Treasa Lynch/KiteLense

You will find my new blog over on www.treasalynch.com/journal.

Francois Colussi, Dollymount, Sunday afternoon. Two or three hours crouched over a laptop lining up a boat that you can’t even see in the background to make this all hang together perfectly.

FaceBook has this Kitesurf sessions application which I installed after someone sent me a message about it. So in a bid to try and motivate myself further on the kitesurfing front, I started writing little note about my kiteboarding sessions, but it’d be more accurate to say that in fact, they’re bodydragging sessions. I’m starting to get more confident at bodydragging. On Tuesday, in freezing cold not-summer-not-May, I bodydragged my way down Dollymount several times. I went sideways body dragging, with rather less confidence than downwind, but I got there. I think I need to do a lot more bodydragging. The way I see it, it’s like scales on a piano.

There’s this moment - you get it surfing as well, just as you catch the wave - a really literal rush - when things just hang together perfectly and you know why you’ve swallowed four litres of rather lethal Dublin Bay water. I got it on Tuesday. Just one of those days…I can’t remember the last time I got it, possibly one of the days in Morocco. I wasn’t out on a very big powerful kite - a 3m Best, as it happens and a couple of things just worked right with it…I managed to get the bodydragging to be somewhat controlled, apart from when I ran out of water to body drag through.

The thing that goes through my mind mostly when I come in from the water is that I know that it’s very likely that when the kitesurfing really starts to work for me…I’ll be doing a lot less photography. Secretly I know I’m going to find that very hard to deal with when it happens, particularly when you look at some of the photographs I’ve been lucky enough to take.

What was nice about the Best - and this is going to be such a girly thing to say - is that it was a super small kite but it was powerful enough to do what I wanted to do with it which uhem says a lot about how much lighter I must be now than when I was bodydragging with an 11m Tribal last August some time. Also, yeah it was a bit windier. Yay. I’m thin enough to fly small kites. I’ll still be looking for at least 7.5m of a Bandit come the time.

Two of the key kitesurfing locations in Dublin are Dollymount Strand on the north side of the River Liffey, and Sandymount on the south side of the River Liffey. I’ve never been to the kite scene in Sandymount. I’m not all that sure what the story with it is in terms of conditions - I think there are some issues relating to tidal conditions and how much of the beach is available as a launch zone at high tide. I practically live on Dollymount.

Monday evening, Francois Colussi of Pure Magic called me to tell me that they were going to attempt to cross from Dollymount to Sandymount and would wait for me to arrive and do the pictures if I was interested and incidentally, how long will it take you to get here from where you are because it’s not like I’m ever going to say no to something like this.

The weather was not what I would call nice for taking photographs in. It was grey and a bit darker than I would have liked, and frankly, it was that windy that I couldn’t stand still.

Normally, the kitesurfers stay to the northern side of the Bull Wall. There are very good reasons for this - the south side of it is the main route into Dublin Port right now, plus the wind isn’t reliable on the southern side of it. Interestingly enough on Sunday it was striking how calm the Dublin Port side was compared to the beach side.

The lighthouse is Poolbeg Lighthouse, it’s on the Great Southern Wall. I was told later that Olivier and Francois went over as far as Dun Laoighaire. I’m sorry I missed that…it could have been nice.

From where I was standing, or trying to stand, this was the last I saw of them:

I think they were about 1200m from me at that stage. I think they enjoyed it…hopefully I’ll get a sunny day to shoot this on next time around.

Third round of the Irish Kitesurfing championship rolls into Dublin next weekend, with the latest details here on the PureMagic website.

A positive army of photographers is planning to turn up, from a bundle of the boards.ie crew and some of Swords Photographic Group as well.

Current leader in the pro competition after round 1 is Eamon Armstrong, and presumably with the rest of Pure Magic around to compete this time, it could be an interesting battle. Second placed Olivier Coubrun is one to seriously watch out for and I’m not just saying that because I have taken about 300 photographs of him the last week and am amazed by how he has come on even since Mullaghmore.

Don’t know what’s going to happen in the amateur battle with Gavin Yeates expected to move up a level from the novices (and leave the championship wide, wide open for Stefan Vance), Neil could have a fight on his hands. Hopefully Ciaran will make the trek up from Cork this time again because he was just such a blast from nowhere the last time.
Currently leader in the girls’ championship, Dominika Kupciw will have to face a renewed challenge from Aleks Bondareva, Kasia Yeates and Jenny Kinnear, plus Catherine Etienne should be back in the water this time…

A new one for this year - weather permitting - will be an all hands on deck race. I’m fascinated by this prospect. I watched a lot of course racing in Alvor last summer and frankly, the options for mayhem are massive, what with lines tangling and people coming off the boards around the buoys…I expect a lot of entertainment.

I’ve been very busy of late, doing stuff and more stuff and not terribly exciting stuff and basically stuff which has to be done but which bores me senseless and the photography has been falling behind.

KiteLense.net is going to take a slight change - some of the older stuff will probably get cleaned out, and since my life is changing a bit, the content here will probably change too. Still a load of great photographs, but also more about what is happening on the kitesurfing scene in Ireland, or wherever I happen to be, the odd bit of news and stuff, stuff about me, stuff about me taking photographs, stuff about other kitesurfers in Dublin, links to any that I can find and things. Also, I’m actually starting to make progress kitesurfing myself, so more news about that too.

Latest news for photography: KiteLens is now fully 40Dified and don’t we love it. KiteLense is also going to get itself waterhousing casified too - I am in the middle of spec’ing one out, and it’s just a case of getting it put together. Also went full Photoshop a couple of months ago which is going to free up some stuff on that front too.

KiteLense.net has a new camera and will be out playing hopefully in the evenings if the weather is suitable. So far it has been used to take pictures of pianos, candles, cliffs, lighthouses and laptop computers but not kitesurfers. I need to rectify this as there are still no new photogarphs here.

KiteLense.net was back out kitesurfing on Friday last. Short notice, and I’m still bodydragging. But a good few hours all the same, leaving me with a spectacular number of scrapes on my feet (Burrow Beach in Dublin is the scene of utter seashell carnage at the moment and I do not like have never liked wearing and do not own a pair of bootees) and I feel a bit more confident. Incidentally I will hit the next person who says “And who will take all the photos if you’re out kitesurfing” because - and I am almost ashamed to admit this - I had my first powerkite lessons five years ago.

Moving swiftly onwards…it’s late good night.

Last week, I was back from a few hours’ surfing in West Cork. The conditions were hardly stellar, but then I am hardly a stellar surfer either. I have no idea what the wind conditions in Dublin were like, but it was windy enough/gusty in Inchydoney and blowing the wrong way. Most kitesurfers based in the area had shagged off to Kerry for the weekend so the only photographs I took were of scenery, beaches cliffs and the like.

The last time I was surfing was on Dec 31 about four years ago when I unwisely decided to stay in Ireland rather than shipping out like I ususally do. It was windy. It was freezing. I had a six mm wetsuit that bordered on impossible to get into and the rain was horizontal. All told it was a lousy experience so I suppose it is not so surprising that it took me that long to get back into it when surfing means a four hour drive and kitesurfing means a 20 minute drive where.

I believe they had a nice day yesterday. I was crouched over a laptop repairing a hacked website instead of being back in Cork surfing which was the original plan.

KiteWorld dropped through the letter box on Thursday morning. I have not had time to read it yet but the photograph on the cover which is by Richard Boudia is absolutely stunning. Issue 32 if you’re interested.

In the meantime, absent new photographs from me, here’s something from December and warmer climes:

Start of a downwinder.

Dominika Kupciw, Dollymount 9 February, 2008

I’m back on the beach as of the start of February. A little ahead of schedule, but there you have it. This photograph is not from the first session (that was such a nightmare that very little came out of it), but from yesterday. I like this photograph - I think it might be the best photograph I have taken this year so far.

I switched to shooting RAW too, because I now have loads of cards storage and want a little more freedom when it comes to blown out highlights. I’ve mixed feelings (thus far) about the switch; I am not altogether sure that I am getting the white balance right.

To some extent, it’s academic: my main hope for now is to get back on the water myself in the next five or six weeks.

I know this has been doing the rounds but I hadn’t time to check it out just yet.

latest Flexifoil promo with Aaron Hadlow - this links to a quicktime video by the way

It was done by Andy Gordon - I have no link, sorry - but it is the hottest kite video I have ever seen.