Gower Sessions

We got two sweet Gower sessions in the last 12 hours or so. Its not too often that the conditions and the motivation required show up together, since one or both of them are going to happen at a ridiculus hour of the day! Unfortunatly the way the tides worked out this time it meant that the first session was yesterday night/this morning from 12 untill about 2am! Apart from the lack of daylight tho everything else worked out perfect. The wave was working really well, high paddle-on level and there was plenty of light coming from the council offices on the far side of the river to see what you were doing. It wasnt even cold at all, pretty surprising for 2am on a February morning!

Luckily since the wave was only working in the afternoon the next morning we were able to have a pretty decent lie in. We headed out to Gower at about 12.30 expecting to find a perfect wave only to be greeted with a water level lower than I've ever paddled Gower at and all the islands in the middle of the river at least a foot out of the water. Luckily since we had nothing better to be doing we decided to get on anyway to see what the small wave that was there was like to paddle.

Almost as soon as we got on the water the level started to rise, going from dirt low at the start of the session to high and paddle-on at the end! Trufst the ESB to be screwing around with the water but I guess its better than having them turn off the water as soon as we get there! In the end we had a class session on it, I spent a while practising competition runs for the next round of the national league thats on here in a few weeks time which went pretty well, really looking forward to that competition now.

There was even a photographer there who got a few sweet shots, talk about all the stars aligning!





I got some footage of Dave there too, I'll throw that together and put it up here when I'm done.

Sluice Rodeo

Last weekend another freestyle competition was held at Sluice in Dublin. Its a long drive up so myself and Ethan O'Brien headed up on Saturday and the plan was to meet up with Niamh Cleary, the Farrels and Dave Holden for a paddle. We were hoping that the Glenmacnass or something like that would be working since apart from the Annamoe I havnt paddled any rivers up in Wicklow. Unfortunatly the water levels didnt play ball but the Annamoe was running as always so we had a fun run down that instead. That evening we went to Lacken Kayak Clubs pool session in Clondalkin, apparently it was a quiet one with "only" about 30 kids in the pool compared with the 50 that they sometimes have but the ones that were there were flying. If they all keep it up then Lacken Kayak Club is going to be one to watch out for in the nest few years!

The Sluice rodeo the next day was some craic, despite the baltic weather. Its been ages since I paddled in Sluice so we headed up fairly early to have some time to get used to the feature again before the competition started. Its no Gower but by the time the competition I started I was getting the hang of the place again and blunts and stuff were starting to feel pretty smooth. The competition was run in a 15 minute jam session format with everyones top 5 moves counting, which is great because it allows people to risk going for big moves without worrying about flushing off the wave. My heat went pretty good. I got a few spins, blunts and roundhouses out of the way at the start, and then spent the rest of the heat going for back blunts and loops. In the end I managed to land enough to put me in 5th place, only 20 points behind the winner, Moe Kelleher. I'm happy enough with the result, since its a really tricky feature and the top three places were all taken by locals who know the place like the back of their hands!

Huge thanks to Gerry and Tom Cleary for giving me and Ethan food and floor space for the weekend, much appreciated! The next competition thats coming up is a big one, the kayaking intervarsities in Castlebar in two weeks time. Cant wait to have a fair go at defending last years title at this one, we've been putting a lot of work into training for it recently! Its going to be epic! Full results from Sluice are below.

Results:

Junior Men
Alan Murphy 135
Billy Brett 105
Conor Macken 90
Shane Little 90
Robbie O' Shea 90
Mathew Cassin 85
Conal Murphy 80
David Mclure 80
Tom Gallione 70
Craig Cummins 60
Daniel Burke 40

Sport Men
Niall Power 80
Kevin Niland 40

Sport Women
Maria 65
Rosseane 55

Expert Women
Niamh Cleary 115
Aisling Griffin 105
Muireann Lynch 95

Expert Men
Moe Kelleher 160
Neill Gibson 155
Adrian Durrant 150
Barry Loughnane 145
Tom Dunphy 140
Eoin Keyes 140
John O' Rourke 115
Ronnie Brennan 110
Colm Healy 100
Daniel O' Broin 60
Conor Mathews 50
Kevin McCabe 0

Heres a pretty sweet video from the day by Conor Macken, looking good!

GalwayFest 2012

Last weekend the NUIG crew, led by Barry Loughnane and Andrew Regan, ran a savage event on their local spots, Tuam hole and the Boluisce. Unfortunatly I missed the freestyle since I just got back from Wales the day before but by all accounts it was a great competition, despite relativly low water levels.

The whitewater the next day was a great event, with nearly 70 people paddling! It was really well run, with timing and rescue and the rest of it all set up perfectly. I had never run the Boluisce before so the first thing I did when I got there was head off for a quick blast with Dave Holden and Laura Griffin. Its a sweet river, with a few nice technical rapids on it. The last feature, the hole at Poll Gorm, is class since its possible to do a really sweet flare move off the right hand bank and go straight over the hole.

The race went really well, I got through everything pretty cleanly and ended up with the joint 4th fastest time with Paddy McGovern. The top 6 paddlers went through to a boatercross style final which started with everyone sitting backwards on their boats and then turning around and jumping in when it was time to go. I screwed up the start which left me in 6th place for a good part of the race but in the end I managed to make up two places and finished in 4th. Afterwards we all headed up to one of the pubs in the village for the results and some banter. The soup, sandwiches, sausages and wedges just kept on coming fair play to whoever organised it!

Thanks to Ultan O'Byrne and Shane Cronin of Wavesport Ireland for the photos.

The next event thats coming up is the Wacko on the Jacko, a boatercross on the Avonmore in Wicklow. Its not exactly a spectacular river and the entry fee is ridiculus at €40 per head so we'll have to see how the funds are looking coming up to it to see if I'll be there or not

ULKC Wales Trip

I spent the last week in Wales paddling with ULKC on the Tryweren in North Wales and at the International Whitewater Centre in Cardiff. It was savage craic! We left at stupid o'clock in the morning last friday and then paddled virtually every day on a few sweet rivers. And we found time for a few parties in the evenings too! We spent most of our time on the Tryweren, a sweet grade 3+ run which is dam controlled meaning that its virtually always working and you always know exactly what level its running at. This river is perfect for anyone whos level 3-4ish ability wise and theres loads of stuff on it. We spent quite a lot of time here working with throwropes and other rescue skills, as well as the usual paddling skills.

Unfortunatly the complete lack of rain over North Wales meant that the river was turned off one day that we were there so we had to go further afield looking for water. We ended up paddling on the Dee which is a sweet little run about an hour from Bala with a few nice rapids but nothing too challenging on it.

The last two days of the trip were spent on the international whitewater centre in Cardiff. Since rescue was provided here we were able to simply show up and paddle as much as possible in the time we were on the water. This course was a bit of a step up in difficulty from the Tryweren so a few of the beginners felt a bit out of their depth here, and none of the features were deep enough for freestyle so I could have been happier but for the people at level 3-4 standard who were just settling into the Tryweren when we left it was perfect, they had savage craic and improved loads.

Photo credits go to Micheal Howard, Caolin Doran, Niamh Hanrahan and Orla Tuffy.

Clare Glens Race 2012

The race yesterday ran off perfectly. Even though there was rain forecast I was terrified the night before and even that morning that we wouldnt get enough water to run the race or that it would drop off to nothing before we could get everyones timed runs finished. In the end tho I needn't have worried. The level was just runnable at .4 when we got there and pretty miraculously stayed at that level for the whole day, meaning that although a few sections of the river were pretty slow and rocky, nothing was that difficult and everyone got through sections like Little Ass no bother. That definitly wouldnt have been the case if we had got high levels for the race. The week before when we were running the river at .85 I was having visions of 90% of the racers dissappearing into the hole under Little Ass and not coming out again! Since we had a massive turn-out at the event, nearly 35 competitors, this would not have been a good thing! As it was we had a few swimmers on Big Ass and that was it, pretty good going for a race on the Glens and better than the 'elitist' invitational event that was run two years ago. As an experiment the open format couldnt have gone any better so I think thats the one we'll be sticking to over the next few years.

My own timed run went pretty well. At the last race on the Flesk I sprinted through all the flat parts, leaving me with no strength to hit the lines on the more technical sections and that meant that I hit what seemed like every rock on the river, slowing down my time loads and leaving me well down the field at the end. This time I took it handier on the flat sections, concentrating on my stroke and breathing to try to go as fast as possible without tiring out my arms or going out of breath. This meant that I was in good shape when I got to the harder sections and hit all the lines I was aiming for. It nearly worked. I finished in 3rd place behind Paddy and Wongy, just 6 seconds behind the winner so happy out! The prize money paid for the party afterwards with a decent bit left over to pay for petrol for the next paddling mission, cant complain! I'm starting to like these events where as well as bragging rights the winners get to split the entry fees. Hopefully with a bit of work I'll be able to make up those last two places in the future and earn even more pocket money!


Here are the results from the race. Hopefully the formatting comes out right, it wouldnt over on the Irishfreestyle site...

1	Colin Wong			17.56
2	Paddy (Senile) Mc Govern			18
3	Eoin Keyes			18.02
4	Barry L			18.07
5	Neil (Flesk God) Slevin			18.15
6	Eoin Farell			18.32
7	Seán (Adonis) Mc Ternan			18.34
8	Joe Ryan			18.35
9	Blackout Dave			18.43
10	Paul B			18.43
11	André			19.09
12	Dave H			19.09
13	Dave Pearse			19.1
14	Francis			19.13
15	Simon H			19.18
16	Gearóid K			19.25
17	CJ			19.27
18	Ken Heinz			19.29
19	Conor Mc Comb			19.58
20	Barry			20.12
21	Kevin C			20.3
22	John J			21.03
23	Tilly			22.44
24	Stephan Quinn			22.57
1	Billy B			18.34
2	Dave Mc			18.37
3	Dozy R			19.3
4	Oisín M			27.23
1	Nuala			20.23
2	Caoimhe F			21.15
3	Eimear F			21.53
4	Niamh			22.07

I have to mention all the people who helped out and did rescue and other jobs for us on the day, without them it wouldnt have been possible to run the race. They were a mixture of people from ULKC, Limerick Canoe Club and a few individuals who were press-ganged into helping on the day, they all did their work perfectly so theres a huge thanks owed to everyone involved!

There are a few videos and pics from the day starting to filter onto the web, I'll put up a few myself in the next few days when I get time. It wont be tomorrow anyway since the wind at the coast has eventually swung around to offshore. Delighted, I havnt been out kayak surfing in way too long!