over and out.. i'm off again

The last 3 weeks I spent in a Bus, a Mercedes Sprinter together wt Kathrin. She drove it all the way from Hamburg down to Bordeaux in France, where I met here at the airport.

We went to the “Dune du Pyla”, the biggest dune of Europe. This is an amazing spot for Paragliding. We met Alex down there, and climbed the dune. As soon as a light breeze kicks in all the paragliders come out to play. It’s the perfect spot for beginners to learn the ground handling and if the wind gets a bit stronger it’s amazing for soring. 

Alex and Kathrin had both brand new gliders and they could test em here. The conditions were so good that I got a chance too. It was amazing, 2minute explanation and off u go… I was already flying on my second try... think the kitesurfing helps a bit here. Worst case u end up at the bottom of the dune in the sea… and it’s a pretty steep and deeps sandy way back up, the dune is about 110m high.

Since the main holiday season here was over, all the parkings on the beach were for free and even wt our big bus we could park right on the beach. All public parking’s here have showers and toilets on the beach. It’s cold water shower, but better than nothing… this is btw where all those Cabrinha solar shower would come in very handy…

Couple of days later we left for La Baule, the KTE tourstop and European championships for course racing. I met again many familiar faces from the KTA and from my last visit to the KTE. These events are very different to our events in Asia. The KTE takes on existing events and putts kitesurfing on as a side event, while in Asia we create events just for kiteboarding.

So it’s no wonders that here the scene on the beach was pretty boring, commentary only in French, so no rider would understand a word of what’s goin on out there.  All the races were held far off the beach with almost 0 interest from the beach goers, and for freestyle it was just not enough wind, except for the first day where they decided to do course racing instead all day.

The KTE has the surname “the camping tour” and I’ve seen why, most riders come wt the vans and campers to the spots. The food and beverage at the event is very poor – except for the free beer for the riders all day, and the partys could not really keep up.

It was good for me to come here and see that we’re actually doin a damn good job in Asia, where the rider is the center of attention and not the stalls and attractions on the beach.

After the event was finished we had to rush down to Sardinia (Cagliari) for the course race world championships. I was going there to represent the KTA and check out the setup and take notes for the organization of the worlds 2013 J

A few other riders drove down as well and some other flew, since there was almost no time to get there. It was a long drive all the way through France, which btw is crazy on high way toll, and we ended up in Livorno, wt a short photo shoot at the leaning tower of Pisa.

After a overnight ferry we arrived in Sardinia where we had another 3h drive ahead of us to get to the spot.

We took a little detour to check out some other spots along the way. There are various spot on Sardinia, some should be amazing wave spots if the mistral is blowing. Well it was not blowing the day we drove passed but still amazing countryside, maybe next time.

The weather down here was still in the thirties during the day. We parked the bus right at the event site again. All the hotels and camping places were too far away, something that should have been thought of.

The event site looked good, few tents for registration, jury, race committee, storage and so on. It was just all way to small for 200riders, it would probably fit 50riders comfortably.

The registration and measuring took place in the first two days before the event. It was good to see the worlds best racers all out in the water practicing.

I guess the biggest no go out there was, that there were some rider who never had been competing before, that should not have happened at the worlds.

So for next year there will be a quota u have to fulfill to register.

There were a few new things for most riders. One was all the coach boats on the water, there were about 10 coaches out there measuring wind during the races and giving feedback to their riders on the beach wt radios. So all the riders which had no support boat out there never knew how much wind it was on the water, the race committee never announced the wind on the beach, and similar to the KTE in La Baule all info’s were given in Italian. So the riders had to figure it all out themselves as well as the start times of the races. If u see the first finisher coming back to the beach from the other fleet, it must be about time to get out there…

They were running 2 separate courses in the bay to get the four fleets out on the water as much as possible. This was sometimes a bit confusing for the riders but it turned out well.

Also new was the race format, which was a two day qualification race, one day final race, followed by a medal race series on the last day. This whole schedule is very risky since most tour stops have at least one day without wind, so medal races will mostly not be held. The whole race format was also a test and will be adjusted wt officials and riders feedback.

The races itself were pretty much run exactly the same way we did it for the last years in Asia, a new adjusted ISAF conform flag sequence and a few more people on the boats wt ISAF shirts on were the biggest change I think. The rest is still the same, flags come up, flags go down, airhorn tweets, wind gets measured and time taken and in the end… first one around the course wins the race ;-)

In the almost 200$ entrance fee was pretty much nothing included, no hotel, no food, no drinks.. oh no I forgot the pasta parties… two spoons of pasta per person.. and u had to buy a drink!! Also the opening ceremony was somewhere lost in space. So there is lots of space for improvement for the next worlds.

Most riders left early on Sunday, since it was only the top ten riders of men and women still competing and we had to catch the ferry at 8pm all the way back up north, which was another 3-4hour drive away.

After another night on a ferry we were heading up to Switzerland.. back home for 3days.

I’m now sitting on a plane, on the way back to my other home in Asia. So thanks and goodbye to all my friends and family in Switzerland, will see u next year I guess… and hello to all my friends in Asia.

Next on my schedule Bangkok and Hong Kong to meet up wt friends, dentist and meet the guys at the Cabrinha office, to get some more awesome gear for the new season.
Then it’s time for Boracay and some tour stops of the KTA in Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and China and hopefully I will make it back to the Cook Islands… love it there.