CGR12

The Clare Glens Race is back! After a years break Irelands best river race is back on the 6th or 7th of January. To enter email your name and mobile number to clareglensrace@gmail.com. Full details are up at http://www.facebook.com/groups/162734773768169/?notif_t=group_activity#!/events/197231460370500/

Freestyle Session in Tuam

'best freestyle spot in the country', 'perfect hole', 'coldest place in the world'. After all the good things I've heard about it I've been trying to organise a trip to Tuam for ages now but for one reason or another until this weekend it just never worked out. On Saturday though all the starts aligned, we got the ULKC Sprinter, we got a driver and it rained for a few days before-hand. On the way up I was afraid it was going to be washed out since there was so much water in fields in Galway but when we got there the level was perfect and everything was set for a sweet freestyle session. Its a really easy place to video too, you can just set up the camera and off you go, not like Gower where it would be 100% certain to get robbed it you tried that! So I got some sweet video, and with a bit of work a few hours and 6Gb of footage became this:



The other paddlers are Dave O'Sullivan and Ethan O'Brien. And a huge thanks to Paul Austin for driving the van up!

Flesk Race

Inspired by the Tarmonbarry rodeo last weekend Colin Wong decided to organise a boatercross race on his home run, the river Flesk just outside Killarney. Its a sweet river, about 2.5k of grade 4-5 water which is pretty sweet for a boatercross. Its a huge improvement on the Colligan and the Annamoe where boatercrosses have been held previously anyway! The format was simple, we divide into two groups and in the morning one group does rescue while the people in the other group take it in turns to do timed runs down the river, and then we all swap over, the person with the shortest time at the end of the day takes the prize money. I've only paddled the river once or twice before so luckily I managed to get a few practise runs in to try and memorise all the lines before the race.

This went well enough, I made all the major lines on my timed run but it was all the sections inbetween which were where the problem was and I kept hitting rocks, slowing my time down loads and pushing me back into 6th place, again. In the end Neil Slevin surprised everyone and took the top spot off Colin by 1 second, delighted for him! Paddy McGovern came 3rd and Toby Fischer 4th, and the rest of the field were just as solid paddlers, making it a pretty impressive field for any race. Afterwards everyone headed back for food and beer in Killarney, huge thanks to Snax for laying on a never ending supply of chicken nuggets, sausages and wedges!

Towards the end of the first gorge

The weekend before that we headed down to Kerry with ULKC to run the upper Carragh and the Owenroe. Even though the levels were low we had a good day out, and all the beginners did really well, with no swims all day! It made a nice change from the tedium of the ICU agm the day before, which was 6 hours of utter bull with one 5 minute toilet break in the middle! Katie Butler got some nice pics from the end of the Owenroe, which for future reference should not be paddled unless its raining and everything else in the area is tanking... 



Slide on the Owenroe

Get-off of the Owenroe

Tarmonbarry comp

A few weeks ago since things were fairly quiet in the country competition-wise Barry Loughnane and Andrew Regan decided to go out and organise a freestyle comp of their own on Tarmonbarry. The rules were simple with 15 minute heats, 5 people in each heat and everyones top 5 moves were added together to give their final score. The entry fees were split between the top 3 paddlers in each class, making it the first freestyle competition with cash prizes that I've even seen. The feature on the day was pretty sweet, even tho it suited hole moves more than wave moves, since it was really retentive and not really steep enough to get a decent bounce on. The Juniors were up first, with Billy Brett taking first place with a bunch of phonixes and mcnastys that would have beaten the majority of the seniors!

In the seniors Tom Dunphy showed that all the time spent in Canada and Germany hadnt been wasted, taking first place and the lions share of a decent prize fund. Close behind him were Barry Loughnane Ronnie Brennan who got to split the rest of the prize money. I finished up in 6th, not that bad but definitly hoping to do better at the next event.

A few pictures taken by Micheal Howard:

 I've had a few sweet sessions on Gower recently too. Clean blunts and backstabs arent quite there yet but I'm workign on it! Most of the time I was paddling on my own but Bowsie showed up for one of them and got some sweet photos:

video

As promised, a video from the surf comp on Saturday:

Busy Week!

Ok, since last Sunday I've spent a weekend in Wicklow, a day on Gower, went to 3 pool sessions, ran Castleconnel one evening, spent Thursday afternoon on the Glens, went to a surf competition in Clare today and tomorrow I'm off to a freestyle competition on Tarmonbarry! Tired doesn't even close but hey, cant exactly complain! I still havnt tracked down many pics or footage from Wicklow or Gower but for the moment heres a vid from the Glens. We brought out all the first years to let them have a shot at running top drop, they got on pretty well!!



The surf competition today went really well. Wayne made the right call when he decided to hold the comp on Spanish Point beach, away from the usual spots. For a few hours around high tide we had a lovely wave with plenty of ramps for re-entrys and attempted airs. The two scoring wave format was great too since it lets take your time and really concentrate on picking out the best waves that come through. I got a few really nice ones in the short boat competition and ended up coming 1st, happy out with it! The long boat didnt go as great but I still did pretty well in it, coming 2nd behind Mickey Barry.

The full results were:
Mens HP: 1st Eoin Keyes, 2nd Mick Barry, 3rd Brendan Barry.

Mens IC 1st Mick Barry, 2nd Eoin Keyes, 3rd Richard Greaves.

Waveski: 1st Morgan O'Sullivan, 2nd Mick Barry, 3rd Guillaume Desprez.

Video on the way as soon as it uploads!

'Sluice' Rodeo

Last weekend the biggest freestyle competition of the year, the Wavesport Sluice Rodeo, was scheduled to take place at, of course, Sluice. However a few days before hand the ESB said that they couldnt guarantee a release on the Liffey for the day so the whole event was shifted to Stackallen, a sweet little wave/hole on the Boyne. When everyone saw the feature I think everyones first thought was why did I travel for a competition on this, especially Claire O'Hara, Paul King, Sam Anderson and Kim Aldred, the crew that had travelled over from England especially for the competition! The wave was a lot better than it looked from the bank tho, since it had a shoulder on each side with a retentive foampile in the middle hole moves and wave moves were both possible on it.

We had a bit of a mission to get up to the competition in the first place, me and Neil got the bus up from Limerick at half 5 in the morning and then spent a few hours standing around on O'Connel bridge corner waiting for the Donegal legend that is Lee Doherty to find us and give us a lift out to the Boyne! Pretty much as soon as we got there we jumped on the water and spent the day on the water trying to figure out the spot.

 The competion itself went really well. The format with 15 minute heats and 5 people in each heat was great since it meant you could try any moves you wanted without worrying about flushing, and since only everyones 5 highest scoring moves counted people were really pushed to try to throw the biggest moves possible. Watching some of the English lads was something else. Watching Claire, current womens world champion, and Sam Anderson throwing moves like they were on a feature 5 times the size of Stackallen really showed that Irish freestyle paddling has a lot of catching up to do! Some of the Irish juniors are really coming on tho, Billy Brett especially seems to get better with every competition!  I was happy with how the competition went too, I managed to stick enough moves to get me into 3rd place behind Sam Anderson and Adrian Durrant. Just have to keep improving like that over the next few years and see how it goes!



Results:

Junior Men: 1st Billy Brett, 2nd Conor Macken, 3rd David McClune.

Junior Women: 1st Kim Aldred, 2nd Niamh Cleary, 3rd Caoimhe Farrel.

Senior Women: 1st Claire O'Hara, 2nd Aisling Griffin, 3rd Muireann Lynch.

Senior Men: 1st Sam Anderson, 2nd Adrian Durrant, 3rd Eoin Keyes.

C1: 1st Orky, 2nd Paul King, 3rd Kev McCabe.

Video from the day by Conor Macken:



A few pictures by outdoorcommunity.ie:

Surf Kayak and Waveski Irish Open

After one cancelled weekend in October due to the lack of surf, last weekend we finally managed to run off the Irish Open in brilliant surf on Easky Left in Sligo. We headed up on friday afternoon so that we'd have time to surf that evening When we got there the waves were big, choppy and onshore which would have been rubbish except for the fact that the wave faces were 3+ meters, which always seems to make things more fun! The few hours on the water that evening were great craic, especially cause its been so long since I was out in decent size surf. We spent the evening watching waveski videos and generally having the craic, and looking forward to the next morning since the forecast was sweet and only looking like improving as the day went on.

The next morning the surf had dropped, and the wind had died down and swung off shore, leaving us with perfect conditions for the competition. The surf was forecast to pick up in the afternoon and everyone was keen for a free surf so the comp was run off as quickly as possible. The first round of the waveski comp was first on the water, followed by HP, IC, waveski finals and then it was freesurf time. I was delighted with how the IC comp went, I eventually got the hang of surfing without fins again, got some sweet waves and ended up coming first! The HP didn't go so well and I only managed to come third behind Dessie and Gerry but sure theres always next year!

The full results from the comp are:
Waveski: 1st Marty McCann, 2nd Morgan O'Sullivan, 3rd Marc Taylor, 4th Dessie McGlinchy.

HP: 1st Gerry McGahey, 2nd Dessie McGlinchy, 3rd Eoin Keyes, 4th Anthony Coyne.

IC: 1st Eoin Keyes, 2nd Dessie McGlinchy, 3rd Anthony Coyne.

And a video from the waveski competition:


That afternoon we all headed out for a freesurf and, as promised, the surf kept building as the afternoon went on. I have no idea how big the sets were exactly since when they came along I wasn't hanging around to measure them but they were definatly something over 4 meters! Between difficult to make take offs and a few clean up sets that came through and caught everyone out of position there were a few heavy wipeouts had! The waves more than made up for it though and the afternoon was definatly the most fun I've had in a surf kayak in a long time! Unfortunatly no one got any video from the afternoon, the waves were breaking so far from the carpark that there was no chance of getting any decent footage with the cameras we had with us.

All these surf kayak events are open to anyone with a roll and theres a few club surf boats specifically for people to try out, if anyones interested in giving it a go then keep an eye on paddlesurf.ie for details about the next event and just show up or ask me for more info about getting started!

The Clare Glens comes out of hibernation

The last week was pretty busy, between the scouts heading out kayaking to get ready for the Liffey Descent in a few weeks time, and the UL kayak club starting to get into the swing of things I was out on Castleconnel twice and had three pool sessions between Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! Add in College, and a house party or two and you've got one fun, and busy week! From the start of last week, and that excuse of a hurricane that passed over, people have been talking about how the forecast was looking promising for a bit of boating this weekend. In the end our prayers were answered and we went to bed on friday to the sweet sound of rain on the windows! Saturday started with the small distraction of Ireland beating Australia in the world cup and then we got on the road to the Glens to see how much of a difference the few days rain had actually made. When we got there the level was at .55 and rising, perfect for a good day out without anything getting too scary!

Since you cant really walk away from the Glens when its working we ended up running it three times on Saturday which was savage craic. .6 is a brilliant level since a lot of the rocks are gone and all the lines are still fairly handy. Heres a video from Top Drop and Sidewider with the lads from ULKC:

On Sunday the levels had dropped off to .45, making the whole run a lot rockier and less fun so we only ended up running it twice. Still tho, any day out there is a good day! And lets all start praying for a whole lot of rain this Thursday and Friday!!

Ennistymon Falls

Had a sweet day out on the Ennistymon Falls yesterday with Colm and Neil. The level could have been higher but its always good to get out, especially since its been dry here for so long!

And the video:

New Camera

Ok, first purchase with the cash from Austria is a video camera. Full HD, waterproof, delighted with it! Hopefully there'll be lots of videos to come over the next few months but for now heres the first one, a few seconds of flatwater freestyle in castleconnel in Limerick.

Home again

Ok. I'm back from Austria, and the whole idea of keeping this thing updated while I was there didnt really work out, since I didnt have the best access to the internet. Still, I had a brilliant time over there! Most days I was working as a kayak instructor, and occasionally as a safety boater or raft guide. Either way I was on the water pretty much 5 hours a day, every day for the last 6 weeks!

 15kg of rucksack, 5kg of carry on bag and 42kg of paddles, boat and kayaking gear! Thank God for the set of skateboard wheels!

Getting out there was nothing short of a mission. I flew from Dublin as far as Vienna, and then the fun part started. I got the train from the airport to the middle of Vienna and then hit problems. It turns out that not every long distance train in Austria has a bike carriage, and if there isn't one then there isnt a hope in hell that you're going to get a boat onto the train. In the end I spent most of the day in the Westbahnhof train station in Vienna before a train arrived that I was allowed onto with my boat. A few train changes later and I got as far as Weissenbach, where I was picked up by Wolfgang, owner of Liquid-Lifestle for the last part of the journey to Wildalpen.

The scenery around Wildalpen is nothing short of spectacular! The mountains are huge with cliffs all around the place, some of them as high as 1000 metres. The water is crystal clear, and its all drinking water so theres no need to bring a drink of water on the river. A cup can be useful tho!

Helliwelli Playhole

A lot of evenings I was able to get out freestyle paddling after work. There are two playspots less than a 5 minute walk from the campsite where I was staying, one of which was a steep, fast hole that just about all moves are possible in. My hole paddling came on an unbelievable amount while I was there, still not quite good, but infinatly better than it used to be!

My home for the last 6 weeks!

The 'Adventure Bus'! 490,000km and still going strong! ...if you can call 0 horsepower, rubbish brakes and a gearbox that feels like you're stirring bread dough going strong. But hey, it got us to the river every day without fail, just a bit later than we would have liked!

Going away party on the last night. Cheers Luki, Johanna, Jamie, Stefan, Tom, Niki, Stefan, Julia and everyone else who didn't make it into the picture for a brilliant time over there! Bis nachstes Jahr/ till next year!

Off to Austria!

Ok, leaving cert finished, driving test passed, army cadets competition attempted, summer camp with the army reserves finished, and I'm free for whats left of the summer, which I'm going to spend working here: http://www.liquid-lifestyle.at/?lang=en , in Wildalpen in Austria, raft guiding, kayak instructing and god knows what else!

The place looks pretty sweet! Cant wait to get out there now, leaving at some stupid hour tomorrow morning so I should be there and on the water by tomorrow evening!  

Two wins at surf Kayak Event 2

This weekend the second surf kayak competition of the year was held in Clare. I missed the first one since I had to study so I had been looking forward to this competition for a while. We met up in Dougmore on Saturday morning but since it was big, messy and onshore we headed up the coast to Hegartys where it was cleaner and a lot more attractive looking. I was up in the first heat, which was a straight final for the ic since there were so few people entered. Since I was on the water a few minutes early for the heat I had time to paddle right out to the furthest out break a couple of hundred metres offshore and figure out exactly where the best take off spot was. I got lucky too, the first wave I caught was one of the biggest set waves to come through all day and it kept walling up all the way to the inside before it backed off, easily the longest wave I've ever caught in my life! This, and another smaller wave that I managed to throw an end move off the close out section on, meant that I finished in first place.

The first round of the hp event didnt go as well. At Hegartys you have a choice of either paddling out through the break or against a massive rip and while the ic boat had the speed to make it out through the break line between sets the hp boat didnt, and I spent most of the heat getting battered around on the inside. Fortunatly everyone else in the heat had the same problem, and the few small waves that I managed to catch were enough to get me through to the final. The final though was a completly different story. The heat was only started when everyone was out back and ready to go and I caught one savage wave right at the buzzer which left me in a great position for the rest of the heat. For the other too waves I caught in the heat everything went perfect. I managed to hit the lip every time it walled up, cut back every time it backed off and whenever it sectioned off I was able to float over it and make it back to the open face. I think I even managed to air off one or two of the close out sections! I dont think I've ever paddled that well in competition before and I won the final, delighted!

Add all that to a decent night out in Lahinch Saturday night and a pretty fun free surf at Spanish Point Reef on Sunday it was one savage weekend! Looking forward to the next event now, only between the leaving cert, and going away for the summer god knows when thats going to be!

Me going for a floater

Brendan bouncing in

Gower Freestyle Comp

Last weekend saw the Curragower round of the national freestyle championship. Its great having a competition on my back door for a change intead of having to travel the length of the country for it! We even got good weather for the day, with warmth and sun being a change from some of the other recent comps! Between that, and the release that the ESB provided giving us a brilliant wave for the day I dont see why so many people disagree with me when I say that we should hold more comps at Gower! Mabey its too different to sluice for some people?!

The competition went better than usual for me too. Even though I didnt manage to paddle as well as I am able to, as always, what I did was enough to put me in fourth, behind Bowsie, Conor Bredin and Dave O'Sullivan. Since its only my second competition since I moved up to seniors I'm happy out with it! After the main comp was finished they held a biggest-trick competition. The rules were simple, drop in only, and whoever got the most air took the bragging rights. On my first run I think I got the biggest air blunt that I've ever landed on Gower, and that put me in the lead right up untill the final round, where Conor landed a massive clean air blunt, and Dave pulled off a blunt to pistol flip combo, knocking me into third. Sickened!

Bowsie

Mick mid-airscrew

Tom O'D mid airscrew

Vids by Jessica Lyddy and Conor Macken, pics from Dave P.

Looking back at the pics, those new Project X's look like there going huge! ...I need money, anyone feel like giving me a job over the summer?!

Wacko on the Jacko

This weekend I think most of the paddlers in the country headed up to Wicklow for the 'Wacko on the Jacko' boatercross. Everyone had to be up in Laragh for half nine on Saturday morning which meant leaving Limerick at stupid O'Clock, half 5!! We got to the car park at lyhnams and found dog low water levels but warm weather and lots of banter going around.

This was my first event competing in the seniors. I decided to be ambitious and enter the expert class so the standard was a huge step up from any of the Junior events! My first race in the individual went well, I was well out in front for most of the race, just getting held up by a rock near the end and dropping back to second. It didnt matter though since the first 2 in each heat went through to the next round. The quarter finals were much more competitive. I got stuck in a battle with Sean Mc Ternan which left us swapping 3rd and 4th for the most of the race and even though I got ahead of him in the end I was left in 3rd and out of the competition.

The Short team race went much better. I was in a team with Neil Slevin and Mickie Brennan and we had a very clean run down it, finishing in third. That night we got a cheap dinner in the pub, the prizes from the days races were given out, and then it was time for the party! It was some craic, especially since we managed a way of not having to buy drinks at the bar, and was a long night! We headed back to the hostel around two, where a few faces became the victims of some permernant marker art!

On sunday we got up and headed up to Trooperstown for the long distance team race. Again we had a clean run down it but Neils Magnum looked like it had an anchor tied to it on the flat water, throwing up a huge bow wave and going pretty much nowhere! Between this and my little incident/ beatdown on Jacksons it wasnt worth even finding out the times for the race afterwards! Oh well, theres always next year, and hopefully we'll be in better shape by then, this leaving cert isn't doing myself and Neils fitness any favours at all!



Team trials are up next weekend. Hopefully I manage to go to them, things are getting awful busy with school at the moment.

Highlight Video

Just put together a video from the best bits of footage I've got from the past year or so. Love getting off on mid term a few days early!

Clare Glens

I finally managed to get out on a river again on Sunday. I started out on Castleconnel with Limerick Canoe Club in the morning and then myself, John and Francis headed out to the Glens. When we got there it was at .65 and steady, delighted! We had a sweet run down it. No major drama, just lots of clean fast lines with no rocks in the way!

Heres a few pics we got from the run:

Francis coming off one of the slides.

Me and Francis under the bridge

John coming through the 2nd hole under the bridge.

I'm loving the new boat! It goes like a rocket, boofs really well, and if you still manage to screw screw up you know you've got 80 gallons of volume there to help you get back out of trouble! If anyone is over 12 and a half stone or so and is looking for a creek boat I'd really reccommend it!

Italy Vid

Video from Italy last year put together by Benny Cullen. Some sweet lines, some epic swims, some savage craic!

Canoeing Ireland Level 5 Kayak Skills from Benny Cullen on Vimeo.

2010 wrap up, agm and results

On saturday a few hardy souls made to trip to Clare in pouring rain and a howlin onshore gale to run off the outstanding waveski and hp finals from the competition at Magheroaty during the year, the announcing of the 2010 rankings and the surf comittee agm.

We started off by meeting in Spanish point in the morning and started the drive around the area in search of a break that was remotly contestable. Spanish point was just walls of whitewater from half way out the bay, that would have been impossible to paddle out through. Hegartys down the road was even bigger, with cleanish peeling walls but between the rip and the onshore wind anyone paddling out there would have been around the corner and into the next bay before they got a chance to catch a wave. In the end we settled for shits creek next to Lahinch, the wind was as strong there as anywhere but it was sheltered from most of the swell that was coming in.

The four of us that were in the hp final, Brendan, Keiran, Conor and Me were first onto the water. From the very start things started going wrong and the less thats said about the rest of it the better, so I'll leave it at that!

After the waveski final between Marty, Morgan and Brendan we all headed over to O'Looneys to defrost, talk about stuff and give out the prizes. Morgan O'Sullivan is stepping back from his role of commander in chief/ chairman/ god so we had to elect about 4 people to take his place. That was the bones of the agm and then it was onto the prizes from the 2010 championship. The results were:

Ladies HP Muireann 1st, Aisling 2nd, and swapped around in Ladies IC. Juniors, me in 3rd, Conor in 2nd and Keiran in 1st. Mens IC, Richard 3rd, Me 2nd and Mickey in 1st. Waveski, Brendan 3rd, Morgan 2nd and Marty in 1st. And in Senior HP Brendan in 4th, Me 3rd, Conor 2nd and Keiran 1st.

...not too happy with those two 3rd places, but what can you do. I'll just have to keep getting out loads and turn it into two 1sts in the seniors next year!

I dont think anyone even tried taking out a camera on Saturday since it would probably have been blown into the mid-lands somewhere but heres a video from a month or two ago, from a sweet day on the middle reef in Lahinch that I only got around to putting together yesterday:

First run in the Habitat

There the other day I finally managed to try out the Habitat 80 I got a few weeks ago, on the Annamoe in Wicklow. I'm right in between the weight ranges for the 75 and the 80 and in the end I went for the bigger one since it'll be better suited to bigger rivers on trips abroad and will be better for carrying splits and other rescue gear. It turns out its class, really fast and really easy to boof. I love the outfitting too, it took about 5 minutes to get the boat set up perfectly for me and then I was comfortable in it for the day. And its pretty much the same as whats in the Wavesport playboats so the control you get from it is really good too. The only thing that it didnt seem that great for was catching small eddies, not surprising since its such a big boat but I'm sure I'll figure that bit out over the next few weeks too. I cant wait to get it out on the Glens next time it rains to see what shes like when the going gets a bit bigger. Should be perfect for the Glens at a decent level!