With the 51st Liffey descent around the corner and people hard at the training ready to test themselves against what is billed as one of the top Marathon Races in Europe / World I decided to re post I the highlights program of the 2009 event which was shown on Setanta Sports. It will give those who have never taken part in the event an idea of what they are in for and remind the others to learn form last years “missed lines”
I can’t take any claim for the production of the film or the like I only saved it and stuck it on line. So with an further fan fare here here are the highlights of the 50th Liffey Descent 2009.
Only the other evening I was out with the local Kayak Club here in Kilkenny ( Kilkenny Aqua Canoe Club) for the first time in a while, just out with some of the young guys who have an interest in freestyle and white water boating as a whole.
Last summer I paddled with one young guy in particular ( Billy )who was getting to grips with the basics of freestyle paddling, fast forward a year and Billy is not long gone 15 and progressing quickly. Here is just a few seconds of footage I took from the boat.
Its not just Billy there is a core bunch of kids who are all pushing each other on and doing really well, much like the guys from Dublin scene from Wild Water Kayak Club. I’m sure there are others much the same all round the country that I’m not aware of.
There seems to be plenty of talent about which can only be a good thing for the future of the Irish Freestyle Scene.
Well done to them all and to those that help them on their way.
Just a bit of a plug for upcoming Junior Paddlefest that’s happening next month in Wicklow.
Summer is long since here in Ireland and for some insane reason it seems to be all bright, dry and sunny…the result being everyone bar kayakers seems to be in great form. I’ve to article / blogs set to go but as they are about white water stuff I’m going to sit on them until its more in keeping with having some water in the rivers.
Unless you have had your head in the sad you’ll have noticed that pretty much every Kayaker worth their salt seems to spend the majority of their spare time on two wheels spinning around the Mountain Bike trails or Ireland.
If ever wandered how you can check out one of the worlds fastest growing sport for your self you got to check out www.trackandtrail.ie
Track and Trail is a very company founded on the principal of providing Professional MTB Skills courses and a host of other Adventure Activities while not trying to have you break the bank. They have a full fleet of top of the range Mountain Bikes and operate pretty much nation wide.
So while were waiting for the rain to come and fill the rivers why not drop Track & Trail a line and have a savage day with your mates trying your hand at Mountain Biking.
As I’m sure you are all well aware boaters seem to be all budding amateur photographers, all you have to do is log onto facebook after a wet weekend and see some pretty pro results.
So I dropped my mate Ryan a line who is a Scottish based ( I know he will hate being called) Pro Photographer and solid boater a line to see if he was interested in giving me and those who check in on this blog a few tips that might help us get better results.
Ryan himself
I suppose this is where I should just be quiet for once and let Ryan take the drivers seat…
Righto Mr Shanahahahan,
Top Tips for what NOT to do and perhaps what is good to do when you’re taking and editing your boating pics…at the most basic level.
Rule of thirds – Does every photograph you take have the main subject in the centre? Boring huh! Rule of thirds concentrates on composition…i.e. where you point your camera and what’s in the frame. You can Google the definition and think about how you want to composition a photograph. All I’m saying is don’t keep everything central, it’s boring. Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t do places to learn the basics of free style kayaking, but if they did they might start with somewhere like Kilkenny!
I’m sure most paddlers have heard of the river Nore which flows through Kilkenny City but I’d be fairly certain only a small few are aware of the little gem of a play spot that was created some years ago during the flood relief scheme.
To be clear this is no Curragower / Sluice / Clifden or Tuam but it is in my estimation one of the best places I’ve been to to introduce people to the the basics of freestyle kayaking.
2010 has been a disappointment for most Irish paddlers so far
I couldn’t agree more with him, in the last 10 or more years I can’t recall a winter dry spell quiet like this, I can only imagine there there will be a few rude awakenings once the water eventually arrives. Until that happens we have to get our fix of the outdoor live either out on the MTB trails ,surfing, any way we can or even through online videos and articles.
In the last couple of months I have been an abide watcher if “The Season” a weekly online video documentary.
The blurb form Bryan Smith and Fitz Cahall the guys behind it..
From the creators of The Dirtbag Diaries and 49 Megawatts comes a new web television project following five athletes through the course of a single season in the Pacific Northwest. A veteran climber invents a new piece of gear. A pro snowboarder searches for a way to return to the roots of his sport. A boulder returns from a series of injuries with new perspective. A family man goes to Whistler to test himself against mountain biking’s elite. A young sea kayaker with a troubled past sets out to reinvent his sport.
Shot entirely in HD, this 22-episode series is available to you for free at a number of locations. Every episode premieres on the Arc’teryx web site. You can have the HD version delivered right to your computer and find all the old episodes by subscribing on iTunes. Expect new episodes once or twice a week.
P.S. This is our baby. For months we schlepped ropes, camera gear and tripods through underbrush and up the side of cliffs to present our vision of these sports. Some of these athletes are professionals, some aren’t. They are all unique people who have something to say. We’ve enjoyed helping them tell their story. We hope you enjoy their stories.
I personally have just subscribed to it on i-tunes and it downloads the show in awesome HD as soon as it becomes available. I really can’t recommend highly enough that you check this out and get watching.
I’ve embedded the show trailer here that will give you a flavour of the whole thing.
The first twelve episodes are up online, subscribe / enjoy and lets keep praying that some water eventually arrives.
With spring now here and the Irish Winter Kayaking season now over without even a hint of any sustained paddling to be had its time to look ahead and to all the bright evenings and after work boating.
Apart from my some what random departure into robotics I have finally gotten around to start making some sort of sense of the “Coaching & Instruction” part of my wee website. Up until now it was kinda a case of drop me a line and we will see what we can do, I’m trying to put a whole lot more structure in place to make it easier for anyone looking for stuff and give a better idea of what’s on offer.
Its all very much a work in progress at the moment with lots of information to be added not to mention I’m still wrestling with an online course calendar / booking system.
With what seems to be the driest winter in memory and if the daily updated Facebook & Twitter status of the Irish boating community are to be believed paddlers are being driven to madness and MTB. I’m no exception to this and if anyone who has seen me on a bike they will testify that I’d be better off going mad than embarrass myself any further while biking.
So with that mass amount of time I have to waste these days I had to have something to help pass the time and slow my descent into madness.
I have started to notice more and more top quality video productions of boater x events and extreme races.
In all of these productions we see the use of cable cams and get massive and cool sweeping and tracking shots of runs down sections of river. Over the years loads of boaters have chatted after a few beers saying “we should so do something like that on the < insert river name here >.
This is just a quick little post about something I was thinking lately. In recent times the latest bit of kit that has become a white water essential is the “open sling” and is in fact a mandatory part of the Irish Canoe Union kit list for some awards. I for one reckon its such a versatile / inexpensive / robust bit of kit there is almost no reason anyone can argue against it.
I favour the Nylon tubular webbing sort but traditional climbing tape or even Palm’s “Safety Line” all work the same. More often than not most of us end up having to tie the tape into a loop as part of an anchor system, this is where us as boaters get things a little bit more mixed up.
Nine times out of ten people will tie an overhand knot or figure of eight which are fine for most situations with ropes but this isn’t true when it comes to tape / webbing. The problem with both these knots in tape is that under a high load these will separate and come apart.
If you ask any seasoned Climber to tie you a two ends of tape together they will straight away do the very aptly named “Tape Knot”.
So here is how…
I just used two different colours of webbing so you would be able to follow what was happening, obviously if you are making a loop in a single tape it will be all the same colour (and not use roof rack strap).
This method is by far the safest and best way to attach two ends of tape. Learn it, Practice it and teach your mates.
I’ve been rather lazy on the blogging front over the last while up until I saw this thread over on the UK boating site UKRGB. It starts of pretty simple looking to identify a type Prussik knot and as all online forums seem to splits into a couple of different directions with all sorts of information / miss information popping up.
There were a couple of things which I found interesting. Firstly it confirmed to me that boaters and ropes / rope work are strange bedfellows. There seems to be an assumption in the wider paddling community that if someone can paddle ( X ) grade river they are automatically totally up to speed with the rope stuff.
Secondly and the thing that struck my interest is that kayakers seem to have an aversion against using out of the ordinary such as “mechanical devices” or tools which might make things easier.
I have constantly heard people preach the K.I.S.S . principal but I wonder have some of these folks closed their minds to their own detriment, are we missing out on using the right tools for the job?
I thought I would share a bit of kit I have been using for a few years now and I honestly think its a savage tool that can complement almost any WW kayakers tool kit.
Its called a Robot and manufactured by an Italian company called Kong.
“KONG ROBOT DESCENDER: A versatile piece of gear in the vertical world. Some of its many uses include a belay device, rappel device, ascender, in place of a pulley in a z-drag system and the list goes on. It can accommodate ropes between 5-13mm in diameter in a single or double configuration. It even works great with ropes of different diameters”
These are usually used by mountain guides and cliff rescue teams in the Alpine regions but due to the fact it is so versatile it has quickly become an invaluable part of my paddling kit .
The specs stack up like this:
Material: aluminium alloy
Weight: 158 g
Dimensions: 52 x 148 mm
Max Load: 22 kN
Rope diameter: 5-13 mm
It weights in about the same weight as a standard steel crab or about twice the weight as an alloy carabineer. Size wise its not much bigger than a large paddling wire gate crab and fits nicely into the pocket of my PFD.
Welcome to my little part of the interweb, I know what you are thinking " Ah jayus..........not another fecking blog", sure bear with me and see how it goes.
I will be updating it nice and regular with photos/ stories / random banter & little "how to" guides. Stay tuned it might help you waste some time during the working day.
