KA Sail Caloundra Wind & Surf Speed Challenge

This event was put together by Pete Nitchke, KA's reseller in Queensland from Caloundra Wind & Surf and Justin Boland, a keen local KA sailor. Top effort by the lads under very difficult conditions and lots of waiting for the right weekend. Thanks fellas.

KA will be back aboard next year.

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From dusk till dawn...

With 20 competitiors signed on and at least 35 people on the water a blast was had by all. the day produced 20-25 knots blowing from dusk till dawn from the South and Sou-East. There were only about 3 times during the event where the wind backed off. Giving everyone a chance to rest before it filled back in again just as strong.



The event was the first time qld has seen a speed challenge of this type. KA Sail and Caloundra Wind & Surf really gave the their full support providing bbq and beers, $2000 worth of prizes plus demo Koncepts, Kults and boards for everyone to try out.

With 2 previous postponements the event was 3rd time lucky. even though we had a high tide the times were fast and this only got faster as the tide dropped and exposed the banks.

The water conditions were still very choppy, and this really sorted the men from the boys. the main run even on a lowish tide was covered in short sharp 10-30cm chop and made the bear aways frightening. Something akin to driving at high speed along a corrugated track. The wipe outs were spectacular! Watching the fast guys start to bounce out of control and then recover to keep screaming along at over 35knots had all the onlookers on the beach loving every second.

GPS CLASS

At the end of the day the event was almost to tight to call. The gps class was very competitive with only 0.4 knot seperating the top 3 and 0.1 knot seperating first and second place.



The results after tabulation of the tracks submitted for the average of 5 / 10 sec runs were.

1st 34.84 kn - Michel Van Der Pligt
2nd 34.70 kn - Pierre Milutin
3rd 34.48 kn - Sean O'brien
4th 32.97 kn - Mark Addley
5th 32.17 kn - Bill eastgate
6th 29.56 kn - Brad Anderson
7th 28.81 kn - Mike Maguire
8th 27.22 kn - Glen Young
9th gps error- Tim Pitcher

Congrats Michel, I know the 6.6m Koncept has gone to a good home. well done!!!

Special mention also goes to Mark who got the max peak speed for the day of 37 knots and Pierre and Sean for making Michel sweat.

RADAR CLASS

In the radar class we had a radar to clock the speeds for everyone involved. we had 11 guys and girls enter this class and gave instant feedback at the end of each run. unfortunately due to the angles we had to clock everyone on a beam reach but still the class was just as close with only 2 Mph between the top 5.

Mens winner Shaun fitton - prize of a KA boom

Ladies winner Kellie Tusler - prize of a KA boom



Both Shaun and Kellie were on wave sails and freeride boards clocking 27 and 25 mph on a beam reach is pretty good stuff. kellie was on a 2007 KULT demo sail.

The day ended with the typical bbq and beer session over looking the speed strip. well for everyone except Michel and Pierre who were playing catch me if you can until the sun started to set. Both sailors clocking over 65km sailed for the day.

Another highlight was watching Sean O'briens' gybes. The man doesn't slow down. Ever! Even when turning.

A big thanks to everyone for getting involved. Plus a big thanks for the sponsors as well.



We can confirm already that as this was an inaugural event the next challenge is being planned and both KA Sail and Caloundra Wind & Surf have started to draw up prize lists and look at how to improve the event further again.

Cheers and happy winds,
 
Justin.