From: Wilko van den Bergh (wilko@stack.nl)
Subject: A couple of hours on the river "Dommel" (long "trip" report) 
Newsgroups: rec.boats.paddle
View complete thread (4 articles) 
Date: 1998/05/01 
 




The Dommel near Valkenswaard, The Netherlands, Europe.

As the rain has been making way for the coming of the summer, the 
rivers in this part of the world are getting dry (to the point of
becoming dusty). 
In the past weeks I saw the gauges drop to the point where you 
could walk through many a creek without getting the soles of your 
shoes wet. The past month we had twice the amount of rain that we 
usually get (100mm (4") instead of the usual 52mm (2")) , as well 
as some snow in the beginning of the month and two days with 20+ 
degrees C (low seventies F) at the end.

About a week ago I asked my buddy Cornelis if he wanted to go to 
the Dommel with me to do a little "looping" as we call it (stern 
or bow squirting in English).
We went there early in the afternoon, as the drizzle was slowly 
letting up. By the time we arrived, it was almost dry. 
The upper Dommel is a heavily canalized, very polluted stream that 
meanders between farming fields and the forest of the Malpie, a
small national park  near the Belgian border. There are a couple 
of old watermills spread along the Dommel, with one, the Venbergse
Watermolen, being our destination for the day (Another watermill,
the Genneper Watermolen lends our canoeing club its name)
Because this part of the Netherlands once contained zinc-ore, there 
is a large zinc-processing plant. It still processes zinc-ore from 
abroad, in the meanwhile polluting the watertable with cadmium and 
other heavy metals.

This stretch of the Dommel is used extensively by Belgian and Dutch
canoe and kayak renting firms. You can find those horrible green 
Coleman canoes and the oldest types of Prijon boats (Taifun, Canyon,
and T-Slalom) floating in very large formations all day through in 
the weekends, loaded with day-trippers.

We carefully avoid that stretch, which ends at the Venbergse 
watermill and put in directly under the mill. The entire watersupply 
of the Dommel is being pushed through a concrete channel of about 
one meter wide (3,3 foot) in which the large wooden wheel of the 
mill is turning. The entire drop being about one meter. When the mill 
isn't running, a wooden shutter closes the small channel, and another 
one opens, letting the water flow down parallel to the wheel.

That's how it was when we arrived on the last sunday of April. We put
our boats down, while the boat-rental people were looking surprised 
at those two tiny boats (our Diablo's are considerd medium sized at
three meters/10 foot, but because the Taifuns and T-Slaloms are 
around 4 meters/13 foot, they seemed small). We quickly changed, and 
got in. 
As we got our first rides perpendicular to the water, the rental 
people came to see what we were doing. We hadn't been "playboating"
solely since a year ago, when we did our first sternsquirts at the 
same spot. After a while we became better at finding the right speed
and angle to put our bow in, with some long rides on the bow, as the 
undercurrent gripped the bow and kept the boat perpendicular ever 
longer (several meters in some cases). I started to experiment a 
little while Cornelis still had some difficulties getting the boat 
past 70 degrees or so. I did some nice backenders, keeping the boat 
upright for a while, with my head getting wet, but without tipping 
over at any time. Cornelis didn't get his approach good on many 
occasions, as a the result he flipped sideways in front of the
small but very strong hole a couple of times. Luckily he got up 
quite easily, as the undercurrent is so strong that it can pull the 
paddle from your hands.

I tried to find what made my tries succesfull in comparison to 
Cornelis his actions. I noticed that tilting the boat a little 
while I was getting upright, as well as a movement of my torso 
to the front made for the best effects when getting vertical. It 
was pretty easy to keep it up once I was past the hole itself 
and into the undercurrent. 
We did dozens of "loops", all the while improving, falling back
a while and then getting even better "loops". I asked Cornelis
why he didn't do any back-enders. So we tried to improve those a 
little. 
All of a sudden Cornelis lost his balance, he flipped, tried to 
brace in the udercurrent and was swept under. I could see him 
trying to set up, but one of his blades was caught in the under-
current every time. It send him turning around between the swirling 
and the mushrooms, unable to get up. After two or three tries he
finally ended up in the eddy, but still he couldn't get his setup 
right, because one of his blades was caught by the undercurrent
every time. After the third try I was getting so close that I 
could almost grab his PFD, but then he was swept into the eddy.
Was I going to see my second buddy swim within two weeks on almost 
flat water?
At the fifth try he barely managed to get up, and I could see by 
the look on his face that something had gone wrong. He had hurt his 
shoulder (and his self-confidence). I couldn't help thinking about 
Scott B., Perri R. and the other members of the body-demolition team 
on RBP. 
Cornelis told me that his paddle was wrenched from his grip every 
time, and he could feel by the current and the noise that he was 
being swept back into the hole, so he knew he only had little time
to get back up.
It was strange to see someone who can handroll a Prijon Canyon 
having so much difficulty with a small (but artificial and very 
strong) hole.

I was expecting Cornelis to quit, but he said: we'll go on 'till I
have one more good "loop", and then I'll call it a day. We played 
for a while, I got a couple of nice "loops" and finally he got a 
nice front-ender and we quit.

I bought us a drink and pie, and we enjoyed the sun finally breaking 
through the cloud cover. It turned out to be a great day, complete 
with the accompanying weather, after all.

We'll go there again, and this time I don't intend to wait for 
another year!
--
Wilko van den Bergh                             Wilko@stack.nl
Sociology Student  at the Tilburg University,  The Netherlands
Whitewater Kayaker                         AD&D Dungeon Master
Secretary  of  the  Eindhoven  Canoe Club  "De Genneper Molen"

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  No man is wise enough, nor good enough           
                           to be trusted with unlimited power. 
                                      Charles Colton
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