2013 Paddling Year

2013 was a pretty big year for myself in Irish paddling, It marked the year were I made the switch to the senior Irish Freestyle Team.

The year kicked off with Team trials at the national water-sports centre in Nottingham.
The venue was decided to make it as fair as possible.
At team trials it was a tough fight but I managed to come out Joint first with fellow IFT members Barry Loughnane and Tom Dunphy.

Space Godzilla Inlet wave, Nottingham

After team trials there was a lack of freestyle competitions due to the water and "unusable features" such as Sluice in Dublin, not my words ha but there was however a few training days used to boost Irish paddling and try and make some funds for the Team at the same time. I carried on padddling most weekends up at sluice or a few days down running some stuff in Wicklow to try best to keep my paddling levels up, I even managed to get a quick session in on Slane castle weir at flood levels which was a welcome change.

Everything from there then led to the world championships at the Nantahala Outdoor Centre in North Carolina U.S.A.
Thanks to some fundraising with Irish freestyle training days, Irish Freestyle calender sales, support from canoeing Ireland and the "deap" pockets of the team member we ended up having a full Junior mens and mens team.

2013 Team before the Opening ceremony in Bryson City, NC

My personal paddling didn't go too great with a finish I wasn't happy with it but we had some excellent results from two of our Juniors Billy Brett and David McClure taking 9th and 10th place respectively.

Training in My Custom PeakUK Speedskin cagdeck

Late night composite repairs

Overall the worlds was still a great trip and a new experience all the same. We were living practically wild for the few weeks we were there and yes I would do it all over again. 

Next seasons big trip Ill be off to Uganda to stay on the hair lemon and experience some of the worlds biggest whitewater in hopefully some new custom peak UK gear.

want to thanks my various sponsors from the year namely Watershed Dry bags, Surfplugs, Jones engineering group, The DIT Sports and recreation service and of course I-Canoe.

Here is a short video I put together of my year the way I see it best and Heres to an even better 2014 for paddling!

Irish freestyle Series 2013

The Irish freestyle series Introduced this year for freestyle paddlers of all ages, The event are aimed to Improve the Irish standard as well as trying to raise a bit of money for the Team heading to worlds this summer.

The first one we had was at sluice, Lucan and had a great turnout, We used the video below to promote it and ended up having almost 40 paddlers on the water that day.

 For Event Number two we headed over to Galway to fellow team member Barry Loughnanes home spot called Tuam, when it works it is a perfect spot for beginners learning to side surf right the way through to the expert learning Phonix Monkeys or even combo moves, Its also twenty feet wide with loads of room for a good aul party wave.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side and the level went just too low but there was still good craic had by all anyway Ill let the video tell the tale and keep a close eye on the Facebook page for news on when the next one is!! they say a picture tell s a thousand words so heres a moving one from the day below!!

Now id like to say thanks to my new sponsor WaterShed Drybags for setting me up with a nice bit of kit for 2013, should keep me going for a while. Cannot wait to put these to good use!!

New Kit for 2013

see you on the water!!

Conor

Nottinhgham Summer Training!

Last week myself, Tom Galione , Craig Cummins and his dad Eamon headed over to the white water course In nottingham. We went over on the ferry and had the best part of a five hour drive on the other side between stopping off in Liverpool and traffic the whole way, But we had the laptop and the Ipad to keep us going .  When we arrived at the course we headed straight to the campsite and set up base.

Our Home for the week

Once that was sorted out we got our gear together and headed to the course. The plan was to get our act together for team Trials. Its my first year as a senior and Its looking like one of the tuffest years in a while.

heres a few photos from the week to give you an idea how we got on and a short video I made too. Thanks for reading.

Conor

Canada is over.....

Well we have been back just over a week now and Canada was definitely the best trip of our Lives. Paddling everyday on some of the best whitewater in the world is unbelievable but when we got home It really put Ireland to shame. I think a video and a few pictures would do better than me blabbering on so here it is, our one month trip, 98GB of footage liquidated down in to a mere 400 Mb. Next time we will be off back to HPP, be sure to look out for that video, Later

Right so its been four days now and all I can say is anyone who Lives out here is living a paddlers dream. We have been waking up at around 7:30 maybe 8:00 every morning usually to a sunrise like this one taken by Alan of Phils hole!  

 The river here is amazing. Its at about -1 at the moment and still dropping. We have had a few good sessions on McCoys were rightside and Cornerwave are. Cornerwave is a steep glassy green wave that you could just clean spin all day on and rightside is a nice hole but its a bit shallow at the moment. After McCoys you have the Lorne. This is were Garburator and push button are. There both at great levels at the moment but when they start to drop some more they are supposed to be amaxing. Thanks to I-Canoe/Jackson, Third Eye Media and Surfplugs for the Continued support. Be sure to look out on facebook for more photos to come and a Nice big video at the end. I will Leave you now with a few photos. Later   

HPP Video

Finally finished the Hpp video and heres the result. Be sure to watch right to 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