Curragower session

I spent yesterday on Gower, which is working good on a weekend for the first time in months! It was freezing but had some session, busy working on blunts, and failing miserably at back stabs. But sure I'll get there eventually! Heres the video from the day:

Glens

Had parent teacher meetings yesterday so myself and Tom O'Donoghue headed out to the glens. Level was nice, around .5, heres what we spent the time working on:

 Just need a bit more water to try them off the main ledge.

Video from the Colligan

Video from the day by Mike:

Two firsts at the Colligan!

There on Saturday what felt like the entire country converged on the river Colligan in Waterford for the biggest boater cross of the year. The week before the entries were maxed out and there was a few days solid rain so expectations for a day of carnage like last year were high. As is turned out someone must have held an umbrella over county Waterford for the week since the river was dog low but it probably wasnt such a bad thing since it meant everyone there was well capeable of making it down the river in one piece.

The race itself really couldnt have gone any better. I was competing in the team event with Neil Slevin and Oisin McHugh and we had a great run, everything went to plan and we put in a really fast time. I havnt seen the times yet, still waiting for them to be posted up but I think we were challenging some of the mens expert times!

The individual races were a similar story, myself and Oisin came 1st and 2nd in our first round race, and me and Neil did the same in our semi final. Oisin walked through his semi too so it was the three of us in the final against another lad from Wicklow. I made a brilliant start, getting through the first two rocks in first place and opening up a big lead as the others got in a scrap to decide the other places. It finished up 1, 2, 3 for St Pauls scouts as Neil finished up second and Oisin paddled brilliantly to take third.

At the prize giving we were still waiting for the results of the team race. We knew we had done well but we didnt know if we had done it faster than the other teams from Wicklow. Soon enough though we found out that we had won that too, delighted! Even better was the prizes, savage Peak Uk creek cags and throw ropes donated by Kipper and Brian at Total Experience. We tried them out on the Glens the next day, they really are the job! Just in time too, since my old cag was held together with duct tape and needed to be replaced before winter hit proper! We also got a really cool trophy, in memory of a paddler who passed away during the year, so RIP.

Home Internationals Vid

Video from Paddy King of the home internationals last week, theres a good few clips of the irish team in it:

Home internationals and British Open

Last week, over mid term, I was up at the surf kayaking Home Internationals and British Open in Portrush, Northern Ireland. The Home Internationals is a competition between the Irish, English, Scottish and Northern Irish National teams. I was competing in seniors for the first time in this, the step up in the competition was an unpleasent surprise to say the least! I paddled well enough though, and came 3rd in all four of my heats so I guess it could have gone a lot worse. The competition came right down to the wire for everyone. We came 3rd overall, just beating Scotland by two points after me and Mike Barry came in ahead of the Scottish paddlers in our last two heats. The battle for 1st and 2nd between Northern Iremand and England was even closer, with England taking the win by a single point in the end.

The British Open was an individual competition, held the weekend after the Homes. I was competing in the Juniors this time and the standard was really high, with Adam Harvey, junior hp world champion, Corin King, junior ic world champion and Andy McClelland, 2nd in the worlds in ic all entered. My first round ic heat was a disaster, the less said about it the better, but the hp went really well. I came 2nd in my first round heat which got me into the semi finals, and got some really good waves in my semi and won that. The final didnt go so well and I came 4th, but im still happy enough with the result. The positions in the final were Andy in 1st, Jake King in 2nd and Adam Harvey in 3rd. The full results are up on misurfkayak.com.
And a huge thanks to Munster Dive and Canoe for giving us a loan of their van for the weekend, it was great to have somewhere like that to defrost after each heat! Their website is at www.mdac.ie

A few pics Brendan too over the week:

Mick going up to hit the lip

The team out on the beach supporting;

Conor going up for a big end move:

Me slashing a turn in the IC: