3 rider: YAK, AS Watersports eXe freestyle competition

Saturday night saw the finest free-stylers and whitewater junkies in the SW and beyond gathered at Mill on the Exe in the heart of Exeter, ready for this years YAK, AS Watersports Boater eXe event. However due to high water levels, the event had to be hastily re-branded as a Free-style event.
The event has always taken place the night before the YAK Exe Decent, under flood lights. It was always supposed to be a freestyle event, but low water levels in previous years have turned it into a highly succesful boater cross race. This year though, the Gods of rain were smilling on us, and the river level proved perfect for a freestyle event.

So with flood lights blazing, and the sound system pumping, paddlers and spectators started to turn up. We had hoped for a turn-out of around 40, but we didn't quite get that far, just 20 competitors. Three local paddlers were persuaded to judge for us, and I somehow ended up on the PA.
We decided to go for an 'old skool' subjective judging system, with paddlers competeing in heats of 4 and getting a 10min slot to strut there stuff in the hole.

The Top two paddlers from each heat went through to a semi final, and then the top two paddlers from each semi final went on to a grand final. The judges had a great laugh, and were very laid back about moves and scoring. They were definatly looking for comedy moves and sillyness as well as technical moves. They even scored Ewarts' "super-clean-wash-offs" for consistantly blowing off the wave without laying down any tricks!!

With the wheat slowly being seperated from the chaff, we saw more comedy, more sillyness and more hard core technical moves. Going through to the grand final were:

Rob Hinds, Exeter Schools' finest, mixed it up right from the word go, banging in some huge loops, playing guitar with his paddles, and getting some beatings!

James Hawker, international class surf boat supremo, ripped it up, consistanly cartwheeling, looping, and wowing the crowds with some incredible sidekicks.

Sam Anderson, Sam proved his skills, laying down lots of loops, going for mountains of phonix monkeys, cross deck cartwheels and even some hand surfing!

Tom Bailey, international boat slag, despite paddling other peoples boats and changing boats between heats, he still managed to throw a good range of blunts, cartwheels and even a paddle-free loop!

We even managed to coax two Ladies to compete, AS Watersports' own Jemma Lane, and Sian (sorry I have no idea what your surname is!!) It was a shame not to see more Ladies on the water, there were plenty of other female paddlers on the bank, but not on the water. You Know who you are, next time we want to see you in action!!