New Sponsor

I am very pleased to announce i have been offered a deal with Pro Motion Wetsuits. You can check out the range of wetsuits here:-

http://www.wetsuit.com/web/products_page.cfm

Pro Motion are based in in Hood River, Oregon, USA. Besides being a top windsurfing and kiteboarding destination, the "Gorge" has proven to be an unbeatable location to design and test wetsuits. Temperatures range from below freezing in the winter, to above 100 degrees in the summer, giving ProMotion the opportunity to test and refine every product in their line. From cold water steamers all the way down to sun protecting rash-guards, it all has to pass the "Gorge" test before it ends up on the sales floor. One of the main features of the windsurfing wetsuits they make is the No Fatigue Forearm - Forearms are cut oversized, then taper down to a snug fit at the wrists to prevent wetsuit fatigue while keeping water out. Keeps you on the water longer.

I am stoked to have the oportunity to use and promote these wetuits and once i have recieved my new wetsuits my old wetsuits will be for sale so keep checking back to see if they are available

Speedsailing Spots In Kerry

Well i got the news this week that i am being made redundant at work so i am moving back down to my Dads house near Tralee in County kerry next month. It's been on the cards for a while now so really wasn't a suprise. On the plus side though as i will probably be out of work for a while i will get loads of time to go windsurfing so hopefully there will be decent wind over the next few months. Whenever i am down there all my sailing has been done in and around Brandon bay so i have been checking Google Maps and i reckon i have found a couple of potential speedsailing spots not too far from where i will be living. The first is just South of Ballybunion at an entrance to a river here

And the other one is by a village called Barrow just North of Fenit here

Both i think look promising but i will have to check them out and see what they are like at low tide and check how deep the water is as i don't want to run aground at speed. I will still travel over to Dungarven on a decent forcast but hopefully i have got a couple of spots on my doorstep as this area of Kerry in winter gets very windy in the winter.

I have just got some KA Kaos wave sails (5.3m, 4.7m and 4.2m) aswell to go with the 5.7m KA Kaos i already have so i am going to finally learn how to wavesail as this is one of the best locations in the world for wavesailing

Irish Speed Sailing Championships - Current Ranking

The current Irish Rankings have just been released and i am currently lying in 5th spot with 175.24 points. Just got to try and improve on that now and see if i can move up some spots before the end of the year. You can check out the full rankings below

New Speed Fins

I just got my new 20cm and 23cm KA Assymetric Fins from the European Importer

Cant wait to get enough wind to try them out on my speedboard and hopefully crack 40 knots

Burrow Beach Tuesday 12th May 2009

Myself and Steve went back to Burrow Beach after our epic session yesterday hoping for more of the same and Barry Whitelaw came along to check out the location. It had forcasted 20 knots today but when we got there it was only blowing 12-16knots.

I decided to use my Lorch Thunderbird 110 with 36cm Vector Maui Rockit Fin and 7.5m KA Koncept and after yesterday rigging took a bit longer as i was aching all over but i was the first on the water. I managed to get a decent gust at the start of the course, bore off and clocked 29.52 knots on my first run. Unfortunatly the wind dropped after that so i didn't get any more decent runs. The course was very broad today, about 130 to 140 degrees and i could get going but once i bore off to go down the course i was well underpowered and couldn't keep the board going.

I stuck around for the next 3 hours hoping the wind would pick back up but it never happened and as Steve had clocked just over 28 knots i finished the day with the fastest speed, just wish it had been windier cause most of the time i was slogging along off the plane.

Looking at the forcast for the week Friday might have enough wind for a dawn session here so if theres is wind i'll head there straight from night shift and try to improve my Irish GPS Ranking

Burrow Beach Monday 11th May 2009

I'm just back in the house an hour after an epic session at Burrow Beach in Dublin. Last year a couple of local lads posted 40 knots here and we have been waiting for the chance to try the spot out. It only works in a North to North Easterly which is a wind direction that is pretty rare but today we got the chance to finally get on the water here.

Myself, John Kenny (JK), Steve Flannagan and Lewis and Ryan all arrived late afternoon to coincide with low tide that exposes a sand bank and in this wind direction provides a broad course. It was blowing 16-22 knots East to North East, sunny and warm which was a suprise considering the easterly winds. I decided on my Lorch Thunderbird 110 with Vector Maui Fins 30cm EX Speed and my KA Koncept 6.6m because it was not quite windy enough for my speedboard and hit the water. Straight away we were posting 30 knot runs and the water was getting flatter with the dropping tide. Just as the tide got to it's lowest point it was less than knee depth and getting dangerous so we came in for an hour to let the tide come in a bit so the water was deeper. We then all went back on the water for another couple of hours and started to get faster speeds, some of which were posted when it was dark. We finally came of the water after 10pm in the dark, with everyone with big smiles on their faces in what was an awsome session on the water. I managed a 32.42 Knot Max Speed and increased my Personal Best speeds for the year so am very stoked with my session today. Check out my session on Gps-Speedsurfing here

http://www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=44233&uid=1898

Forcast looks good for tommorow afternoon again so we will be heading back, hopefully getting the speedboards out of the bags and getting bigger speeds. Big Thanks to JK for spending some time taking some photo's today, cheers mate. Speedsailing rocks :-)))))))

Malahide Saturday 9th May 2009

I had been working night shift for the past 3 days and it was torture going to work at 4pm when it was sunny and windy out so as Saturday Night was my last shift of the week i arranged to go in at 7pm so it freed up a couple of hours in the afternoon so i could get on the water. I'm so glad i did because it was another great day, sunny and windy 12-18 knots but very gusty. Typical Malahide wind really.

Steve had just got his new North Warp 9.0m so wanted to use that but i decided to use my Lorch Thunderbird 75 with 42cm Vector Maui Fins Canefire fin and 7.5m Koncept hoping it would be enough for the lulls. Once i got on the water the 7.5 was perfect in the gusts but not enough in the lulls but was having great fun anyway. Managed to get a 27.4 knot max on this combo. After a couple of hours i was knackered so packed up as i had to go to work but i reckon i will be do this alot more when i am on nights to take advantage of a good forcast.