Northern Ireland Surf Kayak Trip

After a long summer of working, flatwater kayaking, mountain biking and the occasional surf kayak and river trip the competition season has finally kicked off with the British and Irish Surf Kayak Open Competitions. Since they were only a week apart and I hadn't taken any holidays over the summer I decided to take the week in between them off work and spend it chilling out and surfing on the North coast.

So back on Friday the 13th I packed up the car with all my surfing gear, camping gear and, thankfully, some books and started on the drive up to Portrush. When I got there we were told by the competition organisers at the briefing that although the forecast for Saturday was ok Sunday was going to bring gale force winds and uncontestable conditions. The decision was made to try to run the competition off in one day, no small task when there was around 60 people competing between all the different categories and it meant we were on the beach from 7.30 in the morning till 8.30 at night! It was a really long day, especially for the organisers and judges who were on the go all day trying to keep everything running smoothly but it all ran off in the end. The lack of surf back in Clare over the summer showed pretty badly, my surfing was all over the place and I came away with no results worth mentioning. It was a great event all the same though, it was good to get back into the surf boat in some decent waves and surfing against some of the guys who were over from the UK was a real eye opener. And thankfully a meal in 55 Degrees North had been included in our entry fee so as soon as the prize giving was finished up we all headed off for a well earned dinner.

 

 A well deserved meal in 55 North. It was great to catch up with everyone again, especially the Irish and Northern Irish paddlers that I hadn't seen for a long time.

 

 Yeah, it was a long day!

 

Working on the slashed top turns in the IC boat.

As promised, the next few days were a complete write off with gale force winds and no decent waves to be had anywhere. We spent a few days hiding from the weather in hostels and coffee shops, and doing the tourist thing and driving along the coast and visiting the Bushmills whiskey distellery before the wind died down marginally and we headed for Donegal. When we got to Magheroaty on Tuesday there were great waves and we were delighted to get on the water after the few days of doing nothing. When we paddled out we were quickly reminded of the small/far away rule! The waves were surprisingly big with a very steep and heavy take off.  It's difficult to put a number on how big the waves were but I'm going to guess at at least 10ft plus faces! Anyway I got some great waves in the HP boat before I got caught in the wrong place by a big set. I tried to roll under the first wave but the lip landed directly on the hull of the boat, giving me a heavy beating and splitting the seam of the boat for around 4 feet along the rail! I had the paddlesurf IC boat with me so I was able to get back on the water and make the most of the session but that's the last that boat's going to be surfed untill I manage to do some major repair work to it. Big thanks to Mickey and Aisling for being there to make sure I got to shore ok, I wouldn't like to have been in the same situation and with just myself in the water! Unfortunatly we got no pictures or videos of the waves that day, everyone was way too eager to get on the water for that kind of rubbish!

The wind came up again for the next few days which meant that was the last surf we got untill Easky on Friday. We travelled down to Easky for the Irish open on Thursday and when we got there the wind was so strong that you could lean pretty far into it and it would easily support you! Luckily the wind dropped on Friday and we got two great sessions in small, clean waves. I had a go on Paddlesurf Ireland's new KS One beginner Waveski which persuaded me to enter the waveski division in the open. This meant that I was going to be competing in all three divisions in the competition; waveski, long boat and short boat; it was going to be a busy weekend! I had another nice surf in the long boat too, although it sucks that I broke my HP boat it meant that I paddled the long boat way more than I would normally and that definatly let me figure a few things out in it. 

 

We had some great waves on Friday, I made the most of it paddling the ski and IC boat.

All during the week, when we didn't have great access to the internet for forecasts, we were hearing rumours about an all time swell that was meant to be hitting on Saturday but we didn't really believe them. When someone said that Dessie McGlinchey was predicting double over head waves at Easky we took a little bit more notice but still didn't really think that we could get that lucky. But sure enough, we arrived at Easky bright and early on Saturday morning for the competition and it was epic! Perfectly clean, light offshore winds and head and a half high sets coming through at regular intervals, what more could you ask for!

 

Epic!

The event started off with the HP first round heats and mine was a complete disaster, I was paddling a borrowed boat that I'd never been in before and I just wasn't in tune with it at all, so it was into the reps for me. The IC and waveski first rounds went better, the KS beginners ski is definatly not designed for those conditions but despite some dodgy take offs and sliding out on steep take-offs the first round heat went pretty well and I made it through to the next round. And I had a brilliant time in the IC heat. The waves were perfect and after paddling the IC a few times before the competition I had got to know it pretty well. I got some great waves and was feeling so comfortable that I even attempted to helix the boat a few times, not that it ever actually worked! After borrowing a different HP boat that I got on slightly better with and a morning of being on and off the water in the various divisions I was through to the IC final and the waveski and HP semi finals. However all day the swell and wind were building drastically and by the afternoon the waves were double overhead plus and the wind was gusting 55/60 km/h offshore! The wind meant that trying to paddle into waves was extremily difficult and because of the spray in your face you couldn't see a thing! The whole thing definatly went way past fun and into scary territory! 

 

 Andy McClelland just visible on one of the monsters! Photo by Ian McClelland. 

I took off slightly too deep on one of the bigger waves in my borrowed HP boat in the semi final and thought I'd just about be able to take a high line and make it around the section. However it turned out I was wrong. According to the judges afterwards I got barreled, and made ground in the barrel, before I slipped too low on the wave and the lip landed on my head! The paddles instantly got ripped out of my hands and it turns out I can't handroll a Mega Merlin, so for the first time in 6 years I was swimming. Thanks to Chris and the lads for getting me to the shore fairly quickly but by the time I was back in the boat it was too late to make up the deficit and I was out of the HP. And although I had made the waveski semi final the long boat final was on directly afterwards, and the beginner ski had barely been able to handle the smaller, less hollow waves that morning so I made the tactical decision not to paddle out.  The long boat final was challenging! Huge waves, crazy wind, solid opposition, I got some nice waves and paddled fairly well on them but Chris and Andy are some tough competition and I ended up coming third. I'm happy enough with the result, and after we held the prizegiving and cleared up all the competition paraphernalia we headed back to Enniscrone for dinner and several well deserved pints of Guiness! For Sunday and Monday the wind dropped off, the swell died down a lot and I had a few more great chilled out sessions at Easky before I drove back home. 

 

It feels like flying!

 

Managed some sweet roundhouse cutbacks in the HP boat before it all went wrong!

 

As I said, some of the IC heats were fuuun!

 

Scored a sweet trophy for taking 3rd in the IC. Huge thank to Morgan O'Sullivan for organising the Open for the last few years. Unfortunatly family committments have forced him to pull out of organising events for the moment. He'll be missed!

This week has been spent recovering, settling back into work and assessing the damage on my HP boat to see what it'll take to fix it. The college paddling season is in full flow too, with what feels like hundreds of first years and foreign students showing up to pool sessions every night mad to learn to paddle. So it's been a great week of going through the basics and having the craic with a new generation of paddlers. This weekend is the club trip to Lahinch, an annual weekend of paddling and partying. It's going to be epic, I can't wait! Plans are also in the works for this years freestyle and whitewater race leagues. Keep an eye out online, it looks like there's going to be a jam packed calender of kayaking events over the next few months, starting out with the Curragower freestyle competition that I'm organising on the 9th of October. Keep an eye on here or on facebook for updates on that one, it's going to be good! 

Clifden Freestyle Weekend

At the weekend the Galway lads, led by Barry Loughnane, hosted a great event up at Clifden. Two days of camping, kayaking, drinking and generally chilling out in glorious sunshine makes for a pretty perfect kayaking event! The hole was working in the afternoons too, so there was no need for an crazy early drive to get there like with most kayaking events! The general plan for the weekend was to show up on Saturday afternoon, have a paddling/coaching session followed by a flatwater freestyle comp and then head to Dun Loughlin beach for camping, bbq and beers. Sunday then there was the main competition followed by the traditional inflatable class.

The flatwater competition went really well, even though I havn't done much flatwater freestyle recently I think the training I'm doing is helping me hit moves more consistantly than I was a few months ago and I managed to get second place behind Barry Loughnane. Unfortunatly the actual competition on Sunday was nowhere near as successful and I finished the heat feeling like I had done nothing. I came sixth in the end which although it's not last is not where I want to be. Oh well, more work to be done obviously!

On Saturday evening we had a bbq, the Irish Freestyle AGM and a small session. Since the AGM I am now secretary of the Irish Freestyle Committe. Any suggestions on what to do for the year or advice on how to do a  secretarys job is more than welcome! Another advantage of the hole only working in the afternoon was that we got a nice long lie in on Sunday morning. That's another rareity at kayaking events, and a nice change! The less said about the competition the better but paddling the hole afterwards was good craic, my paddling started to kick back into gear and as the hole got faster and more retentive it was entertaining watching people to keep some kind of control over what kind of ends they were doing. Eventually we got sick of getting beaten every time we went into the hole and called it a day, and headed back towards Clifden for the prizegiving.

Next weekend I'm heading back to Clifden with a gang from ULKC, it should be a good chance to get the place properly figured out and hopefully improve the results at the next comp. I'm looking forward to that now, it should be another good weekend. Bis Bald!

1st place, Brian Boru polo competition in Killaloe!

Last weekend the annual Brian Boru polo competion was held in Killaloe. It took a bit of work to find people who were available but eventually we managed to bully enough people into playing so that UL could field a team. Saturday went well except for one small hiccup when we lost to UCC in one of the first round matches. We made the most of the day, using all the matches as a chance to teach the people on the team who had never played before how to play polo before the important matches started on Sunday. All of our other matches went well and we qualified for the semis in second place, leaving us playing the 3rd placed team from North Wall in the semi final. Saturday night was great craic. A quick trip home to pick up food, beer and a tent and I was chilling out for the evening with lots of cool people from UCD and UCC. It also let me have a valuble lie in the next morning compared to all the rest of the UL team!

The next day was the big one, we had one first round match left to go before the semi's which was our only chance to introduce another batch of polo virgins to the game before the finals. That went well, Rob and Dean learnt most of the rules and then we had a great match against a solid North Wall team in the semi. This gave us a chance to restore some damaged pride in the final against UCC. Sean Mullens suggested playing 10 minutes a side in the final instead of the usual 8 but thankfully he was overruled by the players on the pitch! 8 minutes is plenty when you're playing at that kind of intensity! Everyone on both teams was really fired up for the final and everyone gave it their all but eventually we finished up a few goals ahead. Delighted with the result! Hopefully the win will kick a bit of momentum into ULKC that we can keep up over the summer and into varsities training in September.

I also played as a sub for Galway A in division 1 at the weekend, and we won that too! Div 1 is a whole different story to div 3! It was great to get the chance to be a part of it and thanks to the lads for letting me play with them. Fair play to Rob, Dean, Emma and Mike who all had their first taste of polo at the weekend, they all got the hang of what they were doing incredibly quickly, and we couldn't have done it without them. And although the weather was a massive help in making the weekend as fun as it was, most of the credit has to go to the organisers. Everything ran like clockwork, not an easy thing to coordinate when you've got 15 teams playing in two seperate divisions.

The next few weeks are going to be pretty good, next weekend is a combined surf kayak/windsurfing trip with the UL windsurfing trip and the following two weekends there are events in Clifden, starting with a round of the Irish freestyle league. So lets hope this weather sticks around for another while!

Team ULKC; Rob, Dean, Gavin, Jack, Me and Donie after winning the final on Sunday. Missing Mike, Emma Porter and Emma Ryan.

EXO XT

How often do you hear manufacturers plugging their latest creek designs as 'giving soft landings off big drops' or 'resurfacing under complete control' or 'punching through big holes with ease'. Well that's all great news if you're off on some dream tour to lands of big volume and big waterfalls but what about the other 49 weeks every year, if you're lucky? I know we spend all our time watching the weather forecasts and praying for the Glens/Flesk/Glenmac to come up but realistically the majority of our time on the water is spent pissing about on rivers like the Castleconnel and the Annamoe, getting that fix any way we can.

Now I'm on work experience at the moment for eight months, and at the end of that I'll be going into what's meant to be an extremily tough semester of college so realistically I'll have an entire year of making do with whatever water the Rain Gods send our way here in Ireland. So I decided to have a look around and see what boats might be a bit more suited to the paddling that I'll be doing for the next year than the Habitat. The Habitat was the perfect boat for what I did last summer, big and forgiving with a bit of rail there for when it's needed. It's tough too, it took some pretty good abuse day in day out for 3 months with no problems at all except for a broken backrest strap, which can be forgiven considering what I was doing with it at the time! But take it out on the Castleconnel and you're left looking for something that'll just carve that bit tighter, and be a bit more responsive, and surf a bit nicer.

From that it sounds like what I need is a river runner like a Dagger GTX or Pyranha Inazone but I still plan to be on the Glens every time it works and the Flesk as often as possible, and I've taken a GT down the Glens before and lets just say it's not ideal! So over the last few weeks I've been paddling a few different boats, getting an idea of what's out there. Over in Italy last year I saw all the local lads paddling Exo XTs and they looked odd, but functional. So a few weeks ago I got a demo off Saor Uisce to see what it was like for myself. Up close it looks interesting. Completly flat hull, hard rails the full length of the boat, vertical sidewalls, and big volume (300l, same volume as the Habitat 80.) Out on the river, it instantly made Castleconnel infinitly more fun! You can feel the boat grip every time you cross a small eddyline, which makes it possible to enjoy so many more features on the river than in a displacement hulled creeker. The faster and more defined the eddyline the better it feels, it feels like you're sitting on a wire guided missile going over some of the better eddylines on Castleconnel! And the first time I went for one of the more difficult s-moves on the river I burst out laughing because of how good it felt when caving through the turn! It's keeping me on my toes too, edge into a turn too late out of lazyness and the edge will catch. Not enough to turn you over but enough to remind you to cop on and paddle properly! Do the same thing in the Habitat and you wouldn't even notice you had done anything wrong. Great when the mistake would mean getting a beating in a massive hole but it does make smaller rivers a bit boring, and lets you drop the ball with your paddling technique. The Exo also feels nice and quick, I havn't got a chance to do a direct comparison with the Habitat yet but over a 2.5 minute course it went 3 seconds faster than a medium Mamba.

Everything isn't perfect with the XT. Somehow, when you go to empty water out it all flows either side of the cockpit and doesn't actually fall out, meaning that x-rescues are a bit of a pain in the arse and you pretty much have to use the bung every time you want to get a small bit of water out. The grab loops run longtitudinally which isn't ideal, especially when pulling the boat up steep hills and stuff like that. And the rachets seem to consist of more parts than neccessary, and feel a bit more flimsy than some other systems so they're not the most confidence inspiring out there. They do work perfectly tho. I also don't really know how it's going to go on bigger stuff like the Glens, the flat hull and hard rails will probably affect flares and freewheels, and might make it a bit twitchy when punching through stuff. There's only one way to know for sure tho, and those minor issues and question marks weren't enough to turn me off it. It's got enough volume and hull speed to get it though most obstacles anyway, and I had so much fun in the short time that I had the demo boat that I decided I had to get my own one. So the next time you see me on a river I'll be paddling a sharp looking red and black Exo XT! All going well I'll have a few words to say on how it handles in bigger water soon. As always, pray for rain!

It's that time of year again...

...the time of after work surfs! Once I finished work yesterday evening I headed to Dougmore with some of the lads from ULKC. The waves were nice and punchy and we were on the water till the sun went down, since the weather was completly clear we even got to see a class sunset! Hopefully we'll get plenty of evenings like that as the summer goes on.

In other news, since my last post on here I've been through a few weeks of exams and started work experience, or co-op, with Analog Devices in Raheen. This week's been pretty hectic but as time goes on things should calm down and hopefully I'll be able to get out kayaking a few evenings every week. It's no 4 month trip to Europe but I'll try to make the best of it!