Weekend of 24th of July
Another weekend of exciting racing events with Ballinskellig Offshore Beach Sprints and Lough Rinn Regatta 2021 both held successfully.
Lough Rinn Regatta
Lough Rinn regatta was held on Saturday the 24th of July with very warm but low wind conditions at the fantastic eight lane venue. Men’s Junior 18 1x’s began the days racing with heats kicking off at 8.00am. This was quickly followed by some exciting 7 and 8 lane racing in the Women’s Junior 18 2x and Men’s Inter 2-. By 11am, times were recorded and can be found for those interested on the live results page linked on the regatta Twitter page.
There were many exciting finals throughout the afternoon with crews and coaches focussed on what they were learning from heats and working hard to stay cool between races. Racing finished at 6.30pm. The Lough Rinn Regatta Committee wish to thank their volunteers and supporters, including Carrick on Shannon Rowing Club, Leitrim County Council, Leitrim Sports Partnership, O’Reilly Plant Hire Signs, Leitrim Civil Defence, Mohill Gardaí and many other local individuals who supported the regatta.
Mark Kelly produced some high quality go pro, drone footage and photography of the entire event. His photographs can be found on his Flickr page linked HERE.
Ballinskelligs Offshore Beach Sprints
The first ever Offshore Coastal Rowing Beach Sprints event was held last Saturday morning the 24th of July at Ballinskelligs Beach, Co.Kerry hosted by Portmagee Rowing club. Beach Sprints are rowed in singles (solo), mixed doubles and mixed coxed quadruple sculls raced in coastal offshore boats. The race begins with a beach start run followed by a slalom row around three buoys and back. The race ends with one rower from each team sprinting to a finish line on the beach.
A total of 60 races were run off over the course of the morning. Kanghua Coastal boats were at hand to race in.
The Beach Sprints categories for Seniors were CW1X, CM1X, CMix2X, CMix4X+, and Juniors CJW1X, CLM1X , CJW2X, CJM2X, CJMix2X.
On one of the finest days of the year the beach sprints winners were racing to be winners of the inaugural Irish event with some looking to qualify to represent Ireland at the World Coastal Beach Sprints Finals in Portugal at the end of September. First up was the Senior women’s single, won by Killorglin’s Zoe Hyde following a close race with Miriam Sheehan from Castletownbere.
In the men’s single Rosscarbery’s Keelan Mannix, was imperious and sailed through the quarter and semifinals before winning the final in style. He faced quality opposition in the final from Kenmares Tom Kelly who also gave a powerful display. The senior mixed double was a far closer affair. The Portmagee double crew of Aoife Lynch and David Hussey held off the challenge of Arklows Sionna Healy and Cormac Kelly. Nothing separated the crews on land or sea and the final sprint to the finish line was decided by a margin of two tenths of a second.
The last senior race was the mixed quad and Luke Keaney and Rosy Temple from Donegal Bay and Sionna Healy and Cormac Kelly from Arklow teamed up with cox David Hussey to take the honours. The junior men’s final was an all Kenmare affair with Rowan Johnston taking the gold from Joshua Foley in second. Killorglin’s Lily Gallagher took the honours in the Junior women’s single. The Workmans club from Killarney won the women’s junior doubles from Donegal Bay in second. Results can be found HERE. Official announcement to follow shortly.
The day overall was extremely good fun but incredibly competitive.
Additional races in the afternoon saw the Endurance crews take to the water for a full day’s racing. Thanks to Valerie O’Sullivan for taking some of the photos. Keep an eye on her facebook page for Drone footage.
Event Results can be found on the Events Tab on the Rowing Ireland website.
Upcoming domestic events can be found on the Domestic Calendar which is also available on the Events tab of the Rowing Ireland website.
Upcoming Events include Junior Festival of Rowing hosted by Limerick Regatta Committee at O’Briensbridge on Saturday 31st of July and Loughros Point Masters Offshore Regatta at Portnoo.
If you have any event queries please contact either the regatta secretary in the first instance or events@rowingireland.ie
