Wednesday, December 06, 2017

Isle of Man Sea Kayak Festival


The Seven Kingdoms: Isle of Man Sea Kayak Festival takes place annually in September.

Timed to coincide with the Autumnal Equinox (the largest spring tides of the year) to create opportunity for real learning in a really FUN environment!
Typical format: Festival Weekend plus optional 4 day training course.



Sea Kayak Festival enjoys epic conditions

The Seven Kingdoms: Isle of Man Sea Kayak Festival takes place every September, and is a truly international event. Timed for the Autumnal Equinox, largest tides of the year, the world-class training environment attracts international coaches and students, who travel to explore the island’s Tidal Races and Overfalls.

Created by Keirron Tastagh in 2003, (and became effective promotion prior to launching Adventurous Experiences the following year) the Festival showcased the Isle of Man as a consistently high-quality training venue for Sea Kayaking, through an exciting, challenging and friendly Isle of Man event.

Keirron explained how the event has developed from a stand-alone weekend offering experiences in advanced water conditions, and leadership training courses, to being an integral part of the Sea Kayaking calendar, enjoying its 14th year of sustainable growth.

“It has been sponsored by Sea Kayaking UK and supported by IoM Steam Packet since the outset. This ongoing support has also played a key part in establishing Adventurous Experiences in a worldwide network of training centres, who deliver British Canoeing; Personal Performance, Leadership and Coaching Awards.”
 
Symposium literally means ‘meeting and drinking’ and traditional symposiums are typically based around this ethos of social and mass paddling experiences.
When Adventurous Experiences was established in 2004, as an Adventure Sports Centre, its core offer was activity driven high quality sea kayaking tuition and trips. The business delivered real adventure and individualised coaching in a group environment, and this meshed well with the Symposium model as an ‘annual celebration of sea kayaking’.
As permanent educational programs through paddlesport were established, the symposium also developed to meet the increasing demand for quality education, and professional coaching with low ratios. The Island provides the required conditions to run British Canoeing Moderate Water and Advanced Water leadership training and assessment courses.
Local paddlers and Adventure Club members have the opportunity to receive training from visiting coaches, bringing in knowledge and also providing external verification for British Canoeing awards, ran locally.
“The great benefit of this continuous learning network” says Keirron “is that I get to travel to other other symposiums as a guest coach, fulfilling this role to their local kayakers. This has included Israel, United States, Scandinavia, and the UK. International coaches also bring their students over to us to train, and many of them sign up to a full week on the water.”
Keirron continues;
“We have developed world-class professional risk management education through outdoor training and experiences in the Isle of Man, a perspective that runs through all activities and programs we run. We got a lot of complements from our visitors on the standard of personal performance and decision making skills of our members of the Adventure Club and the Junior Paddlesport programs. In addition, the Island is unique in the numbers of juniors coming into the sport of Sea Kayaking.”
The annual Festival is a major part of the 7 Kingdoms Events offer each September.
Participants sign up to skills development classes with professional coaches in: advanced water skills, moving water skills, incident avoidance & management, adapting skills for conditions, navigation on land & sea.
The festival style International Training Weekend offers a range of training either side of the Saturday evening meal and social, at the Bay Hotel in Port Erin.

More information on the Festival and other Seven Kingdoms events at:
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Catch you on the water soon!
Keirron & the Team


The International SKUK Dealers Meet at Anglesey after the Festival : )

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