Hey all,

With what seems to be the driest winter in memory and if the daily updated Facebook & Twitter status of the Irish boating community are to be believed paddlers are being driven to madness and MTB. I’m no exception to this and if anyone who has seen me on a bike they will testify that I’d be better off going mad than embarrass myself any further while biking.

So with that mass amount of time I have to waste these days I had to have something to help pass the time and slow my descent into madness.

I have started to notice more and more top quality video productions of boater x events and extreme races.

In all of these productions we see the use of cable cams and get massive and cool sweeping and tracking shots of runs down sections of river. Over the years loads of boaters have chatted after a few beers saying “we should so do something like that on the < insert river name here >.

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Hey all,

I’ve been rather lazy on the blogging front over the last while up until I saw this thread over on the UK boating site UKRGB. It starts of pretty simple looking to identify a type Prussik knot and as all online forums seem to splits into a couple of different directions with all sorts of information / miss information popping up.

There were a couple of things which I found interesting. Firstly it confirmed to me that boaters and ropes / rope work are strange bedfellows. There seems to be an assumption in the wider paddling community that if someone can paddle ( X ) grade river they are automatically totally up to speed with the rope stuff.

Secondly and the thing that struck my interest is that kayakers seem to have an aversion against using out of the ordinary such as “mechanical devices” or tools which might make things easier.

I have constantly heard people preach the K.I.S.S . principal but I wonder have some of these folks closed their minds to their own detriment, are we missing out on using the right tools for the job?

I thought I would share a bit of kit I have been using for a few years now and I honestly think its a savage tool that can complement almost any WW kayakers tool kit.

Its called a Robot and manufactured by an Italian company called Kong.

“KONG ROBOT DESCENDER: A versatile piece of gear in the vertical world. Some of its many uses include a belay device, rappel device, ascender, in place of a pulley in a z-drag system and the list goes on. It can accommodate ropes between 5-13mm in diameter in a single or double configuration. It even works great with ropes of different diameters”

These are usually used by mountain guides and cliff rescue teams in the Alpine regions but due to the fact it is so versatile it has quickly become an invaluable part of my paddling kit .

The specs stack up like this:

Material: aluminium alloy

Weight: 158 g

Dimensions: 52 x 148 mm

Max Load: 22 kN

Rope diameter: 5-13 mm

It weights in about the same weight as a standard steel crab or about twice the weight as an alloy carabineer. Size wise its not much bigger than a large paddling wire gate crab and fits nicely into the pocket of my PFD.

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Hi all,

Later this month(29th Nov 09) I will be running an Irish Canoe Union Level 3 Kayak Skills Assessment, the assessment will be take place on either the rivers Kings,Nore or Barrow with a final decision being made in the days previous to the assessment pending on water levels.

The Level 3 Kayaking Skills Award aims to enable participants to;

• Kayak safely and competently on river up to and including Grade 2 rivers as a member of a group.
• Be capable of negotiating obstacles likely to be encountered on Grade 2 rivers.
• Assist in rescues.
• Foster further participation in canoeing.

This assessment to open to anyone but it is suggested that you have completed the ICU Level 2 kayak skills previously.

I realise that very few people enjoy the pressure of assessments so I run these assessments as just another day on the river without making it feel like an exam. This non-interventions method helps you relax so you can enjoy the day and perform at your best.

A PDF copy of the ICU Level 3 kayak skills syllabus can be found..

The cost of this one day assessment is €40 (ask about student/un-employed discount) which includes the certificate administration fee from the ICU who will post certs directly to successful candidates. Spaces are extremely limited so If you would like to book on to this assessment or have any questions please drop me an email info@adrianshanahan.com .

Cheers,

Adrian

Enjoy the warm bright evenings while they last…..

This November Irelands most dynamic playspot brings you something new. Stay tuned for more details.

Adrian

Hey,

So I have broke the onlyish kinda rule I set my self when I started this blog thin up, “to keep it updated regularly”. The only positive is that I’ve had loads of stuff on as of late which included some boating & good times.

Clifden Fun Rodeo 09

So for the few weeks leading up to the weekend of 20th/21st of June myself , Bowsie & some of the NUIG/GMIT kayak club crew were busy making plans for Event 2 of the IFS league which was to be held in Clifden Co. Galway.

The idea of the event was was pretty straight forward, “lets get everyone over to Clifden do a training / freestyle event lash a BBQ & beach party in the middle of it all and hope every one has a savage time”. From the feed back we have gotten I say it’s safe to say we did what we set out to do.

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Hey,

As some of you might know I am a member of the Irish Freestyle Committee and that our National Team are in preparations for the upcoming World Freestyle Championships In Thun Switzerland later in the Summer. RTE’s magazine program Nationwide decided to do a a small piece on the Freestyle Team and Freestyle kayaking as a whole, this was a bit of honour for us as we are the only sport/ discipline to get covered twice.

As this was Filmed at relative short notice and that the team are currently spread from Uganda to the Ottawa I drafted in some help form friends / Sluice locals and those of the national team that were in striking distance of Dublin.

Fellow team i-canoe member James VdB took some shots on the day

The piece aired on Irish National last Friday evening to approx 500,000 + and was received well among both the paddling / non-paddling community.  My only regrets are that there was not some more kayaking shown as a few of the guys managed to go huge on the evening but this wasn’t shown, there were also a couple of more interviews shot too which didn’t get aired ( one of which included the single best “why do you kayak” answers I have ever heard ).

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Just a quick note on this:

So of you may know I am currently part of the Irish Freestyle Committee this year and part of our job is to help promote freestyle kayaking and help introduce new people to the sport. I decided to run a “river freestyle” training  day on the river Boyne. Now to be honest the Boyne is far form a freestyle feature meca but there was just enough to allow us have a quality day on the river going over all sorts of things. Read the rest of this entry »

With the May bank holiday weekend rolling around and there not being any quality water around at all I was going to be around Kilkenny for the weekend. As the sun was shining myself and fellow Kilkenny paddler Mickie Brennan decided to hit up the little known King’s river 5km from Kilkenny city. Its a nice little class 2+/-3 that would be a super little training ground for introduction white water skills. We got back to basics trying to use every little feature available to practice almost everything we could think of, sure it wasn’t the most exciting boating either of us had ever done but with a little bit of competition going on between us to add a competitive element to the day it was good times all round.

Me and my game face lol.

Getting my best side surf on.

Mick approves of my demo.

Ferry glyding 101 from Mickie.