Irish Speedsailing Championships Round 5 Ladies Island, County Wexford & Dungarven, County Waterford, Ireland 8th & 9th October

Apologies for the late post as i have been away for a few weeks and this is the first chance i had had to write this. Earlier this month the call was made with the current forecasts that Round 5 of the Irish Speedsailing Championships would be run at 2 different locations. As Ladies Island had the best forecast of 15 to 20 knots for Saturday the first day was run there and then with the forecasted 30 knot SW winds for Dungarven we would run the second days competition there.

I made my way over to Ladies Island on Saturday morning getting there mid morning leaving Kerry at 5am. On arrival i was disappointed to see little to no wind but with the forecast due to pick up i decided to get ready my Starboard iSonic 111 with 38cm Vector Maui Fins ZX Fin and rig my 7.3m KA Koncept and wait for the wind to pick up. Due to the forecast showing marginal winds quite a few competitors decided not to travel down and wait for Sunday which turned out to be a mistake as after about an hour the wind picked up to over our 18 knot wind minimum so it was game on and official racing was called by the race officer. I quickly got ready and then hit the water and had a great time and despite the very gusty conditions and big chop i managed a 29.6 knot peak which gave a 3rd place for the day and in a decent position to get a good place for the event. I was also starting to feel more at ease in the chop after having some pretty big crashes in similar conditions over the past few years.

After everyone had packed up we decided to head over to Dungarven so we didn't have a big drive in the morning and booked into the Park Hotel and after some food and a few pints got to bed reasonably early to get ready for the forecasted winds the following day.

When i woke i was disappointed to yet again see the forecast was wrong and the was hardly any wind so i had a leisurely breakfast and headed down to the beach to see what was happening. Everyone had come down today and most were gutted to hear there was more wind yesterday but it is a 2 day event so not turning up for one of the days is always a risk. After a few hours the wind started to pick up so i decided to get ready my Starboard iSonic 111 with 38cm Vector Maui Fins ZX Fin and rig my 7.3m KA Koncept. Also if the wind was to pick up to what was forecasted i also got ready my Starboard iSonic 86 with 29cm Vector Maui Fins Delta Speed fin and Starboard iSonic W53 Speed Special With 25cm Vector Maui Fins Delta Speed Fin and rigged my 6.4m KA Koncept. After quickly getting into my wetsuit i got out on the water but there was massive holes in the wind making any decent speeds hard to achieve and after a couple of hours the wind dropped off so i headed in. I was disappointed to hear the round was called official which in my opinion was no where near our average wind minimum and considering how gusty and holey the wind was should really have been a fun day but that's the luck of the draw and i reluctantly went with the decision.

After 2 days competition i finished 5th overall and 4th Master which keeps me on track to achieve a top 3 position in the overall rankings for the year and i can't wait for the last event in November where i will be using my new sponsors boards for the first time in a competition. See you next month