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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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About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).