Met up with Andreas from Sligo, Cormac from UISCE, and Colin and Carlos came out of retirement - for possibly their best days waveriding in a long time.
Young Ryan came over with me - for his 3rd ever time wavesailing on the westcoast - and once again was blown away by how good the waves are.
We had a great day starboard tack waveriding on the reef and point at Drum on Saturday, followed by a mental day on Sunday down at Elly Beach. 4.5m... overpowered. 4.0m... overpowered. 3.6m... overpowered. 3.2m... overpowered !! Was good to test out all the sails though !
Here's a quick video of my first out on the water on the Sunday. I like this camera angle, so I didnt bother editing any clips, just gave you the whole run as it happened.
First Run from Surfdock Watersports on Vimeo.
Yesterday then was great for speedsailing at Burrow Beach in Dublin. Only problem being the tide was low at 6.30am - so I got up at stupid o'clock and was down there rigging at 6am in the dark, to be ready for first light.
It turned out to be well worth it, with 30-35 knots blowing down the course, and the water just deep enough to get straight in at first light. Sailed on my 5.5m RS EvoII, and got a couple of runs around 42, and and the rest all over 40. Nice start to the day! There was a good crew out all keen to catch the low-tide and improve on their PBs.
Speeds are here.
Ah yes, speaking of speed... This picture below was from the Speed event in Ladie's Island speed event - which I never blogged about. Huge thanks to Steven Cassidy for taking the pics!
After the speed in Burrow, the strong NE winds meant that Dublin would have waves everywhere, so I headed up the coast to find some swell. I'm sure every Dublin wavesailor was out from somewhere between Seapoint and Balbriggan, in fact the whole coast was on flood alert because of high tides and big wind/swell warning... as the tail end of a hurricaine went through.
Rush looked like the best option for me, with port tack cross offshore. The way the wave bent on the beach meant you could ride all the way from the sandbar on the outside in to the beach, and get 10 or 12 turns. OK, it wasn't the west coast... but always nice to see some decent waves only 5 mins from my house !
Here's a pic of Ryan out on his 4.5 and Quatro KT.
Other hurricaine news hit the papers too that day - with the west coast Tow-in crews finally surfing a new secret spot.. located off the coast of Donegal/Sligo.
Here's a shot that was on the front cover of the Irish Times newspaper - which meant that TV and Radio went crazy over covering the tow in surfers.
Far more interesting to hear though is that Finn Mullen Windsurfed AILEENS !! and is obviously the first person EVER to do that!! HUGE respect Finn !!! What an absolute ledgend !!
It was caught on video by Brian from Windsurfer International Magazine and Beach Telegraph, and you can also catch a quick shot of him here on the RTE news
Six One News - RTÉ News Player
No doubt Brian is keeping the footage for the next edition of Windsurfer International. I can't wait to see that one !
Here is the current forecast for Belmullet, check out today's wind !! I was going to head over, but might be TOO windy to be any fun. Also it's still supposed to be gales in Dublin, so I guess that will have to do :)
www.surfdock.ie
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