Here's a video from one of the races. It doesn't feature me much, as it follows the leaders and I wasn't ever leading. You can see me at the start slightly behind the leaders on the left side of the picture, on a 9m Sonic 3 (dark reddish kite, white leading edge).
It was a great event. I came 17th out of 18 entrants, which doesn't sound very good, but I was happy with that for a first event. I was consistently beating one guy who's been doing this longer than me, and I was happy to just be finishing races (there's a time cutoff of 10 minutes after the first finisher to count). Given that this was my first event and the top finishers are Olympic contenders, and there are three former US Sailing yachtsmen/yachtswomen of the year competing, the talent level is quite high. I have things in mind to work on before my next event, and overall it was a good time.
Well done! I would love to compete in an event like this. Given some of the names I would say finishing before the cutoff was something to be proud of by its self!
Do you know anything about the broken mast shower at the start?
Well done! I would love to compete in an event like this. Given some of the names I would say finishing before the cutoff was something to be proud of by its self!
Do you know anything about the broken mast shower at the start?
It was a Mike's Lab mast that broke without hitting anything.The rider is a pretty big guy, but there wasn't any particular traumatic event that happened. The mast was replaced for the second day of racing with a new one (handy to have the event in the backyard of the guy who built the foil that broke).
Indeed, thanks for posting. Almost as good race coverage as the racing! I got to kite at Sherman Island in 2019 and in addition to the weed that fouls their foils, there were some logs. Be tough hitting one of those.
Nice work! Did you participate in all the individual races that weekend? Were you flying Sonic3 the entire time? It looked like the leaders were holding down some big kites in that breeze!
Nice work! Did you participate in all the individual races that weekend? Were you flying Sonic3 the entire time? It looked like the leaders were holding down some big kites in that breeze!
Which foil were you racing with?
I raced in every race except race 3 (the lat race of the morning session on Saturday). I only had two kites with me: 9m and 13m Sonic 3s, and the wind was light enough that I was having trouble keeping moving on my 13m in race 2, so I skipped race 3. I used a 13m Sonic 3 all day Saturday and a 9m Sonic 3 all day Sunday. My foil is a Mike's Lab Bullet 3. I'm contemplating getting some VMG 2s or R1v4s, but really, I haven't maxed out my ability on the Sonics yet, so I could probably keep them a while longer before I hit the limits of the kites.