River Ness Marathon

Ness Kayak and Canoe Marathon – Sunday 2^nd August 2009

Nairn Man Peter Ralph of Nairn Kayak Club and Inverness Canoe Club placed fifth overall in the 2009 Ness kayak marathon and placed second in the long course Wavehopper K1 class with a time of 1:49 and 44 seconds. A hard fought race up the Caledonian Canal against a strong wind was only slightly made up on the way down the River Ness due to its very low levels on the day. The overall winner was Mark Bragg of Integrate Paddling Aberdeen , setting a new long course record of 1:21 and 27 seconds coming in ten minutes ahead of all other paddlers, bringing 2 minutes off the previous record. Long course Canadian C2 event was won by Royal CC paddlers from London James Irvine and Shao Tan with a time of 2:27 and 31 seconds.

Short course winners were Paul Cornet of Inverness CC with a time of 1:28 and 40 seconds, just 9 seconds ahead of his nearest rival in the male K1 event and Inverness CC paddler Suzy Beaumont won the female K1 class with a time of 1:28 and 45 seconds. The short course Canadian C2 winners were Andrew Brownlow and Hamet Auty with a time of 1:10 and 30 seconds.

The event was generously sponsored jointly by H20 Outdoors and Brookbank Canoes Perth, Our thanks go to Cam and the team at Brookbank canoes for the assistance in making this a successful event.

Steve Mackinnon

Ness Kayak and Canoe Marathon organiser

Ness Marathon 2009 Race results

Long Course

Long course K1 Male
Place	Name	Time	Club	Boat	Class
1	Mark Bragg	1:21:27	Integrate Paddling	Marathon K1	Vetran
2	Derek Marshall	1:31:10	Linlithgow KR	Marathon K1	Vetran
3	James Fairley	1:33:27	NESKY	Marathon K1	Vetran
4	Colin McMorrin	1:35:05	KCC	Wavehopper	Senior
5	Peter Ralph	1:49:44	Inverness CC	Wavehopper	Vetran
6	Laurence Phin	1:49:49	Inverness CC	Wavehopper	Vetran
7	Greg Manning	1:50:50	Integrate Paddling	Touring K1	Vetran
8	Gordon McKenna	3:03:23	Inverness CC	Touring K1	Vetran
9	Paul Clayton	3:03:23	Inverness CC	Touring K1	Vetran

Long course K2
Place	Name	Time	Club	Boat	Class
1	Simon Kay / John Kavenagh	1:50:20	Macclesfield	Racing K2	Vetran
2	Gordon Milne / Debra Storr	1:51:05	NESKY	Sea K2	Vetran

Long course Open Canadian C2
Place	Name	Time	Club	Boat	Class
1	James Irving / Shao Tan	2:27:31	Royal CC	Open Canadian	Senior
2	Dave Preece / Ann Marie Markle	2:28:25		Open Canadian	Senior