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!