Myself, Simon Light and Marcus Hawkins at the awards ceremony
Action shot from one of the heats (Photos courtesy of Craig Sawyer)
Action shot from one of the heats (Photos courtesy of Craig Sawyer)
Last weekend brought the final stage of the 2010 BKSA kitesurfing tour on the windy shores of Blackpool.
The event started with the morning briefing, in which we were told that Friday was likely to be the only windy day, and that it was likely that we'd need to get all the events complete in the 5 hours before the tide came in. This meant that heat times were reduced and everyone needed to be on the ball to make sure they didn't miss them.
In my first heat I was drawn up against Simon Light in the Amateur Mens, and I struggled to land anything decent in the choppy conditions. Simon came out on top and I had to go through to the play-off to progress.
This put me up against Marcus Hawkins, who had also struggled in his first heat - Once the play-off had started the wind dropped almost immediately, both of us were struggling to stay upwind and even remain in the judging area. I failed to land any decent moves again, but I took some old tricks out of the bag to make sure I scored some points in the horrible conditions. This was enough to put me through to the finals on what must have been a pretty close call.
I decided that I wouldn't risk the wind dropping off again in the finals, so opted to use my 11m Furia, rather than the 9m Pure which I used through the heats.
The final went better, but still struggled to land any handle-passes in the conditions. I pulled some powered hooked in moves out of the bag which ensured I would get some points on the board, but as the final ended I had no idea how I'd do compared to the others.
We were all left to wonder about the results, as they wouldn't be announced until the presentation on Saturday. I had a good free-ride session after the comp, until the tide came in and there was no beach left to land.
On Saturday there was no significant wind. I had a couple of hours on the water with my 15m Chrono, but everyone else gave it a miss. We then all hung around killing time until it was time to go to the prize-giving celebrations. After relaxing with a few beers and demolishing the buffet, the ceremonies began and results read out. I was surprised to hear that I'd beaten Simon Light in the final, with Jake Moore taking the win. This meant that I'd also pushed ahead of Simon in the final results leaving me in 2nd place for the year... I was gobsmacked :)
After all the results were read out, it was time to party on, drink some more beer and get down and dance. We stayed on at the venue until about midnight then moved off into town to continue the merriment. I called it a night sometime after 3am, but for a few others that was only just the beginning!
When the morning came, nobody was particularly in the right frame of mind for more kitesurfing, and it was a good thing that there was no wind anyway. Before lunchtime most of us has said our goodbyes and started our journeys back home.
