Descent Racing

A mixture of Wild water racing and marathon.

Take one fast-flowing river with plenty of rocky weirs; then take one fast, but fragile and wobbly racing boat. Put the two together and you’ve got Descent Racing.

Not for the fainthearted, but brilliant fun. The descent season is short, but crammed into the Autumn months are a series of  races:

    The Mersey Descent in the North-West

    The Avon Descent at Stratford

    The Ironbridge Marathon in Shropshire

    The Stour Descent in Dorset

    The awesome Liffey Descent in Ireland.

There are also ludicrously difficult international races like the Fish River Race in South Africa, and the Sella Descent in Spain.

The favourite for our Club is the Stour Descent and this is held in December each year.  It’s organised by Stour Valley Canoe Club and is not only for racing boats but also for Canadian and touring canoes too  - a great ‘fun event.'