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KA North American Speed Challenge 2007 Results Gorge sailors dominated the 2007 KA sail Amateur GPS speed challenge. 4 out of the top ten places were awarded to Gorge sailors, sailing at beautiful places known as Klickitat, Rowena, and Chinook park, home of the controversially sandbar named “ARooBar”. This years Challenge also marked the first runs over 40 knots, made by Kean Rogers, the overall winner for the second year in a row. The winning average of 5 runs was 39.4 knots. Kean has requested a 2008 KA Koncept 5.8 setup for an RDM mast as his prize. Thought he was fast last year, wait till he gets on this rig. In second place we have Richard Sperling with a 33.6 average. Richard had faster runs soon after the contest ended, so we look forward to seeing some blazing speeds from Richard next year. Richard is 61 years old, again proving that skill and experience are key factors in high speed windsurfing, and are more important than age. Richard wins a 135-185 cm Carbon Boom. Can't have too many nice booms… In third place was Derek Nielsen, a Hood River sailor with Dairy Queen (yum), Sailworks, and Gsport sponsorship. Derek also had a faster run after the contest ended, but would still remain in 3rd place. Derek wins his choice of a fin from the Windsurfdeal.com website, or a credit to something else he would rather have. Bill Kline placed 4 th in this year's event. We thank Bill for promoting our sport, by helping upload the other sailors results for them. We had over 100 tracks entered this year, a substantial increase over the 2006 results. We also had our first Canadian entry, with Don Ferguson coming out with a fifth overall. In 6 th place was Jon Robbins, a KA Sail Ambassador from the San Francisco bay area. Jon had the most sessions for the year, showing real dedication, and won the Daily Distance Award for sailing 123 KMs in a day. Nice day! Jon has won a PhotoGlow backlit frame, with a print of his choice in it. Any good sailing shots? The top Woman this year was Isabelle Fortier, another KA Ambassador, and speedy sailor based in California. The top junior sailor this year was Julian Rogers, son of Kean Rogers. Julian won this division last year as well. Julian has not started to use a harness yet, and will win a Harness from Windsurfdeal. Cant wait to see what Julian can do, hooked in. Oh, to be young and live in the Gorge! We have approval to run the contest again next year! Thanks for this to KA Sail in Australia , especially Andrew McDougall and Nick Bez. Thanks also to the KA North American distributor, Jeurg Schnorf, for being a supporter of a sport with a small, but faithful, following in North America. For next year, we hope to work with the GPS-SS staff to simplify the approved sites so each individual site need not be documented and on a list before a session can be uploaded. We would like to also thank the GPS-SS staff, particularly Dylan, Martin, and Onno for administering the site, and continually adding beaches to the ever-growing list. Without them there would be no KA sail GPS challenge. Big thanks also to Craig Bergh, the NA timekeeper, for encouraging GPS speedsailing in general, and verifying all the top tracks from this years event. Finally thanks to the folks at Windsurfdeal.com for administering the prize giving. Speed are average of 5, 10 second runs in knots. Kean Rogers 39.4 Richard Sperling 33.6 Derek Nielsen 32.7 Bill Kline 32.54 Don Ferguson 32.43 Jon Robbins 32.30 Christian Piepers 32.28 Richard Whit 31.94 Brian Arquit 31.92 Gary Hobbs 31.58 Rick Eckstrom 31.50 Anthony Del Balso 30.40 Alex Targ 29.64 Steve Johnson 29.41 Terry Alemade 29.31 Bob Conace 28.84 Steve Pritchett 28.58 Isabelle Fortier 27.00 Anabelle Ferguson 20.02 Julian Rogers 19.16 Jean-Francois Lamarche 18.1
2006 Results The final results are in from the 2006 KA Sail North American speed challenge. Sailors from all over the US competed on their own home waters, and then analyzed and uploaded their data for the contest. The overall winner is 'Roo', also known as Kean Rogers from the Gorge with a top average speed of 33.8 knots. Roo has won a Koncept 5.0 for next year speed blasting. Roo also had the highest average on the West Coast as well. Second place went to Gary Hobbs of Texas with a top average speed of 32.06 knots. Gary has won a KA sail ambassadorship for being the fastest speed in the Midwest. The top speed on the East Coast went to Marshall Novis. Marshall also wins the Daily Distance contest with a 80 mile day. This was the session that Marshall uploaded, but I was also there one day when Marshall went over 105 mi. Marshall wins a PhotoGlow desktop darling with a print of his choice. The top female average was Isabelle Fortier with a 25.54 knot average. Isabelle wins a KA aluminum boom. Julian Rogers, Kean’s 10 year old son (little roo) was a brave participant and wins the junior division and wins a small boom. Hope your Dad knows it is yours! Thanks to Ed Sinofsky and GPS-speedsurfing.com for administering the contest. We are happy to announce that KA Sail will again sponsor the Speed Challenge again in 2007! So get your gear in shape over the winter, buy a few Koncepts, and we hope to hear from you (by upload) next spring.
Womens Division
Junior Division
The first KA Speed Challenge has been up and running in North America since April. GPS speed sailing is in it's infancy in the USA but the event has attracted a growing following from sailors all over the country. Ed Sinofsky, KA Ambassador from Cape Cod near Boston has been running the contest and doing a fantastic job. The Challenge is supported by Windsurfing Hawaii and the team at www.gps-speedsurfing.com monthly winners qualify for great prizes courtesy of KA or Windsurfing Hawaii. The monthly winners so far are: April The winner in April was Bob Conace of Bird Island Basin, Texas. He generated the track on the first day of the KA competition as part of the WorldWinds speed challenge. Bob is 64 years old, and a great sailor. He was featured last year in an article in Windsurfing Magazine. His 10 second average is 31.24 knots, and is the top average speed so far. May The winner in May was Jeff Adamski from Worthington, Minnesota. Jeff did his runs as part of the Midwest Speed Challenge in Worthington, on a demo Koncept 5.8. His average 10 second time is 29.14 knots. May's winner would have been Chris Lock, but after using the Koncept, and apparently enjoying it, Chris became a KA Ambassador, which disqualifies Chris from winning prizes. Good news is that Chris is currently the leader of the Midwest Speed Challenge with an average of 29.48 knots. June Gary Hobbs of Galveston Bay, Texas took top honours in June. Taking it on in big breeze he had a 10 second average of 29.8 knots. July July's winner was Marshall Novis, sailing at Hyannis, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Marshall ’s speed was unleashed after changing his Retros for Koncepts and a custom C3 X1 raked speed/weed fin. His average 10 second speed is 29.38 Kts. August August’s winner was again Gary Hobbs from South Texas sailing at Bird Island Basin. His average speed was 32.07 knots. September September’s leader, so far, is Kean Rogers, AKA Roo, an ex-Aussie that is one of the most experienced speedsailors in the US. Roo did his runs in the Gorge, and got an average of 32.12 knots at beautiful Stevenson, Washington state.
The KA Speed Challenge is open to all amateur sailors using any equipment at any location in the USA and runs through to the October. Contact ed at photoglow.com for more information of check out the time on gps-speedsurfing.com. |
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