Paddlesurf Ireland Comp 1

Last weekend Paddlesurf Ireland held the first surf kayak competition of the year in Spanish point. There was a great turn-out at it. I dont know was it because of Paddlefest a few weeks ago or what but it was great to see all the new faces! We got good conditions for it too. The first rounds were held in the morning on Spanish Point beach in fairly weak, dribbly, maybe two foot surf. No one was airing in it but the conditions were perfect for everyone who was trying out a surf kayak for the first time. The new plastic boats that Paddlesurf Ireland recently bought from Exo kayaks got their first outing on the day, coming straight out of the packaging into the surf. I didn't get to have a go in one but loads of people had great things to say about them, and as an added bonus we won't have to be fixing them all the time like the composite demo boats! These boats will be around for the foreseeable future so if anyone ever feels like having a go in a real surf kayak give me or one of the other Paddlesurf committee members a shout and we'll sort you out!

After holding a quick AGM over lunch in the middle of the day (Aisling Griffin is now leader of the known universe, Mick Barry is her assistant and we're selling the composite demo boats. They're the highlights of that) we moved over to the reef at the Armada hotel for the finals of the IC, HP, Waveski and Junior classes. We got some great waves on the reef, 4-6ft faces with some nice steep walls. There was a pretty strong rip tho and there were some heavy wipeouts when people got caught slightly out of position when the sets came through! I had great fun in my heats and got some great waves, and ended up coming first in both IC and HP. Happy days! I gave waveski a go too, paddling the RTM Slide belonging to ULKC. I spent most of the heat having a disagreement with the ski over which way was up but we managed to resolve that for long enough to catch one wave in the 20 minute heat, in which I managed to pull a sweet off the lip top turn on a close-out section. It wasn't much but it was enough to persuade me that I want to paddle it a bit more over the summer and learn to air it properly!

We're properly getting into exam season here in UL now, but after that it's into a summer of working and paddling. I can't wait!

Glens!!!!

After all these months of waiting, watching weather forecasts and getting excited and then disappointed every time a bit of rain was forecast the Clare Glens finally came out of retirement yesterday, completly out of the blue! I don't think anyone had any idea it was going to work, I just checked the gauge in the morning like I often do, not expecting anything to be happening and it showed that the levels were shooting up! So the word went around, lots of people were stuck in college but four of us made it out for two runs at sweet levels. I think it was around .9 when we got on, dropping to maybe .7 by the time we got off, I still havn't got the hang of the numbers on the new online gauge so it'll take another few runs to get everything dialled in. Anyway, we had a great day, in warm weather and sunshine! Hopefully we'll get another few days like that over the summer!

Eoin

Tuam freestyle event

As a follow-up to the first freestyle event of the season at Sluice a few weeks ago, Barry Loughnane and Andrew Regan took advantage of the water that had been around for the week to run a combined coaching/competition event at Tuam yesterday. Apparantly water levels there were perfect all week and there was rain forecast which would keep it up for the event.
I've been mad to take the Stealth out there since I got back to Ireland in August and havn't had the opportunity so far, so as soon as I heard 'perfect water levels' all thoughts of taking a plastic boat just in case were out the window. Bad decision! The water that had been promised failed to show up and when we got there the levels were pretty low. Still paddleable, but too low and flushy for loops and definatly not ideal in a carbon boat!

We had a pretty good day anyway, most moves went if you picked the right spot in the hole and the event started off with some great coaching from Barry and Andrew. I think everyones paddling definatly improved during the day, both from the lads tips and as they got used to the feature and by the time the competition started everyone had it pretty much dialled in. The competition was great craic; lots of fun moves, lots of moves that were questionable if they were in the hole or the eddy and people trying to 'improve' the feature by standing on top of the weir!

I know the day was more about the craic than the competition but the results weren't bad either, with Barry beating me into second place and Aran Kilroy coming in third. Full results are up here: Irish Freestyle League Standings. The plan is to have a few of these events over the summer to keep things ticking over. I'll start looking into organising a Gower comp as soon as my college exams are over.

...As soon as I got back to UL I realised that Gower would probably be working, so I went out for a look and ended up spending two hours surfing it at perfect levels! I'm broken now, between Tuam and Gower, I havn't been this sore after paddling for a very long time! Hopefully the ESB will keep releasing like that into the summer, it would be great to have a sort of consistant spot to play on!

That's about it for the moment, exams are nearly here so things will probably quieten down for a while, and then be back to normal around the end of May.

...keep up the good work with the rain dancing, it looks like it's working!

ULKC River Cleanup

Even though there wasnt enough rain to bring the Glens up the weekend wasn't a complete disaster. On Saturday myself and a few of the lads from ULKC went out on the Shannon behind UL to clear out some of the rubbish that had accumulated in the islands there during the winter floods. We had planned to go all the way from Kilmurry beach to the UL boathouse but there was so much junk there that we ran out of rubbish bags after about 200m! There was an endless supply of plastic bottles and the like and we also accquired a fridge, an electric scooter and old bike. Along with a toilet and a car wheel that looks like it'll be a perfect fit for our small trailer, and is in better condition than our current spare!

Jack, Tori, Anna, Caoilinn, Cathal, Eoin, Elaine, Orla and Simon with the mountain of rubbish that we gathered!

...and playing with the new toys!

Glens Race update

The rain seems to be a bit later coming in than was originally forecast, so it's hard to say what's going to be happening on the river tomorrow. What we're going to do is call it in the morning. If this gauge: http://waterlevel.ie/0000025309/0001/day/ is reading over .7 in the morning we're going to go to the Glens and have a great day on the water, and if it's not then we can all go back to bed. To give people some more time to get things organised in the morning we'll meet up at the Glens at 11.00 instead of 9.00 if it's working. Hopefully we'll get a solid bit of rain overnight, it's been way too long since I was out on the Glens!

Clare Glens Race!!!!!!!!!!!

It's back, it's the one everyone's been waiting for! As of now the tempermental highlight of the Irish whitewater racing calenter is on for this Sunday, the 14th of April. Registration will be from 9 till 10 at the Clare Glens carpark, with racing starting as soon as possible after that. Entry is €10 which will go into prizes at the end. Be there or...! General plan is write everyones name down, half the group goes and sets up rescue while the first group races, then everyone swaps places. Obviously this all depends on the water levels playing ball! I'll keep an eye on it over the next few days and make the final call on Saturday. I'll also have to make sure that no new trees have come down since the river was last running (quite a while!)

A bit about safety; everyone entering must be 100% clear that they are completly responsible for their own safety at this event! Rescue will be set up and they will do their best to help if anyone does get into trouble but they, and I, will not be held responsible if anyone does get hurt. I will however reserve the right to refuse entry to anyone that I think isn't able for the river on the day. The Clare Glens is a different level to the other rivers in the race league, with the possible exception of the Flesk, and anyone entering must be confident in their ability to race on grade 4+ whitewater for around 10 minutes. I would  also suggest that anyone entering should be familiar with all the lines on
 the river before race day.

I'll keep ye all updated with what the story is over the next few days. Start the rain dances please!

Eoin