The North East town of Redcar hosted the first round of the British Championships! My aim for this year was to compete on the professional Kitesurf side of the tour and then maybe do the land if I had the right time. Kitesurfing is usually held on the Friday of the event (wind permitting) with the rest of the other disciplines run on Saturday and Sunday.
With that in mind, I left for Redcar at 3am on Friday morning arriving in good time to register for the event. The forecast had looked poor all weekend but with the chance of a sea breeze, I hoped we might get lucky. The first sea breeze signs came on Friday as expected around 2pm. The wind started to fill in so I pumped up my brand new ION 5 12.5m and went for Landboard photo shoot with loads of photographers!
A few hours later the wind was really starting to come through so all Kitesurfers were asked to prepare for the competition. I went out on my 11m Hadlow and 14.5 ION for a few practise runs but was so underpowered that I could only get 1 or 2 tacks in the competition area before having to run back upwind. Needless to say everyone was still landing some awesome tricks and I was pretty happy with my riding too! Unfortunately the competition was cancelled for the day due to too little wind which meant I couldn’t enter the land competition over the rest of the weekend because it could have clashed with my water heats.
Saturday conditions were poor and the wind never really picked up enough to get any riding done and Sunday yet again teased us with conditions which were on the light side and almost do able. The junior competition got started but never finished as the wind died and finished off the day, leaving us with no results.
The event turnout was really successful and I think we all had an amazing time there despite not getting the competitions done. The next tour date is the 9th – 11th of July at Hunstanton, Norfolk.
