I’m just back in the door and had to send you a quick update from the 3rd round of Irish Wavesailing Championships. A bit tired so apologies for bad typing!
We had good wind and a super entry of 38 in the fleet! This included 3 ladies and 12 in the Fun Fleet.
On Saturday we had good cross-shore wavesailing in logo high waves at a spot called Garretstown. It was pretty tricky sailing with a strong rip, but delighted to say my Real World Waveboards are proving their worth in hard conditions, planing so easily and riding any wave that I choose to. Great fun during the heats, getting nice loops and slashy fast waveriding.
Again, I’m DELIGHTED to say I won the final. By the end the wind was lighter, so we were judged on riding only. I went for 5.8 combat and 91l Freestyle-Wave, which again planed so well that I got 5 or 6 waves in the 10 minutes, and even a big back loop (which was not counted).
Keeping up the Surfdock Team results, Jeff Cochrane came 2nd on 5.8 Combat (Surfdock/NEIL PRYDE/Ultrasport/O’Neill/AHD), and in 3rd, an underpowered Rob Jones (JP/NeilPryde) sailing a 5.4 CombatWave and his JP 65 Wave.
In fact, that is NEIL PRYDE Combat Waves in the top 3 places! Pretty solid result for a very solid sail!
Today (Sunday) the waves were not so good, so we sailed un-official wave/freestyle Expression sessions at Coolmaine beach. Again really good fun. I sailed on 5.4 Combat and 91 FSW. It was good fun, trying out new moves (like T-Bones and one-handed shovits) as there was no pressure, and also got a decent big back loop and a load of forwards and spocks.
I took the win again (unbeaten in any heat at the event), and my Surfdock Team-mate Gwilym Williams (Surfdock/Naish/O’Neill) followed in 2nd, which made up for his dissapointing wave result where he snapped a mast.
It was a superb event, sponsored by Surfdock, JP/Ultrasport, and O’Neill. The raffle prize of the JP board went down REALLY well, and went to a 18yr old kid who was so happy he could not speak. Straight after the prizegiving we rigged it up and brought him out wavesailing to test out the board. He loved it !
There was a great atmosphere for the whole weekend, and it’s all looking good for a great final event in Belmulllet on the October Bank Holiday weekend (23-25th Oct). Unfortunatelty for me this clashes with Tiree, so I will not be able to make it to Scotland this year. Obviously trying to win the Irish title is my priority.. and also Belmullet is probably my favourite place to sail in Ireland!
Will send more full results soon.. roll on Belmullet!
Oisin.
