Time to think about Slalom racing, skill building and more…
Hi Paddlers, volunteers and spectators!!
The 4th annual Illinois Whitewater Festival (IWF) is to be held on July 15, 2017 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. The location will be at the Marge Cline Whitewater Park in downtown Yorkville, Illinois. The IWF will include slalom whitewater competition which is part of the Buttercup Slalom Series. Also, the IWF will include a Boater Cross event sponsored by World Kayak.
The town of Yorkville will again be sponsoring their food and beer festival along with a cardboard regatta and an apple boat sling shot event. What team of three can hit the anchored boat with a sling shot and apple!
Bring your boat and test your kayaking or canoeing skills against other paddlers in the Midwest. Bring your family for a fun day and great weekend on the Fox River. The Slalom IWF race registration is $15.00 and the Boater Cross event is free.
Same day registration is from 9:00 am to 10:00 am and pre-registration can be completed at https://cwa.wildapricot.org/
Slalom racers meeting is at 9:45 am with the racing starting at 10:00 am. The Boater Cross event will start 4:30 pm. Though the events are competitive, we stress fun, safety and a great day on the river! Prizes and raffle drawings.
Also volunteers needed for event day.
Hope to see you there. Send questions, comments or to volunteer toacocallas@sbcglobal.net .
View from a IWF volunteer!
It is just amazing to see how Yorkville Whitewater course is transformed into a slalom Buttercup race course. I'm into my third year of learning how to whitewater and have had a blast at this event. I had no idea what a whitewater course looked like, and I didn't know that paddlers go down river through green gates and up river through red gates.
Several days prior to the race a group of volunteers get together and start putting up the A-frames, stringing the course and setting the gates. I had no clue how to do any of this and have now done it the last 3 years. Hopefully you will consider helping the group install the gates a week ahead of time.
It's really a club activity. The day of event I've done everything from registration to being a starter, a judge for gates and learned that the walkie talkies should not go in the water as they were not waterproof...oops!
More importantly it's about coming together as a club, running the gates as best as you can that day and helping out when you're not racing. There are a number of little jobs that the organizers will be happy to teach you how to perform. Furthermore, volunteers don't have to stay on their job all day long. So, there's plenty of time for you to race! This is a spectacular club event with great prizes!
Mark your calendar for Friday July 7th to come down to Yorkville and help raise the gates. Then you have one week to practice and have fun as the main event is on Saturday, July 15th. Brooke Gabris