US Kite Racing Nationals Longbeach
17 Formula and 13 Kite Foilers descended upon Long Beach for the 2014 Kite Racing Nationals over the weekend. Light to moderate winds provided enough breeze to get in 14 races for the formula fleet (with Friday included) and 9 races for the foilers.
Putting heavy pressure on reigning champ, Johnny Heineken, Nico Landauer proved to excel in the light conditions, while Johnny was in his groove with a tad more breeze and his kite not "falling from the sky", Johnny obviously enjoys the windier conditions of SF Bay and Nico's home base of San Diego give him more light air training, so go figure.
The talk of the beach in the Kitefoiling world was the new Carfino foil set up, which looks very modern and capable. Mango Carifino has jumped back in the game after a lengthy sabbatical, and an excited following has thrown lots of orders in his direction, but it's performance is still out with the jury.
Erika Heineken, racing just on formula boards this weekend, on her board, Girls Rule Boys Drule kept the boys druling with consistency and style, her worse score was 4th in two of the 14 races, not bad, not bad at all. We pinged Erika a couple weeks ago for her thoughts when comparing the foils and the formula boards, especially for women...