Devizes to Westminster Canoe Marathon

It was with some trepidation, I have to admit, that I set off to film the Devizes to Westminster or DW as it is affectionately & conveniently known. This is a race that sees two person crews paddle non-stop for 125 miles, through the night, in any conditions. We had one camera, one presenter, one van & one chance to get it right!

The other pressure point was that this year Tim Cornish & Brian Greenham, whose record time of 15 hours & 34 minutes has stood unbeaten since 1979, were back for another go at the race. They were competing partly in celebration of the 30 years this incredible record has reigned supreme & partly because, as I was about to discover, the DW gets under your skin!

So, this year was going to be a significant one in the event’s history & we needed to get it right. Tim & Brian may have been playing down their chances but those in the know were happy to suggest in public that they could win it. As if the challenge of adequately capturing the essence of this remarkable race wasn’t big enough, we were in right royal paddling company! No pressure then!

Before the event we did some preview filming at a couple of ‘warm up races’ & identified three crews that would make a good story. There was Tim & Brian, obviously, Ollie Harding – last year’s winner with a new partner & then the ‘hot favourites’ – Owen Peake & Danny Seaford. But of course, the DW is far more than just the elite crews & we would need to capture that as well.

So, we set off on Good Friday to be at Devizes for the evening – to soak up the atmosphere & get a little intelligence about the race. It was also important to get there the night before because the slower teams would be starting at 7am. To give you a feel for the logistical difficulties of filming this event though, the fastest crew wouldn’t leave until nearly four in the afternoon!

There is a very good reason why there is such a huge start window & that is firstly, because the race is a time trial & secondly the DW is completely governed by tidal flow. In particular, high or ebbing tide at Teddington Lock on the Thames. Crews have to calculate how long they think it will take them to reach Teddington & then start their run from Devizes accordingly.

The general rule of thumb seems to be that catching the fastest flow, about one & a half to two hours after official high tide, gives you the best conditions for the final push up to Westminster, so timing is critical. Arrive too early at Teddington & the water will either be 'slack', giving you no assistance at all or you'll not be allowed to continue until high tide. Arrive too late & you’ll have missed the fastest flow & the river will be starting to work against you, getting progressively harder as you move further up towards Westminster.

You can begin to see why the prospect of this shoot was quite daunting. Like the paddlers, we had a non-negotiable, irrefutable need to be at Teddington for high tide. So everything else had to work around that & spending what was going to be most of the day waiting for the fastest teams to leave Devizes would mean we’d hardly get any other footage along the way. In the end, we decided to film the early starters then dash down stream to several interesting points to get some of the middle placed action before heading back in time to film the last starters.

This plan worked well & we managed to get all the main crews as they left. Two factors altered our original plan though. Ollie Harding’s team had to pull out through illness & they were replaced by the fast young team of James King & Richard Hendron, which added further to the potential for a tight fast race. Also new into the mix were Americans David Kelly & Carter Johnson who were being supported by Ivan Lawler. This crew had to then be a factor for us, given Ivan’s stature in the sport & the likelihood that they would be fast.

Unlike an F1 race, the DW reveals its secrets at the start line. The simple fact is that the team going for the fastest time will inevitably start last, because although there is a two hour window at Teddington, the fastest time will inevitably come from catching the fastest water toward the end of this window. The reality may turn out to be very different on the water, for any of the crews, but the plan almost always is played out in this way. Start last & if you are as fast as you think you should be it will work.

Of course, if you lose time for any reason along the way, you have no margin for error, so it’s a do or die approach but then sometimes athletes have to operate in this zone to achieve the great things they do.

As the various crews departed, it was clear that the estimations of tactics were proving accurate. The only dark horses were Tim Cornish & Brian Greenham who slipped out quietly while we were conducting an interview with another crew. Last to depart were Ollie & Danny – the favourites who, it has to be said, were as calm as the water they were about to 'put in' on. A quick photo call, followed by a final interview with us & they were off – all smiles & jokes, as if this was just another paddle down the river.

Once they’d gone, our work really began. It was 4pm in Devizes. Those who’d started at 7am were so far down stream we’d never catch them. We needed to jump to a location that would allow us to catch some mid-placed crews, then work our way along gradually coming back into contact with the faster crews as they caught us up. So, we shot off to Hungerford & the lock/bridge portage just past the common. As it turned out, this was a great spot but the weather was beginning to close in which would slow us down as we rigged & de-rigged the camera for wet conditions.

After Hungerford we jumped on to Newbury & caught a lot of teams on the west of town before moving out to the east as dusk & finally night fall set in. We caught Tim & Brian & David & Carter (US) at the portage east of the Newbury checkpoint & both looked super strong. Tim & Brian particularly made short work of the lock & seemed to confirm suspicions that they were on very good form.

As we finally lost light, we headed back into Newbury to the checkpoint, where Owen & Danny came through. Still some way back on the water but pushing on hard & looking impressive. One of the really challenging aspects of this shoot was the need for us to work without any lighting. Normally, when light fades, you’d use what’s called a ‘top light’ to illuminate your subject, but for this shoot such a set up would have made us about as popular as the blisters on the paddlers hands.

No, to capture the night sections, we were going to have to find places where there would be some natural street lighting or organized flood lighting for the race officials. This would inevitably limit our options, so with the race pushing on & time going a lot faster than it normally does, we sped off to Reading & Dreadnaught Reach. This was a compulsory portage, where many crews took the opportunity to change clothes, feed & generally get themselves psyched up for the second half of the race.

As luck & impeccable timing on our part would have it, we arrived in time to catch Owen & Danny arrive for their ‘pit stop’. And the F1 comparisons are not unfounded because as they got out of the kayak & ran with the boat to a clear area on the bank, the support team sprung into action with drilled precision. Each paddler had a dresser getting them in & out of clothing, food was shoved into their mouths at the same time & any piece of bare flesh that fleetingly presented itself was swiftly massaged before it was covered again. The total turn around time can’t have been much more than five minutes & then they were off into the night.

Sadly, Dreadnaught Reach also brought the news of Tim & Brian's retirement. They had pulled off the river around Aldermaston, when Brian's back gave in. This was a blow, because their times to that point had confirmed that they were on a charge & could have figured highly in the final results. Their record may not have been at risk - the conditions saw to that - but their presence added a real sense of anticipation to the race & their retirement was lamented by everyone on course.

After Reading we headed off in search of a suitable Thames portage to film &, after much deliberation & a few wrong turns, ended up at Chertsey Lock. We thought on arrival that this would be illuminated somewhat because crews have to get out then manhandle the kayak up a narrow bank then down the other side, with barely a few metres width at the top. However we found that this, like most other portages, was eu naturale, adding to the challenge both for the paddlers & the support teams.

Crew after crew arrived & were guided in by their support teams, who were desperately trying to ensure that their head torches didn’t blind the paddlers. Then, the crew had to pick up the boat & turn it, ensuring that they didn’t smash the bow into a tree, before climbing up the bank & along to the steps down the other side. Get two crews arriving at the same time & carnage would ensue! These racing K2s are not the kind of craft you’d choose to negotiate this obstacle but these guys had no choice.

Our challenge in filming this frantic activity was, of course, nothing compared to the crews & their support teams but it was a challenge none the less. Without the use of lighting, our footage comprised large amounts of black with a truly frenetic soundtrack, interspersed by quick flashes of well illuminated faces or segments of kayak. At the time it seemed as though large amounts of the footage would be unusable but in the end the conditions meant that the film we shot of this portage portrayed the reality of the challenge extremely well. The difficulties we had in generating any usable visual clips were exactly the same as the crews faced in negotiating the portage or the support teams faced in helping them.

With this unexpectedly fantastic portage captured, we set off for Teddington. Luckily, a client of mine had given us use of their office car park at Teddington Studios, which sat directly beside the river & the lock. We arrived shortly after 5am & went straight down to the rollers at the lock, where crews had to portage one last time before the final stretch up the Thames to Westminster. It was a good job we did too, because as the light grew, so did the flow of the teams arriving. This was like some huge migration, where flocks of birds all descend on a single source of water, somewhere on their route to Europe. All the crews - slow or fast- were arriving at Teddington for their window of opportunity to proceed to the finish. It was like ‘Stargate’ & the portal was open!

We spent a good couple of hours at Teddington, catching all the main players as they went through, but then, as had been the case all along, time caught up with us & we needed to dash off to the finish line.

At Westminster the crowds had long since gathered. Many crews had already gone through including Olympic rower James Cracknell. He had slipped through Teddington at almost precisely high tide, perhaps ensuring he passed Putney before any of his rowing mates would be up & ready to hurl abuse at him for his defection to canoeing, even if only for this race! We arrived in good time to see all the main protagonists arrive home, including eventual winners Owen Peake & Danny Seaford, both of whom were utterly spent after their winning paddle of 17:16:51.

And so, at the end, I had to admit that all my fears were unfounded. I had a great chaperone & presenter in Matt Thornton- Brown, who had both paddled & supported the race in the past. We had good conditions, allowing us to film in relative comfort & we were among hundreds of other people all going through the night, whether in competitive or supportive roles, which meant that at no time did the task feel difficult to endure. There is absolutely no comparison between the work we did in filming the event & those taking part but we did gain a good sense of what it must be like to participate. By travelling with the race, in a similar way to a support crew, we gained an invaluable insight into the event & came away with an immense respect for it & all those who take it on.

Roger Burlinson
Director of Programming - Outdoors TV