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 I 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.
Website: 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
