living the dream: Red Bull island hopping

Red bull kitecomp in Sri Lanka

after the cook islands I had to fly straight back to Sri Lanka, so no time to see a bit of new Zealand, but it will be on my schedule next time ;-)

The guys from KSL, kitesurfing Lanka kiteschool in Kalpitiya, asked me if I have time to come and organize the red bull downwind race from Kappaladi lagoon via Kalpitiya lagoon to Dream spot, a 25km downwind race. It fit into my schedule so I said yes and booked flights to Sri Lanka. I went through a few time zones and back over the date line again. So I checked in just before midnight on the 2^nd of July, took a flight to Auckland 4.5h, had a layover of 5hours, a flight to Bangkok for almost 13h, another 3h layover and 3.5h flight to Sri Lanka… but not enough yet, there was a 3-4h drive up to Kalpitiya waiting as well… so finally I arrived at about 5AM on the 5^th July in the KSL camp. Just to have a good, cold beer and a bit of sleep.

I would feel the time zones for the next couple of days… waking up every morning around 5AM, not my normal schedule.

When I woke up, the wind was blowing, as it was every day for the last 7 weeks… that’s when I left here last time. The camp has improved it’s look, more hammocks, lazy chairs and chill out and it was still fully booked, since the day it opened. Dil and Leo are doin a great job here.

I had a couple of good kiting sessions and a few meetings and site check ups wt Dil during the next two days. The Red Bull crew has arrived as well and we had some meeting wt them as well.

The whole event should be fun and free for all. Our main thing to organize was to get the limited photo and video crews to the right spot at the right time and to guarantee the safety of the 45riders that were registered.

The competition day started off wt and early morning drive up to the starting area. The guys set up the red bull tent and we got the final registration done. I made a short briefing about the route that we will run, the flags used for the start and making sure everyone knew about the pack down and safety procedures.

So the 11AM start was set and ready to go. We set a downwind start line, which was the best we could to wt the resources we had. Surprisingly it was a clear start., except for one guy who didn’t listen to the flag instructions… but I’m used to that by now

As expected Fabio Ingrosso took an early lead and crossed the checkpoint on the sandbar at Kalpitiya lagoon in first place few hundred meters ahead of every one else. He managed to win the race one minute ahead of everyone else. The second part of the race was then a upwind leg back to the lagoon. which was attended only by a handful of crazy kiters. It was a straight 10km upwind along the mangrove channel back to the red bull tent. This time local hero Mowfil was o top of his game and made it back up in just a bit over 45minutes.

The price giving was held shortly after on the beach before everyone went home for shower and party nap, to get ready for the red bull after party. I had way to many vodka red bulls but the party was good fun for all.. till the next morning came and the hangovers kicked in.

I think there was a bit too much dancing during the night so that we did not have any energy left for a wind dance on the beach. Believe it or not it was the first day in Sri Lanka for almost 2month with no wind… so if u need a rest, just organize a competition and u will be blessed wt no wind… murphy’s law I guess.