Long Distance
Long distance kayaking is used by ULKC as a way to keep fit, perfect the all-important forward stroke, have a bit of craic and of course win varsities! We have the ideal training area on the Shannon beside UL, where we can go straight from the boathouse onto the water.
What we do !
There is an 8km paddle (about 40 minutes or so) from the boathouse down to Corbally Bridge and back and people will regularly take out the long, pointy boats and go for a spin. Keep an eye on the forum for dates and times that people are going out, or if nothing is happening throw up a post yourself and see if anyone is interested in going out. Besides getting easier with a bit of practise, as you get better at forward paddling you will find that river kayaking starts to go a bit better, and paddling out when surf kayaking gets a lot easier. So it’s worth getting out for a long distance session every so often!
Inter-varsities
But the main reason for going out flatwater paddling is of course inter-varsities! Everyone who goes to varsities will compete in long distance and all will earn points for UL that go towards the final result. Every year our first years put a huge effort into long distance paddling coming up to varsities and it has been instrumental in ULKC winning inter-varsities for the last eight years in a row!