Clare Glens Sunday 18th September 2011

Clare Glens 50cm-42cm

Kanumesse Update 2

1. Wai Har models a new paddle wheel boat

2. Zets new carbon playboat with insane leg lock system

3. The new H2O Nano blade. Super stiff, light and strong

4. Full swing at the all you can eat/drink buffet

Kanumesse Update 1

Well we've just finished attending a very busy Kanumesse in Germany. There are lots of new and exciting products to come but this is just a brief flavor of what we saw:

1. New Zen rescue PFD from NRS based on their popular Ninja vest.

Kayaking Slovenia

So This September 8 Irish outdoor instructors and 1 Kiwi decided that they would round off the summer with a trip over to the Soca valley in Slovenia!!! After a long low summer on the barrow it was nice to get on some quality moving water

3 of us would drive from Ireland with all the kayaks and gear and the rest would Fly to munich and rent a car. The drive itself is a big ould spin taking in 9 countries and roughly 2200km from Waterford to Bovec in the soca valley! all in the drive including breaks, tunnel and ferry took about 30hrs.

Once we arrived we found the river at a very low level even for September locals told us it was particularly low afetr over a month of High temperatures and no rain, luckly our first night and day it bucketed down rain causing the river to rise slightly.

We started on the Slalom course which in the guide we had was graded at 4/4+ however we would give it a solid 3+ tight and technical! As we expected the river lived up to its rep of being S turn city with Boofs, Flares and rock spins to be made all over the place!!

Once off the river Slovenia is an amazing place with great people and amazing food and best of all its all dirt cheap we ate out every night and the cost was usually about €10-15 ahead for food & drinks (It was a big feed).

The season on the Soca starts in April and runs till October and judging by the amount of people there in September id say it gets very busy in the peak summer season!!

While out there we managed to get a day with the New Liquid Logic Stomper 80 whilst one of the girls paddled it for most of the day she loved it and then I took it for a spin and wow it is smooth, holds edge so well and moves on command I cant wait to take the 90 for a spin!!

All in all Slovenia is a great place to take a weeks kayaking with even enough to entertain in Low water!! The Perfect place for aspiring level 4 skills kayakers to go and get some practice!

Boat rental out on the river is also a cheap option if you only want to make a quick dash over Alpin action charge €18 a day and have a great stock of brand new kayaks, Fly into Venice or Munich and rent a car it really can be a cheap ass trip!!

Bliss Stick Mystic Lightening

In preparation for the Sick line extreme race I've been looking for a new boat something fast something shiny and something light!, fortunately I kept coming back to my trusty Bliss Stick Mystic which is now over 4 years old but sill love it, The rivers we've paddled or the good times we've had I have a kind of sentimental attachment surely its not really that heavy….

At first look she tips the scales at a mega 25kg’s ouch yes she really is that heavy so I set to work weight saving,

After removing the seat, footrest, front and rear pillars, airbags, throw line, bit of water, random foam pads, Due to the big water I decided to keep the original thigh braces with cup and the backrest system as standard,

and back on the scales at 16.38 kg, right. now to keep the weight down

Firstly The Seat

So out with the old seat,

 

at 2.38KG she is a big plastic beast! So working with I-Canoe has its bonuses with some hunting we manage to find “here's one we prepared earlier” lightweight Bliss Stick Seat weighing in at only 0.68kg’s

Then I chopped down the Pillars

 

Starting at 1.14kg for the two I managed to take 0.16kg off the rear pillar and another 0.34kg from the front pillar saving 0.5kg

Next was the footrest,

Removing the standard Bliss stick footrest with its wide plastic and metal bars weighed in at a healthy 1.32kg this was replaced by foam blocks after making myself a template

Then cutting foam to fit

The footrest alone is now down to a tantalising 0.3kg

so with the boat back on the scales here is the moment of truth has the Mystic diet actually worked,

minus all of this stuff

 

she's down to…….

Just 18.6KG

 

Test

To obviously check how this was I rounded up some of I-Canoe’s Stock boats to test there weights

Lightened Bliss Stick Mystic	18.6KG
Liquid Logic Stomper 80	21KG
Wave Sport Habitat 74	20.55KG
Jackson Villain S	21.8KG
2011 Jackson Hero SL	18.8KG
2010 Jackson Hero SL	19.34KG
Riot Magnum 74	23.4KG

A successful days outfitting,

British National Marathon Championships, Worcester, UK. 27-28th August

The weekend started with an early morning start leaving Dublin port on a long and slow moving path for Worcester, UK

Once we arrived we set up the tents on a quiet corner of the Worcester Race Course. This was followed by a quick paddle to learn the course and to practise the portage. As the night closed in we headed for a hearty dinner and early night before the Saturday races.

Saturday was upon us bright and early with clear skies and warm sun showering the tents. As competitors and coaches arrived and the course filled up their was a buzz off excitement around the place.

The venue was Worcester Canoe Club a large clib house located on the banks of the magnificent River Seven. The course ran from just downstream of the club heading upstream in a lap based course with different distances for each group. The portage was a tight beach in and beach out set up with tough hill to get up from the river. The track was grass and tarmac with lots of spectator space. The finish line was then back outside the club house for all to see.

With Wave upon wave of starts heading up the course all under strict instructions from the started giving the commands, The constant show of coloured boats and determined faces leading off into the distance, With different classes and distances set for each group some were off to achieve just a single lap, whilst others the tough 7 lap course encompassing 6 portages.

As a team Salmon Leap were one of the biggest clubs in attendance and with the addition of Neil Fleming the Irish were among the most successful,

with Neil Sweeping the honours both senior men's K1 and with the help of trusty partner Peter Egan taking the Senior men's K2 title as well.

Also in the Senior men we saw some excellent performances from Dermot Hudson (6th) and Pedro Lopez (9th)

In the under 18 junior men saw Sean McCarthy continue his excellent season with a 10th Place finished closely by Iomhar Macgiolla Phadraig with a noble performance paddling the last lap and a half without his rudder. Following them up was Dan Grimes (16th) Donal Devenney (18th) Kevin Croc (19th) and Brian Mcguinness (20th) once again the curse of the Zedtech continued one lost rudder earlier and Bearach then taking a spill early on leaving him out of contention. This was followed by Brady dropping out halfway through to record his first DNF of the season.

Through to the under 16 and Jack O Hagan who has been in flying form all season coming back from a bad injury to just go faster and faster with every session took a well deserved 15th in a very competitive class. Down the field Jack Seery took an unlucky spill off the start line got himself back into contention with an excellent performance pushing himself up into 24th Place just in front of Michael Croc in 26th. Unfortunately Fiachra ran out of steam clocking up his first DNF.

Down to the U12 category with Kate McCarthy steaming off the start line with an excellent start pushing her right up into contention and coming in a very good third place this was followed on the Sunday by an excellent K2 performance with Kieran Kilbane taking a well deserved 5th place these are 2 of Salmon Leaps youngest athletes and definitely have strong bright careers ahead of them.

In the U14s Brian, Mark and Osin have been making a splash all season training daily with huge improvements and strong performances this was their first international race with a tough field Mark came home in 29th just in front of Brian who took a spill just metres from the line and Osin in 35th Place a great achievement in their first attempt.

Into the veteran classes with some very strong performance Tadgh de Barra took a strong 2nd place staying with the lead group from the start in the over 34’s this was followed by Liam McCarthy continuing his fine form in the over 49’s with a 5th place.

Then the one man who like a wine just gets better with age, Deaglan O’ Drisceoil (Digger) taking the win on the over 44’s category by over 2 minutes in his distinct bright orange Nelo he is sure to reek havoc in the coming season giving many of the seniors a run for there money

The Sunday was followed with K2 racing again with some very strong performances and some just blowing up after 2 hard races. Needless to say the bus journey home was a quiet affair!

Well done to all and here's some videos of the weekend

K1

K2

New Gear

This week we received delivery of a number of new products.

1. Astral Willis 500: A lightweight version of the popular Willis PFD designed primarily for racing.

2. Liquid Logic Stomper: The Stomper is Liquid Logic's new flat hulled Creeker featuring the new flip up backrest.

3. Hurricane Tracer 165: A 23kg plastic sea kayak??? Yep that's right. Book a spin in our demo now!!

A low sluice training session with the Rockies,

 

Quick video of a low sluice session.

Rockhoppers Freestyle at sluice

Teaching the rockhoppers some more freestyle with huge improvements, well done to all

video by Bernard Walsh

Yellow River, Co. Leitrim

With the rain falling we took a drive to lovely Leitrim to try out the Yellow river,

the Map showed a nice gradient and we can see the beautiful Pol an eas waterfall at the get out

One more Irish tree and barbed wire river later here’s the video,

yellow river

filmed with the DogCam HD Wide camera.

 

.Adrian

Clifden Weekend and Oranmore Video

August bank holiday weekend saw the Clifden Beach party rodeo weekend return after a break,

This year was set to be bigger and better with 45 people in attendance,Thank has to go to team paddlers Billy, Bowsie and Barry giving flat-water coaching clinics on a wild windy salt lake, this was followed by a small flat-water competition and a 45 person long eddy queue for the evening hole session.

The Evening beach party was a little washed out but as always the Galway crew made themselves a party under the cover of the IFS tent with bottles of Bucky and anything else they could find.

Sunday saw a slow start to the day with most people opting to hide away from the rain in search of warmth and food.

The comp kicked off Sunday afternoon with a large tide due,

We ran he event as 15minute jam sessions a format favoured by most as it gives time to really work the score sheet.

Off went the heats with big loops and flurries of ends  right up until the tide changed when we ran a quick inflatable comp, this was won by Orky and his Airplane off the bridge. The Heats restarted with the Expert men, unfortunately the timing was slightly out as we spent 15 minutes getting eaten by the hole we were followed by another expert heat which as the hole died saw big rides from both Barry and Bowsie to see them take 1st and 2nd spot in the comp, other winners included

Expert Men – Barry Loughnane

Masters – Garvan Smith

Sport Men – Lee Doherty

Sport Women – Caoimhe Farrell

Junior Men – Billy Brett

Flat-water – Billy Brett

A special mention has to go out to Mairead Barnwell for finishing 2nd in the masters a great performance, well done!

Sunday saw clear sky's and the wind drop just in time for a nice BBQ on the beach,

Monday we decided to head to Oranmore to find out what all the fuss is about, a small tidal feature just outside Galway,

We were very impressed an extremely good spot! very jealous its not on the east coast!

Here's the Video

Team I-Canoe @ Oranmore

Liffey Training Trips Aug 11

This week I took some time off from junior courses to run some river trip activities for some of my squad paddlers, the aim was to teach them how water worked and mover and to give them a better understanding ready for the forthcoming Lower liffey and liffey descent races,

A very low river…..

As always the cameras were rolling

I was trying out my new DogCam Bullet HD Wide with great success, whilst the lads were using the good al faithful Gopro HD Wide,

Heres the results, Enjoy

DogCam Bullet HD Wide

GoPro

GoPro

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

THIS MONTHS PHOTO OF THE MONTH WINNER IS JOHN HENRY WITH THIS LITTLE BEAUTY.

SPECIAL SPOT PRIZE FOR THE PERSON WHO CAN NAME THE RIVER AND PLACE (PLACE COMMENT BELOW)!

CLIFDEN BEACH PARTY WEEKEND!

It was that time of year again! clifden beach party hit off on saturday morning with a flatwater workshop for people who wanted to work on their flatwater moves and advance even more , we split up into 3 groups each group was split into skill so we had the paddlers who were just getting there squirts to paddlers who were finishing their flatwater loops! , it was great to see so many different people out on the water . who said freestyle was dead in ireland. After the workshop the hole was due to be up soon so we headed up for the flatwater competition which was great fun for everyone . i finished up first with Brian Cahill and Barry Loughnanne just behind me in second and third place .After the hole started to pick up everyone had hit the eddy which was jam packed with people we all had our practice runs for the day and headed back towards the campsite for some grub and TLC.

The Beach Party was next but the weather was not on our side and only the brave ventured outside the tent. the next day we had a quick brief about the competition which was for the IFS league and trials for the Euros 2012 .I was in one of the biggest classes junior mens in which was some great paddlers like the sluice crew and the locals. we had 15 minute jam sessions which suited everyone and made it alot more fun in the eddy . in the end i finished first with conor macken and ciaran martin just behind me.
all in all it was a great event a one that will have to be done again.

Billy

HPP Video

Finally finished the Hpp video and heres the result. Be sure to watch right o the end for some funny stufff .

laters

Conor

Trip to HPP 2011

Last week myself and the rest of the Sluice Crew headed over to the National Watersports centre in Nottingham. We flew over with the wonderful Ryanair and it took about 40 Minutes. Through the week we had two sessions every day breaking down for lunch in the middle. We all progressed a lot from Daniel finally getting his straight loops to the rest of us getting our Space Godzillas down and even McNastys at times  :D
We had the camera recording every day and I now have 60 GB of footage to trawl threw. Be sure to keep a look out on Sluice Crew youtube for a video soon, It should be my best yet , Maybe take a look at last year's video here to compare:

 And here's a few pictures from the week.

Conor Throwing an Air Loop

Shane Throwing a Godzilla

Robbie Trying a Phonics Monkey

Tom Looping In Top Hole

Daniel Plugging for a loop

Well I will leave you with that, Might see some of you at the Clifden Rodeo this weekend. If you have not signed up already or want more info on it you can find it here.

Laters,

Conor