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!