2010 World Kiteboard Courseracing Championships at Corpus Christi, Texas

Here is my report of the Worlds finished just a few days ago in CC, Texas.

First I want to THANK all of my riders for putting on such a great show for the Aguera Designed CR boards.  IN  places 1st  Adam Koch, 2nd Damien Leroy, 3rd  Bruno Sroka, 4th  Mellissa Gil,  7th Jesse Richman, 8th  Kent Marenkovic,14th  Shawn Richman,  18th Christian Rogge,  20th Andy Koch, 21st Andoni Urrutia, and Don Yoakum in 29th

DAY ONE:

Thursday, the opening day of the Worlds saw Corpus Christi with 25- 30 knots of wind and Super Choppy water conditions. Wind was from the regular Corpus direction out of the SE.  Everyone was rigging their smaller kites from about 9m to 7m all day long. I even used the 6m twice out of the six races.

Race one,  saw Sky Solbach lead the way with his Paolo Rista tri fin and won the race followed by Damien Leroy, john heineken and Jesse Richman.

Race two saw Adam Koch recover from a bad start and a DSQ for going the wrong side of finish buoy in race #1.  He started a string of 5 bullets that he continued throughout the day. Followed by Bruno Sroka and Sean Farley.

Race 3 , Again Adam , followed by Bruno and Damien for or first 1,2,3 finish.

Race 4, Adam, Damien,  I am not sure who finished 3 rd.

Race 5 , Adam, Bruno, Damien 1,2,3

Race 6 , Adam, Damien, Sean Farley

All top three spots actually 4 spots  for the day were on 4 fin setups in very hard to ride conditions.

Some top Three fin riders on this day were Sky (Rista), Chip wasson (Mikes lab), and Mike Gebhardt (ML).  I (Alex A) rode the Production Aguera CR 59 with the tri fin setup also so  I could try and get downwind easier!

DAY TWO:

Friday the winds were much lighter at around 7-12 kts at the start of the first race of the day and then picked up a little from there.

Race 1    Bruno Sroka showed his expertise in the light air with his Cabrinha 16 m and showed the fleet that he would be a force AGAIN on day two! He was followed by a fleet of more  Aguera riders with Adam, Damien, Kent, and Jesse to take a 1,2,3,4,5   finish!!! I could not enjoy this as much as I should have because I had dropped my 16 m and could not relaunch it for the start!! Not a good idea to Drop a 16m in light winds!!

Race 2 : Winds were still relatively light at 10- 14 knots and Bruno ran away with another World Championship race on his 16 m followed by Damien, Adam, Sky and Jesse.

Race 3  saw a building of the winds to around 12- 18 knots and the Cabrinha team all switched to 13 m except for Jesse who went to an 11m. Adam Stayed on his 13 m Ozone I beleive that he had been racing all day. Now Damien Leroy came to the front of the pack for the remaining two races of the Championship, followed by Adam , Johnny Heineken, Bruno, and Jesse..

Race 4 and the last race of the Worlds had a dying breeze and most riders stayed with their kites from race 3 and again it was Damien coming to the lead with his 13 m followed by Adam, Bruno, Gebby, Sean Farley and then Myself on the Production CR 59 quad fin setup that I had been riding all day.  I had a chance to finish 4th but the old man just fell on his tack and gave it away to Gebby and Farley at the finish line.  But I was still pretty stoked with 6th on a real production board. I just need to practice some turns and my downwind because I really suck at those two things! I guess I need to get out of the shop a little more often and practice some racing skills instead of just practicing to see what is fast upwind..

Day Three and Day Four the wind stayed too light to compete.. So the Competition was over, although Jesse Richman gave it a valiant effort to get more races off on the final day and suckered us all out there to go for a swim!!

Here is a link to the complete results http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=2696

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