ron-t kayaking blog

24 August 2013 .............. The Swellies

The last two evenings have been quite big tidal ranges, so I`ve been to the Swellies again, this time to catch the Swellies wave, rather then the wave beside the Cardinal Marker.

It`s the first time I`ve been to the Swellies wave since I did my recent modification to the bow by adding rocker, and I`ve also now taken away a bit of the downward curve on the front overhang - it looks less curved now, and more aesthetically pleasing - a bit more East Greenlandish.

On Thursday evening, the previous low tide height at Holyhead was 0.5 metres, and the next high tide height was 6.1 metres, so the tidal range was 5.6 metres.

It was quite busy, with an interesting mixture of boats - two sea kayaks, a slalom boat, some bigger river boats, two river play boats, and a Canadian.

There was some quite good surfing going on, and I did okay. My boat was behaving better after its recent modifications, it doesn`t catch the same as it used to, so I can mostly overcome the tendendcy for it to get pushed round to the left. I was also getting some quite good rides further over to the left ( ie, river right ). But one paddle twirl was all I could muster.

On Friday evening, the previous low tide height at Holyhead was 0.5 metres, and the next high tide height was 6.0 metre, so the tidal range of 5.5 metres was almost as big as it was on Thursday evening.

But I was alone - nobody else turned up. Strange !

The wave was I think just a wee bit more user friendly, it stayed as a green wave for quite a long time, and I got several good rides on it. I also managed a few paddle twirls.

At one point the boat tried to do a bit of pearling, but at the time I was fighting to stay on the wave, so I couldn`t really do anything with it.

The later tide times, and a lot of cloud around meant that it got too dark quite soon, but I had about an hour on it.

All in all, I`m pleased with the result of my latest modifications to the bow.

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