My name is Martin McCarthy from Wild Water Kayak Club in Dublin. Some club mates of mine went up to the Castlefinn race over the weekend and came back with great stories of the race and the post race refreshments and food and craic. The are already canvassing for more people to go up next year and as a result hopefully you'll have a bigger turn-out from Dublin at the race.
Keith McGuirk was talking to Denis Gallagher and Bernard Doherty from Donegal about a training camp we're running for juniors on the Mourne and Owenkillew Rivers over the Easter. The plan we have is as follows:
Good Friday
AM: meet at the Mourne at Newtownstewart at 10.00 AM and paddle to Sion Mills.
PM: paddle the Owenkillew from Gortin to Plumbridge (starting at 4.00 PM)
Saturday
AM: Meet at Newtownstewart at 10.00 AM and paddle Mourne or Owenkillew (depending on water levels and conditions).
PM: Race from Newtownstewart to confluence of Mourne and Derg (approx. 15-18 minute race).
Sunday
If there is water, we may try to paddle another river in the vicinity (maybe the Finn or some other river if you have any suggestions), if there is not, we will head back towards Dublin and paddle the Boyne from Stackallen to Slane on the way (the venue for a Wild Water Race the week after).
Our club and our discipline of Wild Water Racing are really trying to promote junior competitive paddling and in particular Wild Water Racing. As you can see from the websites:
and
we have quite a number of juniors racing and they are all doing very well. One thing that we see as key to the success of any such overall development plan is to get several club involved. Salmon Leap have a number of very active juniors as do Thomastown, so besides competing against fellow club mates, the youngsters can compete against youngsters from other clubs and the friendly rivalry leads to them becoming friends too, which we believe will increase the likelyhood of them sticking with the sport.
I gather that you may be interested in getting your juniors involved in competitive canoeing. Keith said he had mentioned this training weekend to you and we would be delighted if you could come along for all or part of it. Most of our paddlers will either be in composite WWW boats or in Wavehoppers. We do have a few spare wavehoppers we could bring along for you guys to use. The plan is to get many river miles in and as many rapids in as possible.
The more people that come along the better. Please could you let me know if you are keen to come along and how many Wavehoppers we should bring if needed? Ideally, if you have some more experienced juniors they could try out the wavehoppers while those less experienced could paddle GPs or whatever they are used to paddling (I do not know the standard of the paddlers or their level of experience so you would be best placed to judge what would work for them). We will have enough adult safety cover for they guys we are bringing along but I would ask that if you do bring a bunch of people along that you ensure they are of suitable standard or that you bring sufficient safety cover.
This training weekend is part of a long term plan that we have which has included the juniors doing the winter series of Wild Water Races, participating in the summer Marathon races. We went to Bala with about 10 juniors last summer and we are planning a trip to Engelberger in the Swiss Alps for them this July. If you guys have an interest in the Mourne weekend or any longer term plans, please let us know and we would be delighted to help in any way that we can.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Cheers,
Martin McCarthy
tel: 085-1742261 (mobile)
tel: 01-6235281 (home)
