Jonathan Keys >> 1st Place Australian Kite Racing Nationals

Conditions at Alva were pretty demanding for the racers with a challenging 6 to 13knots on race day. 30 degree C and warm water. Damo and I from Perth Western Australia had never imagined racing in such low wind conditions and the Eastern state boys were very fast, we normally race 10 to 25knots.

Marvin, N, Adam and Rick black on his custom twin tip were confident in these conditions. We raced in the open ocean with a 2.5km course that was set close to a couple of shallow sand bars, one at the start line that bunched up the field. I was using a 15m Edge and a new Alex Aguera CR64 race board.

Pre racing we had the 10minute white flag countdown ready to race for 1 hour due to very low wind and then eventually the wind picked up consistent enough to race. We had 2 false starts and were back to beach twice. At one point 3-4 big light wind 15 to 17m kites had fallen into the water and were trying the re-launch.

Race 1:
A full 1 min to start count down created a bunched, pushy start for each race. I hung back upwind on all starts to pick my line on 10seconds and on the first race a few riders tangled kites in the mayhem and I got a perfect start at the pointy end and did the perfect race. Nicely powered and making sure my gybes were down otherwise in these conditions you were going to fall off. I got 1st place.

Race 2:
I was doing what you don’t do at the start of a race in light winds and was tacking 1.30sec about 100m from start line fell off, I was so under powered I took at least 40seconds to get back up powered. By this time the Race had started and I missed it by 40seconds, so I decided to give it a red hot go and raced through most of the pack and after 2km I was in 4th place and missed 3rd by metres on the line.

Race 3:
I came into start 10seconds to go fully powered and Damo & Marvin were blocking the pin end of start so I set in behind them over the line, the rest of the field was heavily jostling down wind on the line.  Marvin, Damo and I raced away towards first mark 1km away, I was faster than Marvin and Damo and a little better upwind but couldn’t get around Marvin at the 1st mark and Damo was 20meters below us, Marvin tacked around the mark and I made a big mistake, I gybed to chase him, instead of following my own race, as I gybed I caught a edge and fell.  Damo dived under me and the boys were away, I got back up, just getting above mark by millimeters and powered after the boys 80m away by now, on the bottom mark, Marvin nearly fell on his gybe but steadied and crossed the line just in-front of Damo, I smashed the bottom 2 marks and came in 3rd.

How to have way too much fun? Go racing.
Johnathan Keys