Thursday, September 25, 2014

Surf Kayak Irish Open

As if to make up for the unbelievable conditions we got for the open last year, this time the ocean gods held back and gave us waves at the opposite end of the spectrum. After arriving at Easky early on Saturday morning to find it choppy and without a wave to be seen, we moved to a beach up the coast that promised contestable conditions. Tra Bui gave us maybe 3ft waves for the day, surfable but certainly not epic.

Awesome surf at the Irish Open last year, photo by Darren Clarke.

Around 40 people made the trip to Sligo, the biggest entry we've had in years. The standard was pretty unbelievable as well, a lot of the Irish paddlers have improved since last year and Chris, Tim and Cheesy of Ride kayaks came over from the UK to lift the standard up another notch.


Chris, making bad surf look awesome! Photo by Cheesy.

The number of competitors meant there were lots of rounds to get through before finals, which was probably a good thing. I started off badly by getting knocked into the reperchage or backdoor in both long and short boat, which is unsurprising since I have only been surf kayaking occasionally in the past year. That meant that I had lots of heats to get the feel for the boats again and I eventually made it into the semi-finals in both divisions. Unfortunatly no podium finishes this year but what can you do.

In the end Tim won the short boat, with Chris in second and they swapped places in the long boat. Third places went to Mike in the short boat and Dessie in the long boat. First place in the ski went to Marty McCann, with Kieran Davies and Mike Barry in second and third.

Mike Barry, ripping in the new Ride Zenith.

After a sunset prize giving ceremony we grabbed pizzas and beer and went to chill out for the evening. When the pub closed we took advantage of the late bar that was being provided at a wedding in the local hotel! After getting back to the house far later than we had originally planned, we grabbed a few hours sleep, hoping that conditions would change and give us nice surf in the morning.
 
Mike and Ais looking happy with how the weekend went! Huge thanks to the two of them for organising!

In the end conditions did improve a bit; the wind died down, the sun came out and the waves improved slightly, giving us a nice morning of relaxed freesurfing before starting on the drive home. All in all it was a great weekend of chilling out and having the craic with lots of cool people, with some friendly competition thrown in. Huge thanks to Mike Barry and Aisling Griffin, none of it would have happened without them! Hopefully see you there next year!

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Winter is Coming!

Back at ULKC HQ the time has come to wind down from the summer and start preparing for the next few months. We are in the middle of getting everything ready for the huge influx of enthusiastic beginners that we get at the start of every September, planning pool sessions, organising weekend trips and generally trying to make things as fun as possible for everyone. Nearly all of our existing members are back from their travels to various parts of the world so in the meantime there are lots of people to catch up with and entertaining stories to listen to.

Of course kayaking has to be done too, the surf has finally picked up so yesterday we started off by heading to Spanish Point for some freestyle and surf kayaking, then we met up with the guys who are on work placement and did an evening run on Castleconnel. For the craic, we decided to do a retro trip. Squirt boats, dancers, and ancient club kit were the order of the day, which resulted in me being vertically pinned in a squirt boat while Gav got horizontally pinned behind me in a Dancer. Fortunatly we both escaped in one piece, and it was all captured on video, which of course is the most important thing! After that excitement it was time to head to the pool for our first pool session of the year, to see how much the flatwater freestyle skills had deteriorated over the summer. All in all, not a bad days paddling!

The Clubs & Societies set up here in UL is pretty unbelievable. There are over 70 to choose from, and the bigger, better organised ones are extrordinarily well equipped and funded. This means that while in UL students can try sports that they would never get the opportunity to try otherwise, and especially not without paying far higher prices somewhere else. I spent the last week camping in Kerry with the windsurfing club, fishing, surfing, windsurfing and generally having the craic. Over the last year or two the whole set-up has gone through a very American style branding and promotional exersize, like it or not they have put together some kick-ass promo videos such as this: UL Wolves Promo. So that's pretty much going to be the next few months, teaching beginner sessions, praying for rain, windsurfing and mountain biking occasionally and finding time to do some college work too. It's no Uganda but it turns out Ireland's not such a bad place to be after all!

Getting the hang of water starting down in Scraggaun bay