It has been a long summer back home in Switzerland wt a lot of work, good times wt friends and almost winter ;-) As usual i didn't kite much back home, except for a weekend on Lake Como, which was fantastic.
My travel started from Zurich to London for a long weekend followed by a short meeting at cabrinha in Hong Kong where i got my quiver filled again wt new toys. The 2014 Chaos looks fantastic, and it feels awesome to ride. This year i got the 138 XCaliber Signature Series which is a bit bigger than last year, it goes very well upwind, give me a good pop and is very light weight.
We had a great start into the season with our biggest event up to date. 160 competitors from all over the world came to China to the course racing world championships. It took almost 1.5years to organise and many meetings wt officials and local authorities to get it all together.
We ran 61 races in mostly great and sometimes challenging conditions, the sun came out only on rare occasions. Most of the competitors were very happy wt the outcome of the event, as we got a lot of positive feedback. A new mark has been set for upcoming worlds.
I was sitting on the pin boat for the whole event and making sure no one goes over the line too early, and if then pin em down and get em UFD... ;-) apart from getting the flag up n down at the right time and checking the line during the start sequence we also had a lot of spare time on the boat... but what else to do on a chines fishing boat than fishing...
My personal note out of the many nations and people i met at the worlds... chines and americans are very similar, both think they are the biggest and best, both have not much knowledge of the rest of the world, less than 40% of the population own a passport and they are pretty loud and rude.
The KTA starts again and i'm back for more. Biggest change for this year, i'm not staying in Boracay anymore. I had a good time in the last 5 years, but in the end, Boracay will not get me any further in life. I still got a lot of friends back there, which i most likely will see when we go back wt the KTA. It's a good kite spot, which got a bit too popular and way to crowded nowadays. There is also a serious health threatening water quality issue, which has just become worse over the last 5 years. The government will probably not fix the serious pollution problem in Bulabog as long as people keep comin.
Right now i'm over in Perth where the Oceania Championships are about to beginn. Looks like a lot easier to organise an event like this over here. The sailing clubs have all the boats u need and staff that is well trained and they speak a language which is understandable...
There is plenty of kitespots around. so far i've checked out the ones closer to perth... not really enough time to do the long trips to the great spots north and south of perth but the kiting here is fab as well. U can find a spot for every wind direction.
i'll be back for more... oceanics next then xmas race in phuket and NZ for xmas ;-)
peace out...
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