Weather warmer than the canaries, 4ft swell, light offshore winds... the only place to be is at the beach! Dougmore was firing on Sunday at about 4ft and very hollow and heavy, the kind of waves that when you're on them their savage but one mistake and you're going to feel it for quite a while afterwards!! Heres a quick video of a few waves from the session, all going well we'll be out there again tomorrow!
A log of a single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation of the island of Ireland in a 22ft sailboat departing in June 2020.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Gower Freestyle Comp
Last Sunday the Curragower round of the Irish Freestyle league was held on one of the best days we've got in the last few months. Its great to finally be able to hang around and watch a competition without getting frostbite at the side of the river!
The competition went well, I've been paddling Gower a good bit recently and I'm finally managing to consistantly put together a few decent moves in a competition run. Theres still lots of room for improvement obviously but its a start. In the end the runs I managed were enough to put me in third behind Moe Kelleher and Dave O'Sullivan. Not too bad but theres still room for improvement before the next competition!
Heres a full list of results from the day:
The competition went well, I've been paddling Gower a good bit recently and I'm finally managing to consistantly put together a few decent moves in a competition run. Theres still lots of room for improvement obviously but its a start. In the end the runs I managed were enough to put me in third behind Moe Kelleher and Dave O'Sullivan. Not too bad but theres still room for improvement before the next competition!
Heres a full list of results from the day:
Sport:
1 - Roseanne, 100
2 - Mairead, 70
2 - Maria, 70
4 - Bernard Walsh, 20
Womens:
1 - Aisling Griffin, 220
2 - Caoimhe Farrell, 120
3 - Muireann Lynch, 90
4 - Emer Farrell, 50
Juniors:
1 - Billy Brett, 835
2 - Shane Little, 345
3 - Conor Macken, 310
4 - Robbie O'Shea, 290
5 - Alan Murphy, 220
6 - David McClure, 135
7 - Tom, 85
8 - Cian, 55
9 - Matt, 30
10 - Craig, 20
11 - Calvin, 10
Senior Men:
1 - Moe, 670
2 - Dave O'Sullivan, 470
3 - Eoin Keyes, 295
4 - Orky, 210
5 - Ronnie, 135
5 - Eoin Farrell, 135
7 - Colm, 115
1 - Roseanne, 100
2 - Mairead, 70
2 - Maria, 70
4 - Bernard Walsh, 20
Womens:
1 - Aisling Griffin, 220
2 - Caoimhe Farrell, 120
3 - Muireann Lynch, 90
4 - Emer Farrell, 50
Juniors:
1 - Billy Brett, 835
2 - Shane Little, 345
3 - Conor Macken, 310
4 - Robbie O'Shea, 290
5 - Alan Murphy, 220
6 - David McClure, 135
7 - Tom, 85
8 - Cian, 55
9 - Matt, 30
10 - Craig, 20
11 - Calvin, 10
Senior Men:
1 - Moe, 670
2 - Dave O'Sullivan, 470
3 - Eoin Keyes, 295
4 - Orky, 210
5 - Ronnie, 135
5 - Eoin Farrell, 135
7 - Colm, 115
Monday, March 5, 2012
First surf competition of the year
Last weekend saw the first Paddlesurf Ireland competition of the year take place in Clare. There was a sweet swell forecast for the weekend but the wind was always going to be a problem at about 20 knots onshore. We weren't sure where the best waves were going to be so we all met up in Spanish Point on Saturday morning and went looking for surf.
After checking out Cregg and stopping in O'Looney's for a coffee while we were waiting for the tide to rise and the wind to drop off a bit we ended up holding the competition in Hegarty's, which is a sweet point break there on the Clare coast. The waves were big and powerful, with a bit of chop and wedgy sections in them because of the wind, always good craic and it adds to the entertainment factor on the beach! I was up first in the mens HP. The waves that came in were nice but there was a very long time between sets because of the wave period. I got one savage wave in the middle of the heat but I couldnt get a decent second wave to back it up before the heat ended so I finished in second behind Mick Barry.
The IC competition went better. I got lots of waves and managed to pull some cool stuff on them, including an attempted end move which I think turned into an exit-air-barrel roll thing and another attempted end move which turned into a huge slash/top turn thing off the close-out section! Happy out! I ended up winning the IC class, and a few of the lads that I brougt up got to see a surf kayak comp for the first time so it was a good day overall!
Results:
HP Class
1st Mick Barry, 2nd Eoin Keyes, 3rd Anthony Coyne.
IC:
1st Eoin Keyes, 2nd Mick Barry, 3rd Anthony Coyne.
After checking out Cregg and stopping in O'Looney's for a coffee while we were waiting for the tide to rise and the wind to drop off a bit we ended up holding the competition in Hegarty's, which is a sweet point break there on the Clare coast. The waves were big and powerful, with a bit of chop and wedgy sections in them because of the wind, always good craic and it adds to the entertainment factor on the beach! I was up first in the mens HP. The waves that came in were nice but there was a very long time between sets because of the wave period. I got one savage wave in the middle of the heat but I couldnt get a decent second wave to back it up before the heat ended so I finished in second behind Mick Barry.
The IC competition went better. I got lots of waves and managed to pull some cool stuff on them, including an attempted end move which I think turned into an exit-air-barrel roll thing and another attempted end move which turned into a huge slash/top turn thing off the close-out section! Happy out! I ended up winning the IC class, and a few of the lads that I brougt up got to see a surf kayak comp for the first time so it was a good day overall!
Results:
HP Class
1st Mick Barry, 2nd Eoin Keyes, 3rd Anthony Coyne.
IC:
1st Eoin Keyes, 2nd Mick Barry, 3rd Anthony Coyne.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Tuam Session
We headed out to Tuam last weekend and afterwards about two hours of footage became this:
The water level was a bit low, loops just about worked if you were really gentle with plugging the nose. I'm pretty happy with how the video looks, just need to get out there at a better level to get some proper moves down.
The water level was a bit low, loops just about worked if you were really gentle with plugging the nose. I'm pretty happy with how the video looks, just need to get out there at a better level to get some proper moves down.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Varsities
Now that I've got all the work that I should have done at the weekend finished I might as well throw in a few details about what actually went down! Since the Polo was on Saturday we had to leave Limerick as crazy O'Clock in the morning, which meant meeting up on Thursday night to pack up everything. I've never seen such a variety of gear being loaded up for one trip before in my life! 2 trailers, 30-40 odd boats and lord knows how much paddles and other gear! I guess it doesnt help when you've got teams competing in Polo, Freestyle, Whitewater and something like 8 different classes in Long Distance.
For some reason this year they changed the format of the Polo competition. In the past it was run as a league to start off and then moved into semi finals and finals. This year it was a knock-out all the way, meaning that if you got a tough draw in the first round it could screw you over for the rest of the entire competition. Thats what happened to the team who were regarded as being the second best team in the competition, they came up against GMIT in the first round and that was the end of their polo competition. We didnt do as badly as that, we only came up against them in the second round, and lost miserably. We weren't too happy that we went out that early in the comptition but what can you do, we just had to do better in all the other events to make up for it!
The next morning the Whitewater event was run on the Clydagh, again at stupid o'clock in the morning. I stayed in bed and had a lie-in since I was competing in the Freestyle in the afternoon and this was my only event off but the lads came back saying that they weren't sure how they'd done but they thought they were pretty quick. They had one swim towards the end of the race, but so did every other team and since they had swam over the finish line that can only have been another advantage!
The freestyle that morning went really well! The water level at Tuam was awful but this was probably an advantage to us since none of us can stick moves like McNastys and Phonixes consistantly. As it was we played the score-sheet and went through all the fun moves before going for real moves, including attempting to stand up in our boats at the end for 50 points! As soon as we got off the water we knew that we'd scored well, and thanks to Adrian putting the results up on Irish Freestyle we found out that we'd come first in the event not long after. What surprised us was the margin we won by. We were 200 points clear of the next team, NUIG! I put together a video of the heat there in the last few days, check it out:
After the Freestyle the only competition that was left was long distance.This was supposed to be a 6km marathon but after problems with locations it got shortened to a 2km sprint. The classes for this were similar enough to the liffey descent. To get the most points overall we had people entered in every class but the specialist classes were very competitive with lots of people who paddle for Ireland in Wildwater and Marathon in them so we didn't really get any points from them. The less specialist classes were a different story tho! Barry and Niall were paddling the Duo, and Ethan and Oisin were in the Canadian and they won both of them! I was paddling in mens GP which was a huge class, with somewhere between 60 and 100 people racing. The race went really well and I was up around the front of the field for the whole race but was kind of disappointed to only come 3rd in the end after a good battle in the sprint to the finish.
At the awards sunday evening we found out that we had won the whitewater and fancy dress, as well as the freestyle that we already knew about. All this gave us 1st overall and a nice shiney new Molan to bring back in the back of the van! Delighted! Thanks to the lads that were in the club before us this is the 3rd year in a row that we've won the event so the drive back to Limerick was spent planning parties to celebrate the occasion and plotting world domination i.e. 4 in a row!
For some reason this year they changed the format of the Polo competition. In the past it was run as a league to start off and then moved into semi finals and finals. This year it was a knock-out all the way, meaning that if you got a tough draw in the first round it could screw you over for the rest of the entire competition. Thats what happened to the team who were regarded as being the second best team in the competition, they came up against GMIT in the first round and that was the end of their polo competition. We didnt do as badly as that, we only came up against them in the second round, and lost miserably. We weren't too happy that we went out that early in the comptition but what can you do, we just had to do better in all the other events to make up for it!
The freestyle that morning went really well! The water level at Tuam was awful but this was probably an advantage to us since none of us can stick moves like McNastys and Phonixes consistantly. As it was we played the score-sheet and went through all the fun moves before going for real moves, including attempting to stand up in our boats at the end for 50 points! As soon as we got off the water we knew that we'd scored well, and thanks to Adrian putting the results up on Irish Freestyle we found out that we'd come first in the event not long after. What surprised us was the margin we won by. We were 200 points clear of the next team, NUIG! I put together a video of the heat there in the last few days, check it out:
After the Freestyle the only competition that was left was long distance.This was supposed to be a 6km marathon but after problems with locations it got shortened to a 2km sprint. The classes for this were similar enough to the liffey descent. To get the most points overall we had people entered in every class but the specialist classes were very competitive with lots of people who paddle for Ireland in Wildwater and Marathon in them so we didn't really get any points from them. The less specialist classes were a different story tho! Barry and Niall were paddling the Duo, and Ethan and Oisin were in the Canadian and they won both of them! I was paddling in mens GP which was a huge class, with somewhere between 60 and 100 people racing. The race went really well and I was up around the front of the field for the whole race but was kind of disappointed to only come 3rd in the end after a good battle in the sprint to the finish.
At the awards sunday evening we found out that we had won the whitewater and fancy dress, as well as the freestyle that we already knew about. All this gave us 1st overall and a nice shiney new Molan to bring back in the back of the van! Delighted! Thanks to the lads that were in the club before us this is the 3rd year in a row that we've won the event so the drive back to Limerick was spent planning parties to celebrate the occasion and plotting world domination i.e. 4 in a row!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)