horror, found that one of the hairy men only had half a bladder. I laid awake from 0315 until get-up time at 0730 hrs listening to the 30 mm of rain falling outside.
Cont.

The dawn broke overcast but dry. What I had thought was 30 mm of rain turned out to be no more then the coolant flowing around the fridge. Breakfast was at 0830 hrs, the seven of us from the chicken huts and two from the farmhouse where we ate. It is funny how tension and stress affect different people. Kav, Mike, Doug and Trevor had notched up 32 previous attempts between them. Knowing what to expect, they were quietly preparing themselves mentally for the race.
The unknown couple, it was his second attempt, regaled us with the horrors of his previous years attempt. Why is it that everyone speaks only of disasters on canoe events? As it was my first attempt, it did little for my confidence. Trevor spotted my rising apprehension and quietly told him, without malice, of the combined experience of the group. Although he shut up, it was too late to stop my sausage from being the most travelled item in Devon that morning, before I eventually ate it. Pauline noticed, she smiled as she watched the whole of it's pitiful journey.

When Tony (the sage) saw, by the light of day, just how inventive we had been with the decking, he was full of admiration and praise. We only learnt at the finish that he fully expected it to be wiped out at the first big weir. It has to be said that without it we would probably have failed.

There were five starts to the race beginning, at 1100 hrs on the Sunday morning, with the racing K2's which is the fastest category. We all watched as they sped from the start line, the 60 yards to the first weir. Only as you go over the rim of the weir can you see what is in your way. A 24 foot (8 meter) boat stuck across the river leaves nowhere to go except under, over or through the thing. It is carnage, all within a few yards of the start, never mind the rest of the 19 miles. It is quite sad to watch serious paddlers sitting on the bank , head in hands and in total despair. I had even less confidence than before if that was possible.

We piled into our disposable boat but hung back to avoid getting caught up in similar carnage. We took a lot of water on board but drove it through the problems. We followed our plan to the letter, Pauline and Ione dutifully recording our mistakes on film. Our main problem remained the 30 mm gunwales. We were two of the strongest paddlers on the river (despite a combined age of 110 years) and with the frequent emptying necessary overtook the same Canadian canoes seven or eight times before the finish.

The weirs seemed to come in bursts with two very long paddles of several miles between. The strong swirling currents and the violent eddies caused a lot of problems for many of the boats, particularly the very long touring K2's. Quite often it was a log-jam of boats which caused some to take routes they would have preferred not to. I was very impressed with the safety cover at the weirs and, whilst we didn't need it, was grateful for it being there. The briefing had warned us that some weirs were so difficult that any attempt to shoot them more than 15 meters from the bank meant you probably wouldn't be rescued. We were frequently paddling through empty, upturned, broken boats or inconsequential bits like rudders and paddles.

Our first unplanned event was at Four Pynes weir where, to his great surprise, Trevor realised that he had been trapping a nerve for the previous six miles. He screamed in frustration and extreme agony as he struggled through the portage. He needn't have worried about taking a long time though because it took me even longer to drag our half-ton, armour plated, semi-submersible the same distance. Our master plan had always been to portage the last 3 weirs anyway.

Our other unplanned event was when we missed the right turn to safely avoid the infamous Cowley Steps. How anyone with seven previous entries could miss a whole bloody river makes me at least a little suspicious. "Never mind" shouted Trevor, "we will go for plan B instead". Cowley Steps were designed by an engineer with a perverse hatred of all canoeists. Adrenalin flowing we were committed. Then I saw a concrete storm drain in the left bank - that Trevor was steering for. Then we vanished down the thing much to the surprise of the 30 or so Kayaks queuing to pass down the more violent route through the six square tubs. After grounding on thick cloying mud and scrambling though the branches of an uprooted but subterranean tree, we emerged, dragging our boat from this hole, very muddy and smelly, to the complete surprise of the safety team stationed at the foot of the steps. We got a real cheer at that stage and we reckoned we overtook about 25 boats in that astute manoeuvre. Definitely a canny bloke is our Trevor - if it was an intentional move!!

We stormed over the finish line, to the incredulous acclaim of our fan club, only 40 minutes paddling time after they had finished their race. Mike and Tony came 8th in 2 hrs 20 mins (K2 class), Doug was twenty something in about the same paddling time (K1 class) and we were in Exeter in about the 3 hour mark.

We had all finished , although 25% of the field failed to do so. A real measure of the event has to be when, a full week later, all I could think about was - "Last week about now, I was doing……………"

Thanks Trevor.

PS. How do you get an 8 meter K2 on the roof rack of a Mini? Fold it in two like the one I saw in Exeter of course!!