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.

The Rapids

Anyone who has had the pleasure of my company, while enjoy a few brews, over the years has heard me rant about "The Rapids" on the Corrib in Galway.

My rants usually include claims of the best river wave in the country, where any move is possible in any boat, where you could roll up with a tampon on your deck and cornflakes up your nose and only works when the tides, moon, rain, water levels, air pressure and stars align.

Thankfully, the sewage plant has cleaned the water a bit, but I have never had any proof of my other lofty claims.

Until now . . . .

Last weekend the Corrib was on full release of 16 gates, there was high pressure and there were minus low tides, this meant one thing, the rapids would be working.

And fortunately Chris was there to record the occasion and provide proof that . . .

"The Rapids" do exist ! ! !

Here is the video Chris put together, i'm sure you agree the quality is great. Enjoy.

Lower Corrib Rapids from Christopher Tierney on Vimeo.

Chris's post on the session is here

http://www.chrisdidthis.com/?p=1832

Here are a few stills from my footage

Pierce testing the Molan.

Conor Allen surfing it up.

John Staunton bouncing high.

Me flopping.

Daragh Croc launching for a blunt.

Joe Ryan getting vertical.

Steve Hynes going clean in the PX56.

Smoother surfing

The Irish Kayak Intervarsities 2011

This year it was over to UCC and CIT to host the Irish Kayaking Intervarsity’s. The varsities are a hotly contested battle over 3 days with competitions in four disciplines of kayaking: polo, whitewater, freestyle and the long distance. The competition is a well known event among young kayakers in Ireland for the paddling and the epic parties that follow. This year 12 colleges participated with somewhere in the area of 2-300 paddlers. UL were the favourites and they did not disappoint taking home the overall trophy for the second year in a row.
This year I was representing a strong contingent from G.M.I.T kayak club with about 60 paddlers making themselves noticed on the water as well as at the party!

The weekend kicked off with a polo competition at the National Rowing Centre where the Castlebar team took home gold with four strong wins.

-the winning team-
On Saturday morning at the early hour of 8am nice water levels were experienced on the Upper Bandon for the team whitewater race. The Upper Bandon is a class 3 run with several small rapids and one class 3+ drop towards the end. The race culminated at the finish line just below the main drop. This drop provided a make or break location for the teams with several swims experienced metres away from the finish. Here the home team from Cork took home gold.

-teamUCD-
In the afternoon students pitted their endurance against each other on a long distance race course also at the National Rowing Centre. K boats and high performance kayaks raced on a course of 8 k with the G.P.s and Canadian canoes having to paddle 4k. The long distance has no limit on the number of paddlers each college can enter and here G.M.I.T entered a strong team of about 30 paddlers. And received a notable amount of medals; first place in the K1, second in the Topo-duo, second + third in women’s HP and second in men’s HP.
I finished second in the men’s HP class with a tough battle against a paddler from UL kayak club. Sprinting against him for the last kilometre it was anyone’s race and I finished inches ahead of him in front of a massive crowd of vocal supporters from G.M.I.T on the bank.

-Some long distance action-
The Sunday saw the freestyle event being run on the sluice on the river Lee just outside of Cork city. Sadly the water level was not very favourable producing a very flushy hole on the day. The event was run in a ‘round robin’ format with each team of 4 having 8 minutes to freestyle it up! The 2 highest scoring runs from each competitor were then counted towards the college’s total score.

-a top secret location in the heart of Cork city-

It was then back to UCC campus for the prize giving where GMIT provided the entertainment-


Overall results:
UL 1ST, UCC 2nd and GMIT 3rd.
Big thank you to UCC and all the varsities team for producing a fantastic event. Next year will hopefully see G.M.I.T. hosting the event for the first time in Castlebar.
Photos by Nigel and Barbra honourary members of G.M.I.T.K.C.

Paddy’s New Expedition Kayak

Earlier this week, Paddy’s lovely, shiny, new Northshore Polar HV Kayak arrived for his forthcoming Round Ireland Expedition.

  Paddy’s still in his last year of Outdoor Eduction at GMIT in Castlebar, Co Mayo so he dropped everything, hit the road and arrived up to Dublin to pick up his new baby.

The Northshore Polar HV is one of the biggest composite sea kayaks we could source and is sure to be big enough to carry Paddy and his gear on his trip around Ireland.

Paddy is undertaking the trip in May/June this year and is up against some stiff competition from a couple of other groups looking to break the current record.  He will be paddling with Danny Egan and they are currently training hard.

Both Paddy and Dan are supported by I-CANOE and Kokatat Waterwear and we all wish them a safe journey.

Keep an eye on the I-CANOE blog for further updates and progress and please donate what you can to their chosen charity Irish Hospice Foundation:

http://www.mycharity.ie/event/timpeall_na_tire

For more details on the Northshore Polar HV see here:

http://www.i-canoe.com/Kayaks/Touring%25252FSea+Kayaks/Northshore+Polar+HV.html

Lambay Island 23-01-11

A trip to Lambay Island, about 3 - 4km off the East coast of Ireland, had been on the cards for a while but due to one reason or another I had never gotten round to it.

On Sunday the 23rd January 2011, all the pieces fell into place: we had the sea kayaks already loaded on the van, the weather forecast was calm and clear with minimal swell and we had two locals, Paddy and John McGovern to guide us!

To us River Rats, whose furthest excursion offshore has been to either Dalkey Island or Irelands Eye, this seemed truly epic!  We had enough spare bits and pieces to cover any mishap we could expect but if something did go wrong, there was no swimming 10 metres to the shoreline and walking back to the van for help.

“I did say there was minor swell”

We departed from the harbour in Rush and made surprisingly quick time crossing the few kms to the island.  There was a trawler close to the shore attracting A LOT of birds and as we got closer to the island we could start to pick out it’s features: windmill, jet-black cattle, sheep, hillocks, a small cluster of buildings and what looked like a large walled garden. 

We were aware the locals didn’t take kindly to strangers, so we found a sheltered cove to pull in and take a quick rest and a bite of lunch by the waterline.  Thankfully the day remained calm and clear and we got a great view of the North Dublin coastline to the West and the Mourne Mountains to the North.

 

We didn’t have time to do a full lap of the island, so we headed back up the west coast and made the crossing back to the mainland.

We met a couple of nosey seals who popped up every now and again trailing us back to the harbour in Rush.

All in all a great day and will definitely be back again.

So the training has begun!......Timpeall na Tíre 2011

On the first of June 2011 myself and paddling buddy Danny Egan will be setting off to circumnavigate Ireland by sea kayak. The trip is being run in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation. A very well deserving chairty, working in Ireland to increase the standard of end of life healthcare in our hospitals. http://www.hospice-foundation.ie
We intend to get around Ireland as quickly as the weather will allow. And we have started a training regime to ensure that this will be possible. Currently the focus is on our diet, plenty of winter sea paddling and the overall increase of our aerobic abilities.
Here are a couple of shots from some recent trips on the east coast, at Rockabill, Lambay Island and Dalkey.

Shag's perched on the islands at skerries





the uninhabited rockabill up close



a rabbit sheltering from a force 6 on dalkey island




returning to loughshiny at dusk





The adventure is being supported by Colm at I-Canoe and Kokatat watersports equipment. If you would like to donate to a good cause please go to this webpage: http://www.mycharity.ie/event/timpeall_na_tire
Donations can be made by laser, visa and mastercard.

Thanks alot from Danny and Paddy, plenty more information soon to follow.

Learn to Paddle K1 Day 6

Day 6 was a wet and windy day with no chance in getting out in a K2 I had a beginner training session which I did whilst paddling a K1 good work in bad conditions with no swims and a successful morning I then took advantage of the wet conditions heading for the mountains for a quick spin down the Avonmore.

Levels were medium nice to be back in something that turns

 

The evening then took me back to the pool for a bit of indoor coaching working with Lacken CC and then teaching a bit of rolling!

 

A very busy day all set for the K2 Race tomorrow!!!

Learning to Paddle K1 Day 4 and 5

Day 4 / 5 was a bit boring, spending time indoors working on fitness and a bit of technique unfortunately it doesnt make great viewing but here she is!

 

 

Hopefully tomorrow is time to learn K2 :-) now that could be intresting :-)

CANI Paddlefest 2011

The CANI Paddlefest has been announced to run over the weekend of the 18th – 20th March 2011.

The CANI Paddlefest always proves to be an eventful and insightful weekend with lots of clinics, demos and impartial advice.

I-CANOE will be there, and we suggest you should be too!

Further details can be found at the link below:

http://www.cani.org.uk/?module=datalistdetail&itemid=0755d3df-3640-45a5-958f-f7c41d327126

They’re Here! – Wavesport Project X

The new Wavesport Project X’s arrived this week – as you can see Ronnie and Bernie were pretty excited.

Here’s a few comparison snaps of Wavesports new Freestyle Machine.

Project 48X meet Project 56X

 

They balance nicely on edge!

Project 48X v’s Allstar (can you tell which is which?)

Project 48X v’s Allstar – Allstar’s slightly longer but there’s not much in it

Learning to K1 Day 3

Day 3 went well with a nice paddle round half the lake really getting the hang of it,

Until I stopped to look at the plane hmmm…. lose concentration for 2 seconds and … Splash

 

Day 4 im going to look at using an indoor machine… at least I cant get wet

Day 5 On the water K1 Practice

Day 6 Might even get a shot in a K2

Day 7 3 laps of the lake :-)

Learning to K1 Day 2

Day 2 of my challenge and I decided to try winged paddles......

 

I found them nice and powerful in the forward stroke but nothing on the back of the blade, They have a nice pull through the water but I did find them a little trippy on entry

so after a successful K1 paddle I decided to really test them out :-)

 

 

Next up I think I need to learn some technique :-)

Learning to K1 Day 1

Well ive set myself the challenge im going to learn to paddle K1 this week!

From no experience to doing 3 laps of the lake next sunday.

 

Day 1 Didnt start too well a couple of swims but luckily being the only K1 Paddler in a drysuit has got its advantages!

 

anyway check out the video!

 

Tomorrow im going to attempt the use of wings!

.Adrian