July Social 2026Wednesday 1st July, Musselburgh Lagoons
July’s social took place at Musselburgh lagoons, for the ESOC canoe-o world championships! Organised expertly, well apart from the weather perhaps ;-) ... by Hanne and David for the third time the courses were set, the controls were dunked into the water and hung from the overhanging trees.
There were four courses to race – A, B, C & D. The maps were usefully laminated and purported to be roughly drawn (scale in this sport for cartophiles is not often represented by a bar marked “100m-ish” ). However, the kidney-shaped loch turned out to look quite round when out on the water.
A full launch and recovery service was on offer at the slipway and no one but David was obliged to get their feet wet, though "gracefulness of canoe entry" could still be worked on! The first challenge was to arrive at the start jetty with the canoe facing in the right direction. Then it was off out into the middle searching for controls both on the bank and “floating” in the water. Locating the controls is only the half of it in canoe-o, though. There is a further puzzle in actually reaching them, wind, rain and crew co-ordination factors both play into this. All our seasoned orienteers took to this challenge like ducks to water, racing across the lagoon with power and panache.
After due calculation, prizes were awarded for fastest teams on the aggregate time of the 4 courses: Richard and Mike by one minute overall, retaining their 'world champions' title from the previous occasion, 2nd were Tom and Adam, 3rd and top parent/child combo were Ewan and Keiran, 4th and first mixed team were Mark and Catherine with the top novices in Alison and Kevin. A variety of chocolate based awards were provided to the prize winners whilst drying off/warming up in the Ship Inn.
Anecdotes from the participants:
Richard - Great fun despite the rain - and the water was warm! Mike & I did our best to canoe during world cup half-time and rehydration breaks but couldn't paddle round fast enough so we missed the goals 🤪 Food at the Ship Inn was good as well. Thanks again Hanne & David!
Alison - Kevin and I got very confused on our first course (plus both of us were trying to steer!). The willow at one of the controls almost removed Kevin’s hat. Our steering improved but we still managed to submerge some of the controls.
The Ship did great food.
Thanks Hanne and David, lots of fun.
Mark - Fabulous canoe-o, big thanks to the Robertson's for facilitating the event. Loved the fact that Catherine and I could have a map each in the front and the back, fortunately when we disagreed on directions to the next control the canoe did not snap in the middle 😉
Tom - I think the rain made it better! And the pub especially welcome after. Really good fun, both Hanne and Adam were great paddling partners. Enjoyed the challenge of trying to optimise the turning circle!
On the Turfing side, 6 competitors took on the challenge on a mixture of both bikes and by foot. Cyclist MuttsCycles , whilst lead runner sjami44 finshed with an equal tally of points as ElsieSpanner. Turf results can be seen here: https://turfgame.com/event_old?id=7916
Many thanks to Christmas2 who set the Turf zones.