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Displaying items by tag: Mayo Mayhem

Mayo Mayhem, Ireland's biggest windsurfing competition, was held last Friday and Saturday on Elly Beach Belmullet Co Mayo.

This year, the Mayhem event achieved a ranked two-star event on the International Windsurfing Tour.

Elly Beach was filled with colour as the competition attracted close to 50 windsurfers in both the Pro and Armature fleets.

The event had a mix of the best of Irish competing side by side with international competitors from France, Germany, Belgium and Scotland.

Mayo Mayhem - Competitors were scored on their massive Jumps and loops in the air and how they surfed the powerful Atlantic waves Photo: Eugene T CunninghamMayo Mayhem - Competitors were scored on their massive Jumps and loops in the air and how they surfed the powerful Atlantic waves Photo: Eugene T Cunningham

The conditions were perfect with strong southerly winds and three metre waves.

Competitors were scored on their massive Jumps and loops in the air and how they surfed the powerful Atlantic waves. Results below

Pro Fleet
1st Niclolas Quemener (France)
2nd Dieter Van Der Eyken (Belgium)
3rd Finn Mellon (Ireland)
4th Julius Byrne (Ireland)

Women's
1st Katie Mcanena (Ireland)
2nd Aoife Cooke (Ireland)
3rd Amy O'Donnell (Ireland)

Amateur Fleet
1st Tom Lotocki (Poland/Ireland)
2nd Colin Colville (Northern Ireland)
3rd Phil Hayden (Ireland)
4th Sean Keane (Ireland)

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Mayo Mayhem windsurfing wave competition held its fifth edition on Achill Island, in County Mayo, at the end of September, and the organisers have released a post-event video (below). 

The Mayo Mayhem weekend results also decided the Irish windsurfing wave title.

The competition was held in superb condition for a windsurfing wave competition, with Keel beach looking more like Hawaii as it was sunny all weekend with side shore winds of about 20 knots and good size waves of up to three metres.

Previously the competition has had two starboard and two Port tack conditions; this year, it was back to starboard tack. These conditions allowed the competitors to show their wave-riding skills and super-high jumps and loops. In total, there were 36 competitors across the Pro and Amateur fleets.

Two days of competition were run with points awarded each day, and then the points were combined to get an overall result.

In the end, the Pro fleet win went to Alex Duggan, with Julius Byrne in second and Nial Mellon in third.

In the Amateur fleet, Ross Gsamelov took the win from Bob Hagan in second, with Ant Byrne in third.

There was particular praise for Amy O'Donnell, the only female competitor to take on these fun but challenging conditions.

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The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Information

The creation of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) began in a very low key way in the autumn of 2002 with an exploratory meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel in Waterford, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

While numbers of cruiser-racers were large, their specific locations were widespread, but there was simply no denying the numerical strength and majority power of the Cork-Dublin axis. To get what was then a very novel concept up and running, this strength of numbers had to be acknowledged, and the first National Championship in 2003 reflected this, as it was staged in Howth.

ICRA was run by a dedicated group of volunteers each of whom brought their special talents to the organisation. Jim Donegan, the elder statesman, was so much more interested in the wellbeing of the new organisation than in personal advancement that he insisted on Fintan Cairns being the first Commodore, while the distinguished Cork sailor was more than content to be Vice Commodore.

ICRA National Championships

Initially, the highlight of the ICRA season was the National Championship, which is essentially self-limiting, as it is restricted to boats which have or would be eligible for an IRC Rating. Boats not actually rated but eligible were catered for by ICRA’s ace number-cruncher Denis Kiely, who took Ireland’s long-established native rating system ECHO to new heights, thereby providing for extra entries which brought fleet numbers at most annual national championships to comfortably above the hundred mark, particularly at the height of the boom years. 

ICRA Boat of the Year (Winners 2004-2019)