Irish Speedsailing

Following on from last week’s Speed Sailing meeting, there are a few changes and announcements for the upcoming season.

Thank you to Martin Waldron

Due to work and family commitments Martin Waldron is stepping back from being the main organizer for Speed events in Ireland, the time and effort that he has put into the sport and discipline over the past year has been phenomenal and without his efforts we wouldn’t have found new speed locations such as Dungarvan on our own shores. The effort he put into hosting the first international Speed event in Ireland with the ISWC Production World Championships last year was to be commended!! Martin will still be heavily involved in the sport and will be putting his experience to use as an advisor to those of us that will be trying to take up the work he has done.

Steven Flannagan be taking over as event coordinator for the national and international events that Martin had been working on, which includes the Irish National Speedsurfing Championship events and the ISWC European Championships to be held later this year. Martin will still be involved in a 50/50 capacity in the running of these events till September, as he has already done most of the ground work and then step back further from then. He will however keep on his role of Regional Time Keeper for GPS-Speedsurfing.com

We would all like to take this opportunity to thank Martin for all his hard work and look forward to sailing with you in the future.

Malahide Speed Meet

After a very successful and eventful day hosted on March 8th in Malahide by Killian from Wind & Wave, where he introduced his new Speed Wall. This saw some great sailing in some very challenging conditions, with the leaders changing positions after each run across the estuary!! Some interesting crashes included my one run of the day where Steve Flannagan ended up flying backwards through the air at nearly 35knots!!!! To then get back on the board only to get shot off into an involuntary forward loop again at nearly 35knots!!! The final result ended up with our very own speed champ John Kenny aka JK taking the title with a Max Speed of 34.86knots, very closely followed by Steve Flanagan with a top speed of 34.58knots. The battle for 3rd and 4th was also hotly contended with Ollie Ryan just beating Keith Gorman into 3rd place. Young Guns were also out in force with Jack, Lewis and Ryan showing what they’re made of.

New Events & Locations

From a events side of things we have added some additional dates to the calendar to make up for the lack of wind we had over the past two months and for the Round 1 rollover period. Also we are introducing some new possible locations that should allow for greater sailing opportunities as well as being more accessible to introduce newcomers to the thrills of speedsailing.

New possible event locations will include:
· Malahide Estuary
· Ladies Island
· Burrow Beach
· Sutton Creek
· Spot X
· Belmullet

New Events
·Round 1 (New) - 1st possible rollover - April 25th and 26th (location based on forecast)
·Round 1 (New) - 2nd possible rollover - May 2nd to 4th in Malahide Estuary (to coincide with Fleadh Sheoil, results will be run separate to King and Queen of the Estuary)
·Round 1 (New) - 3rd possible rollover - May 9th and 10th (location based on forecast)
·Round 2 - Dungarvan (TBC – Forecast depending) possible dates: Oct 3/4, Oct 17/18 or Nov 7/8
·Round 3 - Irish Speed Ladder on GPS-SpeedSurfing.com Jan-Dec 2009
·Round 4 (New) - An additional round will be run in Belmullet in conjunction with Usice and Round 4 of the Irish Wave tour on the October Bank Holiday weekend (Oct 24th to 26th) - Details to be confirmed.
·ISWC European Speed Championships - Dungarvan/Tramore - This year will be run on a rollover basis, possible dates: Oct 17-24 or Oct 31-Nov 7 or Dec 14-21

New Website

Our new web site will be launched soon which will contain news and info about Speedsailing in Ireland as well as reviews about potential speed locations in Ireland and the current results and leader boards.

http://www.irishspeedsailing.com/

Rules & Guidelines

We are working on a set of guidelines for what counts as an official event (wind minimums etc), plus also guidelines around how to submit results and accuracy of GPS units. This will be published on our new website shortly