The event had both team and individual categories which were divided into sport & expert classes. The racing was tight among everyone and it was shown that even the slightest nudge from your competitors could send you to the back of the pack in an instant. It was a long day with the racing getting off from not long after 9am and continuing right through until almost dark, it was a testament to all those that travelled that the crowds never stopped cheering not once all day long.

The finial “Salmon Leap” rapid was the location for some very interesting lines and some carnage from both the expert and sport classes and the dash to the finish line was littered with abandoned boats & bruised egos.

People has travelled form all over Ireland and even as far as Switzerland with a couple of well know faces from the UK paddling scene.

Not only was this one of the most fun and exciting kayaking events ever held in Ireland it is also possible the first Boater X held in a tight & technical gorge that saw a paddler use a 16ft sea kayak avec full face helmet.

My own camera died a death at the weekend but fellow team i-canoe member James V D B got loads of savage ones just which you can check out on his blog jammersworld.net , there are a few photos in there which I would rather didn’t see the light of day but sure if we can’t laugh at ourselves its a sad sad world.

Events like this I reckon is the future of competitive kayaking. After all the paddling was done while some of the team i-canoe crew settled for a quiet night in the rest of of headed for the after party in Waterford.

While our team didn’t win the Boater X we certainly were in the running for winning the party judging by the “tired heads” the following day. After we managed to crawl out of the beds on Sunday and headed back up the country we stopped for a wee bit of park and huck action at Pollanassa Falls in Co. Kilkenny.  After an awe full lot of standing about and all sorts of excuses being made only four of us took to the water.

AD was on hand with his camera and got some nice shots including one of Paddy Mc Govern stomping a freewheel, you can check out these & loads more on the team i-canoe blog . He even managed to catch a couple of me where I almost look like I have a bit of an idea how it all works.

That’s about it for now folks but the weekend ahead has epic water about so pretty much every run will be off the scale if met.ie is to be believed.

Paddle safe and enjoy.

Adrian

How to double pump 101 from Adrian Shanahan on Vimeo.

Hi,

A few days back on of the guys from the UKRGB Bren (aka Peakfreak) posted up that there are no videos online that just explain the “double pump” and any that try assume too much previous knowledge from the person looking to learn.

I had being thinking of doing up a few wee how to tutorials but was being a bit lazy about it, I took this as a bit of motivation. I hit a part of the local river two cameras and tripod in hand. Sadly after I had uploaded the footage to my laptop I some lost it all , a fecking disaster so I flew back down to the river with my younger brother Keith “shaky hands” Shanahan and managed to get only 6mins of raw footage before the battery died. I managed to salvage this after all that.

This has kinda inspired me to put a bit of effort in and knock out a few more hoping to improve on the quality.

Stay tuned……

Adrian

Just a quick note on this:

So of you may know I am currently part of the Irish Freestyle Committee this year and part of our job is to help promote freestyle kayaking and help introduce new people to the sport. I decided to run a “river freestyle” training  day on the river Boyne. Now to be honest the Boyne is far form a freestyle feature meca but there was just enough to allow us have a quality day on the river going over all sorts of things.

We had almost 30 people on the water so the banter was flying and a good day was had by ever one who was there. One of the big things for me was that there was a visible improvement in skills from all the participants on the day, we covered everything for cartwheels / loops / spins & and even some river safety too just to keep the day well rounded. Its fun days out like this that remind me why I was attracted to freestyle all those years ago.

A couple of things I learned on the day we that there are only so many cartwheels you can do before your shoulders feel like thae want to fall off & that every one loves a free t-shirt.

I’m not sure how it happened but everyone seemed to happen but everyone forgot their camera, must have been too busy pulling awesome moves..

I would like to give huge thanks to all the coaches that gave up their time to make the day possible and also to Colm from i-canoe for making the organisation easy for me.

Laters,

Adrian

Colm after a long long day on the river

“Stretching  those legs”

“Smiles & good times all round”

So a couple of weeks ago I made what could only be described a an armature mistake when out paddling, just before the get one of our group ask if they could borrow my river knife to cut some foam. So I took it out of my pocket and unclipped the lanyard it was attached to, they when I got it back I just stuffed it into my PFD pocket and was on my way. Fast forward a short while later I jumped out on the bank to set up some rescue, and when taking a sling out of my PFD pocket my knife flew out in what seemed like a comedy slow motion and straight into the river, where it now resides permanently.

The knife I had I was pretty fond of I had bought it while working in France a few years back, I had a spare Peak UK river knife but I just never liked it! So I dropped into the folks at i-canoe to check out what they had in stock and catch up with the lads. They stock NRS kit which I have always thought was well designed & put together right. The first choice was do I go for a sheath knife or a folding type which I have always favoured.

The 3 models to choose from were the Wingman / Pilot / Co-pilot, I whipped them all out of their boxes and took some photos to help you get a better idea of their scale.

The Co-Pilot is by far the nicest of any of the sheath knives that I have come across, its compact but just the right size while never feeling bulky. If you are the like the Idea of having a knife on the outside of your PFD this is the bit of kit for you, the sheath clips perfectly into lash tabs that are on most rescue vests.

I have to say I was very tempted by the Co-Pilot but in the end I decided to to stick with the folding style that I’m used to. The Wingman is a super bit of design, it is super compact so that it will fit nicely into your PFD pocket but when its open its just the right size to do the job when you most need it.

There was one only one improvement that could be do to make this knife better, its not the easiest to open with one hand should you ever need to do that.  I’ve resolved this with a little bit of tape and 5 minutes, check out the picture below.The bit of tape also allows you to open the knife with you teeth if you are really under pressure. Just a note for the left handers out there, the belt clip on the knife can be whipped off and changed over to the other side with relative ease to make it more ergonomically for the left hookers.

Last but by no means least in the line up is the Pilot knife. Its a full size knife which comes in just over 7 inches long, I reckon its a bit long for kayaking use but for rescue professionals / divers / sailors this is a serious but of kit for you. The construction is super solid and due to its one piece design I could never imagine you breaking this knife.

I think that what river knife paddlers carry with them when out boating is the one piece of kit that never get much thought, the thinks to look out for when you are looking for a knife should include.

• Blade, is it serrated or smooth or a combination of both, the combined is best as have the best of both worlds.
• Knife tip, is it blunt or pointy. Many a person has done a bit of unintentional self harm with pointy blades, pointy blades can be helpful of you ever needed to puncture cut something like a spray skirt ( A sharp blade can make up for this ).
• How are you going to attach it or where are you going to put it?
• What is it made out of, lots of river knives are made out of polished chrome which wont last long in a river environment. And even some blades that are stainless steel they are still not up to the riggers of river use. All of the NRS knives above are made from  420HC Stainless Steel  which is perfect for what we boaters demand of it.

All in all I reckon NRS have you pretty much covered no matter what style of knife you prefer to use, one of the best thing about them aside from there design & savage build quality is that they are super value to with the Wingman coming in at just €25 and the Pilots costing a little bit more at €35.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a quality river knife and more importantly how and when to use it.

That’s all until next time.

Adrian

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