When he was 13 years old, Rudy Hanse joined the guppy development programme offered by the Milnerton Canoe Club in Cape Town. There he learned how to paddle a canoe and swim.
For Hanse, the weekly outing to the Milnerton Lagoon was a way to escape the poverty and cacophony of Dunoon township, where he lived with his parents. A taxi, organised by the canoe club, would pick him and other kids up to spend a few hours on the water each week.
It wasn’t canoeing that…