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Sailor’s Eye View from Irish Slalom Series Newtonards

Amy Carter - Editor — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:17:29 +0000

The first event in the Irish slalom series took place at Newtonards recently, check out the action from the event from the view of David Corkill…

Irish Slalom Series Round 1 2013 from David Corkill on Vimeo.

Irish Slalom – Final Event

co.editor — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:45:11 +0000

Last weekend saw plenty of slalom action over in the Emerald Isle and the guys from the Irish Slalom Series have posted this report.

The October Bank holiday weekend saw over 40 windsurfers gather in the quaint village of Kinvara on the edge of the Burren for the last and final round of the 2012 Irish Slalom Series hosted by Rusheen Bay Windsurfing. Those who travelled on the Friday were rewarded with a warm reception, an open fire and live Jazz in Connellys pub. Saturday dawned without a breath of wind nor a cloud in the sky, regardless the crew got set up on Tracht Beach and started the day with the more experienced sailors passing on their knowledge with a series of rigging demos, Q&A’s and Intro to slalom clinic.

After a gourmet lunch kindly provided by Cully & Sully the breeze started to fill and both fleets made to the water for some practice starts and some fun races.

Saturday night and the standard flowery shirt attire was unleashed to enjoy the social side to kinvara, to keep everyone together a nautical table quiz was organised in Tullys Bar, for obvious reasons neither team names nor scores can be repeated! Lets just hope that the standard of knot identification improves for next year.

Sunday was quite the opposite of Saturday with overcast and drizzle but lots of wind. When the wind settled in strength and direction the racing got started under the watchful OD Danny Mulryan. Five countable downwind slalom races were held for the Gold fleet with Hannes Louet-Feisser, Robert Jones, Maurice Owens and Gareth Nihill taking the honours respectfully. The even larger silver fleet completed 4 races in the high winds and rolling seas making the racing challenging to say the least, standout performances included Steve Lawless, Keith Gorman, Gary Browne and Keith Ryan who finished top 4 respectfully.

Sunday evening saw a successful AGM with a big thanks going to the outgoing committee and a warm welcome to those who took up the new positions, all the Gang at Irish Slalom wish Hannes and his team the best of luck for the coming seasons. After the AGM it was onto the Pierhead Restaurant hotel for the now annual fabulous Prize giving dinner. Prizes were given for the weekends racing with generous sponsorship from RBW followed by the prize giving for the 2012 season.

The 2012 champions are:

Gold Fleet

1st Overall Maurice Owens
2nd Overall Hannes Louet-Feisser
3rd Overall Rob Jones
1st Men Gareth Nihill
1st Master Barry Whitelaw

Silver Fleet

1st Overall Stephen Lawless
2nd Overall Paul Green
3rd Overall Keith Ryan
1st Lady Johanne Murphy
1st Master Robert Polak

Rounding The Mark At Kinvara

More pics here

Pearse Geaney, 2010 ISS Champion

Duncan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:50:53 +0000

Pearse Geaney

The final round of the 2010 Irish Windsurfing Slalom Series took place at Kinvarra, Co. Galway over the bank holiday weekend, the 23-25th October 2010. An early promising forecast failed to materialise over the course of the weekend, and despite the best efforts of all the event crew, the event failed to produce some official racing.

With 2 outright wins from Newtownards (Round 1) and Downings (Round 3), this awarded bigsurf.ie team rider Pearse Geaney (IR100 / bigsurf.ie / MauiSails / RRD) with the overall win for 2010.

Pearse speaking of the 2010 Irish slalom racing series…

“2010 started with a bombshell event in Newtownards…full power, full speed, and all or nothing action at every point on the race course. Kerry failed to produce sufficient wind, but it did have glorious sunshine, while Downings as ever came true to form with massive courses, big numbers and huge fun. Really exciting to see 2 new locations in the form of Bantry and Kinvarra on the championship this year and despite there also being no wind at these events, the potential of these locations can only be described as huge.

Overall there was a great turnout to the events in 2010. The GPS replays in particular brought the whole championship to a new level…there is nowhere to hide when you go wrong on the course…I learnt this first hand! 2011 will be even better, with redefined fleets to make them more competitive and fun, great locations, ever increasing competitor numbers, and big parties…what’s not to like! If you fancy trying the racing…you should…it’s as easy or as hard as you like, and you don’t need much kit…I used a TR6-XT 7.6m and 102 X-Fire exclusively in 2010.

For me, the winter holds lots of new challenges. My new RRD Wave Cult Quad 83 is the best wave riding board I’ve had in the last 10 years, while I’m also assisting the development of the 2011 MauiSails TR7s, SRS race masts and carbon booms. How bad…I get to call this work!

Enjoy the winter…it`s gonna be brilliant!”