The Global Paddling Community

Interview with kayak surfer Dessie McGlinchey from Northern Ireland.

This interview was originally produced for the Portuguese web site 'kayaksurf.net' and is published exclusively on Playak in english to make it available to a wider audience. The portuguese version of the interview, with larger versions of some of the photos, is available here.

Name: Dessie McGlinchey
Title: In the name of the Northern Ireland Surf Squad
Accomplishments:
• Four times Winner of the Irish Open
• Thee times winner in Mundaka Championship - IC Class - including this year!
• Member of the NI Surkayak Team

When was your team formed?
The NI team was formed to compete at the Home Internationals in September 2000, which were hosted by the Republic of Ireland. There had previously been an all Ireland team but as we had a successful league running in the north and had enough paddlers to form a team for the first time we thought it would be worth a try. We might not have placed that well but it was a great experience for us and gave us the confidence to stay together and train for the next big international competition. From the loose collection of paddlers that formed that first team we have come along way with a real sense of team spirit now despite the fierce competition between members for their places on the squad.

A couple of years ago we also formed the NI Surf Kayak Club to help promote the sport and this too has been going form strength to strength.

Some of the Irish spots

How many members do you have?
We have a squad of about 20 although we travelled to Costa Rica with 14 surfers. Our competitions and events often have up to 30 paddlers and sometimes more. The venues for the contests vary from Bundoran, the home of surfing in Ireland, to empty breaks in North Donegal through to Portrush, Northern Ireland's Newquay. This year the club has grown to 60 members drawn from all types of kayakers across NI with an interest in surfing. Forming a club has proved to be a very successful way to get people interested in our sport helping us promote safe surfing and letting people know about surf etiquette.

How is surf kayaking organized in Northern Ireland? You are a sub committee of CANI Council but are there other surf kayak associations?
There has been a surf league in NI since around 1997/8, back then it was 2 guys who lived on the north coast that organised the contests. All the competitors used plastic boats; in the years since, surfing has been growing and become more organised. We formed a committee a few years ago (recognised by CANI, our national governing body) and now each of the squad members takes on a role, from contest organiser, coaching, judging and safety to allow each of our events to run smoothly. In addition to the competitions the committee also runs a number of recreational and promotional events, through the club, offering coaching to beginner surf kayakers right through to world champions! We have all put in a lot of effort and this year the club / committee won The President's Trophy, a CANI award for services to the sport of canoeing.

Dessie - Northern Ireland

About the rules of your competitions: I suppose you follow the WSKA, but how do you choose your judges?
It's important that, if we are competing at a World and European level, we are familiar with the WSKA rules. To that end, we run our contests in a similar fashion to the big competitions. We have had to adapt the rules a bit to encourage novice competitors into the Plastic Class but this has worked well. The only other difference being that all the judging is done by the competitors. It would be great if all our competitions had qualified judges and we hope to achieve this in the future.

Do you agree with a judging panel consisting of surfboard judges, like in Mundaka?
I look forward to going to Mundaka each year to compete. The Basque guys organise a great event and use local surfers who are qualified judges. It would be good if the bigger contests like the Home Internationals, the British and Irish Open's etc, adopted this format. Using qualified judges allows the competitors to concentrate on their surfing giving the event a more professional, and enjoyable, feel.

Dessie - Northern Ireland

How do you see the evolution of surfkayaking around the world?
Surf Kayaking has come a long way in the last while. It has only been a few years since the HP (open) category was formed, since then the design of the boats has allowed paddlers to really push themselves and tackle much more difficult waves. It's only in the last 2 years that kayakers have begun to get aerials consistently; this is a direct result of good boat design. With major manufacturers like Mega bringing out new models all the time and many individual shapers developing surf kayak design, paddlers can look forward to even greater things to come. The evolution of the "short" surf kayak has seen kayakers joining the line up and gaining much more respect from the board surfers, this has really helped with the sports image. We are also getting much more media coverage drawing the attention of sponsors and major kayak manufacturers which all helps with the development of the sport - who knows where we will be in 5 years time!

About your team… tell us about your achievements.
As a team we still haven't achieved what I think we are capable of. We were disappointed to finish in 5th place in Costa Rica. We decided a few weeks after the 2003 worlds in Ireland that we would go for a final day finish in Costa Rica. Perhaps we will be able to achieve that goal when we compete at the next world championships. As it was, we were able to improve our team ranking by 3 places.

Jonny Bingham

Individually we achieved some excellent results - the highlight of which of course is Jonny winning the Open at the Worlds. Other great results were Chris Hobson 2nd IC and 3rd HP and Mike Barton our team manager who finished 4 th in the Grand Master's IC. In my opinion Chris has much talent and I believe he is capable of winning major titles in the years to come. Credit has to go to our female paddlers too who with only a year's surf kayaking behind them and very little international competition experience really competed well.

Chris Hobson

Personally the highlights of my career have been competing at Santa Cruz 2003 in huge surf, finishing in the top 10 in both IC and HP at the 2003 Worlds, winning the IC category at Mundaka two years running and the thing I am most proud of - winning the Irish Open 4 years running with Jonny beating me to 5 in a row last year.

Dessie - IC - Mundaka

And the new Mega League 2006, what can you tell us about it?
The 2006 Mega league follows on from last year's very successful league. Hard work in 2005 secured a fantastic sponsorship from local outdoor store Coast and Creek who provided well over £1000 worth of equipment as prizes. The plastic class is open to all (outside the top 10) so it allows newcomers a chance to gain competition experience against paddlers of a similar standard. This year's first prize for the Plastic Class is a new Maverick sponsored by Mega Kayaks who also donated a Maverick to the club. The plastic class is a great stepping stone into the HP and IC classes with last years novices now competing for places on the squad.

What are your team goals for the future?
First up is the highly competitive Home Internationals later this year in Portugal; this is a great testing ground for new squad members. Then the Worlds in Mundaka, next year, where we are aiming for a finals day finish. Individually there is a lot to aim for too with the Irish, British and European Opens and the new Surf World Cup. NI has a good pool of talented paddlers and the natural resources needed to do well in the surf kayaking scene.

The Team

We also hope the club will grow and improve too, hosting more events like the Surf World Cup qualifier which we will be running in North Donegal this September and perhaps offering BCU courses like the 4 star surf kayak award along with our usual coaching events.

Do you have any sponsors besides Mega Kayaks?
We have to thank Mega Kayaks , our major sponsor this year, for providing us with two Maverick surf kayaks, one for the winner of the Plastic Class and the other for club members. However individual prizes for each competition will be supplied by local businesses. We do a lot to promote the sport and are always looking for new sponsors who can help us out and get a bit of publicity back in return.

Last words for all the (surf) kayakers?
Surf with a smile :)

Thanks a lot Dessie!

Text: Luis Pedro Abreu
Photos: Chloe Hamilton - www.nisurfkayak.com