Canoe Polo - LCP vs MUCK

On Sunday, a group of us from Lisburn City Paddlers headed to Ballyronan to face a polo challenge from Mid Ulster Canoe and Kayak club.

This was going to be interesting from the start since the only people in LCP who had played polo were myself and Sonya.

Most of the people playing were beginners, and was whilst was played for fun, was still played hard.


In the first game I managed to stop most shots, until the dying minutes when the only div2 player present finally got one past me.

In the second game I got a goal following a perfect pass through 3 opposition players from Sonya.

However - I cant seem to remember the final score from that match ;)

Shaws Bridge Slalom

Sunday saw a slalom competition at Shaws Bridge organised by CSNI (Canoe Slalom Northern Ireland). This was also the first event of the CANI league.

There was a big turn out seeing over 50 paddlers compete over the day.

I competed in both C1 and C2 with Niall. It was good to have one of CANI's C1 slalom boats to paddle as last time at a Slalom I had to use my playboat.

First runs for me were the C1 runs. Both runs I hit just the 1 gate each, making it the cleanest of any C1 runs in the day, however my speed between the gates let me down and I finished 3rd overall.

Next up was the C2 race, which had a large number of competitors this year. This was a lot of fun, as both of us were very confident in throwing the boat around, tail-squirting at many gates. Out of the 7 entrants, myself and Niall came 4th - which isn't bad for 2 freestyle paddlers in a field full of real slalom paddlers.

As if the C2 wasnt fun enough, Niall had brought his squirt boat too, and once the competition was over it was time for some sinky action before the prize giving.

Many thanks to Navarat Turner for all the professional photos.
You can find more from the event at her site http://community.webshots.com/user/aqua_invader?action=profile


All pictures Copyright Navarat Turner 2010 

Irish Nationals - Round 1 - Limerick

Saturday saw round 1 of the Irish Nationals at Curragower in Limerick.

This was to be my first time competing in the Spanish fly, and most of the people there had never seen a boat like it, never mind someone paddling it.

OC-1 was to be the first category to run on the feature, which provided great amusement to those watching. Unfortunately the feature was still forming when I had to go, so it was very green and difficult to catch. Having never paddled here before I struggled, but still managed to put up a score - which seemed to impress a lot of people who believe you need a spraydeck.

C1 was to be the last category to run, so I spent most of the rest of the competition in the Judges tent scribing. I got to see a number of fairly impressive runs from a few of the guys in the mens K1 - although the feature wasn't as good as it can be which stopped the biggest moves being thrown.


This gave me a chance to watch exactly how they were catching the wave, and using it, and i was really looking forward to the C1 competition where I would get to go back into the feature.


Just as the last few K1 runs were coming to an end the feature started to die. All the C1-ers ran to try and get at least 1 run in before the feature died completely, but by this stage even if you did catch the wave you flushed as soon as you started to initiate a move.

The following day I headed with Orky and Niall to a newly discovered squirt spot round the corner in Limerick. We only had 2 squirt boats with us, so I resorted to being camera man from the spanish fly. This actually worked out well as I could take good pictures, and still provide rescue when Orkys boat sprung a leak and he went down more than he anticipated.

Hopefully after some boat repairs I should get squirting myself next time.