P A D D L E R P R O F I L E
Crossing lines and shooting rapids. PHOTO MARCUS WILSON-SMITH
HENDRI COETZEE MEET THE GREATEST BIG WATER AND EXPEDITION PADDLER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD ABOUT
TEN YEARS AGO HENDRI COETZEE ended a stint with the South African Spe- cial Forces and took his first rafting guide job on the Zambezi, having never re- ally paddled whitewater before. Today he is considered—by those who’ve heard of him—as one of the best big water and expedition paddlers in the world. “Hendri is totally underrated,” says Fluid Kayaks owner and fellow South
African Celliers Kruger. “He opened many of the lines that are being run on the Nile in Uganda, including the Murchison Falls section of the Nile that has only been run a few times since.” Kruger recently signed Coetzee as a team paddler. The Murchison Falls section is an 80-kilometre stretch of remote class V
water complete with hippos, crocs, and rebels with guns. Coetzee has been the trip leader on three descents of this rarely-run section, returning this spring to run it solo. “It [Murchison Falls] really was in another class from everything else I have
ever done,” says Coetzee. “Personally, this was my ultimate challenge and it gives me more satisfaction than any other thing I have done expedition or kayak wise.” He’s a passionate man with an unquenchable sense of adventure. In his first
16
weeks of work as a rookie raft guide, Coetzee snuck off to run the Zambezi’s Number Nine rapid. “I hurt myself, people were pissed at me, I didn’t care,” he says now. Since then he’s also led the first team to ever paddle the full length of the White Nile and he’s the first to navigate the entire Nile from source to sea. He has numerous first descents including Hypocia in 2004, the last un-run rapid on the Jinja section of the Nile. For Coetzee it’s all full-on. His drive has taken him to parts of Africa no one but the tribes who live there
have seen in decades, even centuries. He has survived war-torn sections of land and disputed waterways, and served as project manager of the Ground Hornbill Conservation project, at South Africa’s Mabula Game Conservancy. Next on his hit list is a psychology degree, which he hopes to use to help im- prisoned youth in his home country. If you haven’t guessed, you won’t find Coetzee throwing down pan ams
in competition; it’s just not his scene. “The social aspect [of paddling] is the greatest aspect; we crossed lines where the outside world had not been for decades,” Coetzee says. “I like to think that we even had a small part to play in the transformation of the country [South Africa]. There were some unbelievable and unrepeatable experiences.”—Neil Etienne
RAPID
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52