Hero Verses Hero

So earlier this month we received our first shipment of 2011 Jackson Hero’s.  “So what’s big the difference?” you may ask and indeed we wondered ourselves.

Time for a little side by side comparison – I’ll let the photos do the talking:

More specs on the 2011 Hero and purchasing info can be found here:

http://www.i-canoe.com/Kayaks/Whitewater/River+Running+Kayaks/Jackson+Kayak+Hero+2011+-+S%25252FL.html

For a great deal on a 2010 Hero see here (while stocks last):

http://www.i-canoe.com/Kayaks/Whitewater/River+Running+Kayaks/Jackson+Kayak+Hero+2008.html

For the official 2011 Hero Promo Video, see below:

Jackson Rockstars are here!

So after months of hype and speculation followed by a week of camping out waiting for the delivery they finally arrive!

shorter than the all star with more volume this boat is definately going to be special, so with that in mind we found our special friend to take a seat in the small size.

I luckily having been their all week managed to take first pick and decided on a beautiful blue/white colour

So with a new boat I headed to the WWKC pool session with both my boat and the demo to give the juniors a taste of the new toy!

heres the video put together by Conor Macken showing the first session out, Il happily say theirs plenty more to come when the water returns,

Rockstar first pool session

along with the Rockstars came the new 2011 Hero in funky Rasta colours heres colm giving it the thumbs up.

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.

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