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Displaying items by tag: Clydagh river

#KAYAKING - The University of Limerick were overall winners in the 2012 Irish Kayaking Intervarsities at GMIT Castlebar last weekend.

As the Mayo Advertiser reports, some 500 students were on hand for the three days of competition, which kicked off with canoe polo on Lough Conn (won by GMIT over DCU).

Saturday's action saw the whitewater contest on the Clydagh River, with Limerick emerging on top, and the freestyle event on the River Clare at Tuam Wave.

Sunday closed with the long distance event at Lough Lannagh, which clinched the weekend for UL's kayakers.

Mayo also hosted the Irish Intervarsity Sailing Championships in Rosmoney last week, which attracting 200 students to the Westport area.

Published in Kayaking

#KAYAKING - The Galway Advertiser reports that the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) at Castlebar will host the Irish Kayaking Intervarsities this weekend from today 17 February.

Eighteen colleges will compete in events on the Clydagh river and Lough Lannagh in divisions from whitewater and freestyle to canoe polo and long distance.

“The Kayaking Intervarsities will be a good way to highlight this adventure sports hub and the excellent town centre watersports amenity of Lough Lannagh," said Stephen Hannon of GMIT.

“For spectators the location is very convenient," he added. "People will have an opportunity to see a sport that is sometimes under the radar but at which Ireland has been represented in every Olympics since Munich in 1972.”

The Galway Advertiser has more on the story HERE.

Published in Kayaking

The Dragon was designed by Johan Anker in 1929 as an entry for a competition run by the Royal Yacht Club of Gothenburg, to find a small keel-boat that could be used for simple weekend cruising among the islands and fjords of the Scandinavian seaboard. The original design had two berths and was ideally suited for cruising in his home waters of Norway. The boat quickly attracted owners and within ten years it had spread all over Europe.

The Dragon's long keel and elegant metre-boat lines remain unchanged, but today Dragons are constructed using the latest technology to make the boat durable and easy to maintain. GRP is the most popular material, but both new and old wooden boats regularly win major competitions while looking as beautiful as any craft afloat. Exotic materials are banned throughout the boat, and strict rules are applied to all areas of construction to avoid sacrificing value for a fractional increase in speed.

The key to the Dragon's enduring appeal lies in the careful development of its rig. Its well-balanced sail plan makes boat handling easy for lightweights, while a controlled process of development has produced one of the most flexible and controllable rigs of any racing boat.