Team Trials

I haven't posted in quite a while unfortunately. This is due to the complete lack of water in Wicklow for several weeks! I have been in a boat maybe 2 or 3 times since my last post. One of which was safety boating for the varsities which dosen't really count as I spent most of the day paddling around in circles to stop my legs going numb. Maybe safety boating in a C1 playboat wasn't such a great plan after all!

Team trials happened in 2 parts this year, with part one in Clifden and part 2 in the sluice. The original plan was tuam and sluice but due to too much snow for the original date and too little rain on the 2nd the event was moved to clifden.
Not a great move for me as I hate clifden! On the day there was a high enough tide so the hole was acting very strangely. It was very steep for the whole session, some people really struggled to do moves with some paddlers who would normally score 300+ points in clifden barely registering on the score sheet! The C1 heat in particular was very low scoring, with me coming 2nd overall.
By the time the C1 heats came around the hole had turned extremely steep and retentive. Doing moves was incredibly difficult. On my rides I got beaten down quite a bit, getting stuck in the hole for quite a while, unable to do anything because I kept rolling up sidesurfing offsided! Was quite a fun session though apart from the weather, with a mixture of sun, rain and even hail at one stage.

Unfortunately I missed the second round of team trials due to car problems! Quite annoyed as judging by the photos it was a decent enough day. However I will still make a team place on round 1 positions I think.

I also found some photos of the boluisce a few weeks back when I was doing safety at the varsities. I had never paddled it before so it was good to get down a new river. They are also the first decent shots I have of me with my Mitchell C1 paddle.





Photos thanks to Adrian Durrant (First photo) and Brian Johnston from WITCC