CANI Paddlefest 2011

Once again Paddlefest time of year was upon us in recent years this was a chance to load up the shop and go and show the world what was on offer but with the dates being the Paddy’s day weekend meant a low take up of participant that along with having to work meant we could not travel until after the England Ireland Rugby game on the saturday night,

This Years Paddlefest was due to take place at the newly redeveloped Tollymore Outdoor Centre in The Mournes and WOW it is truly remarkable!

We arrived with talks and lectures in full swing with showings from Richard Lineham and Jeff Allen as well as Lowri Davies on the Friday kept everyone entertained,

This years theme was Journeying and expedition with many sessions looking at skill needed for these situations,

The sunday activities of both river and sea skills was taking place at a small tidal flow in Dundrum Bay so with the I-Canoe wagon loaded we  set our selves up with a selection of Demo river and sea kayaks for all to try. With a lot of interest in the new Project 56X and the old Favourite 2010 Allstar we had a small freestyle workshop  right in front of us.

Back to the centre for catch up and debrief with familier faces and we leave paddlefest for another year.

Well done to CANI Paddlefest has a great attraction for all even with lower number the event was a  huge hit.

Toome Training 27 March 2011

With the lack of water over the past few weeks has seen people start to get itchy feet looking for water, A post popped up last week saying Toome wave (Northern Ireland) was back working,

Toome only works in low water when everything is dry the fish pass to the side of the weir gates forms a retentive wave the only problem are the steel girders which are in position as an Anti Poaching measure. this makes the feature shallow and means boats get very beaten up if not careful.

Heres a quick video put together by Conor Macken from Sluice Crew.

Toome Training, Spin to win or Die.

Wacko On the Jacko weekend

Over the weekend 26th / 27th February came the much anticipated return of Irelands classic boater X event, in previous years it be run under many names but now it was back as Wacko on The Jacko, run by Kipper and Keoghser of Total Experience with the help of a Local Outdoor Education Centre.

Everyone arrived early Saturday to a low but runnable Jacksons where the event kicked off with the individual race, 4 at a time would race from the Jacksons lead in over the falls and hit the eddy above little Jacksons with the top placed progressing through to the next round.

The heats were full of carnage and beatings with a busy rescue team jumping on anything that tumbled. Up came the Expert men of which I had myself a tough heat with Colm (I-Canoe), Paddy and Ger. (WWKC) getting myself boxed in at the beginning and finding myself at the back of the pack a last sprint into Jacksons just in front of colm and a cheeky roll at the bottom before he landed on me left me in third place and out of the competition,

Individual Heat Wacko

The individual final was a case of same old faces with Mr Paddy McGovern and YIanni fighting it out in their age old battle once again paddy came out on top.

The Saturday afternoon saw the team race over the short course where a team of three would race against the clock with 3 challenges, one would roll, one would pass their paddle through a hoop and the third must make the energiser eddy, on my team me colm and mark Coleman, colm rolled successfully mark (C1) passed his paddle through the hoop and I made the energiser, but I miss timed my exit and fell left into the pit where luckily rescue ranger Paul Williamson saved me from an almost certain swim. the team race was won by the joint team this time of Paddy Yianni and Steve

Wacko on the Jacko 2011, Team I-CANOE from Colm Healy on Vimeo.

the Saturday night party and drinks was a social affair with big crowds descending on Lynhams for a fun filed night of live music and socialising.

Sunday morning dreary eyed and rather hungover saw the team race over the long course from trooperstown to the same eddy at Jacksons. this would take somewhere between 11-15 mins we had a last minute substitution due to technical issues swapping C1 mark for Big Water Mack the only man who has never rushed for anything let alone a race!

give him his dues he got down without stopping to light up!

Team I-Canoe Long Race

The long race was won by Benny, John and Tom in their maximum length choppers!

overall a great weekend good craic and a great showing by all proving paddling is not dead!

thanks to Total experience for a great event!

Improving a Guardian

Disclaimer type thing: Neither I-CANOE nor NRS take any responsibility for altering/changing/etc.. rescue equipment.  To do so would be entirely at your own risk. 

So, we took one standard NRS Guardian, waist mounted throwbag.  The biggest criticism we have had is down to the weedy thin rope that they come with as standard.  So first things first, we ditched the weedy thin rope.

 

Next up, we used some 11/16” Tubular Webbing to form a loop in the end of the bag small enough to attach a carabiner.

Then we got some nice and chunky 3/8” floating polypro rope and tied it securely to the webbing inside the bag.  This will make rope handling a lot easier, minimises rope burn and adds a nice “throwing weight” to the bag

We had 10 metres of 3/8” rope to hand but the standard internal Guardian throwbag would probably take up to 13 or 14 metres which is more than enough for a “bullet-bag”.

Here she is, the finished bag.  It may not be much to look at but she throws like a dream while still being compact enough to wear with the waist belt.

Sluice training

The week before the selections at Sluice saw the ESB dumping 3 meg every lunch time making a perfect break in the day for some training, Myself and Tricky Woo Walshy spent the week training hard and working on improvement

heres some footage

Sluice training with Walshy and the Sluice Crew

The sluice Crews HeadCam footage from the same day,

Headcam edit from Shane little

Project X 48 @ Sluice

Sluice was a lovely 3 1/2 megs last week, so I headed down with my new toy and the camera...

Wavesport Project X 48 @ Sluice from Ronan Brennan on Vimeo.