The riders meeting was held at 10:00 am, right on schedule. The wind was offshore so race director Olaf Van Tol decided to go for one more racing event to wrap up the competition so the freestylers were released at 12:00 pm and because the conditions were not favourable during the morning.

The race got underway at 12:30 pm which turned out to be quite a nice race to cap off the Germany Tour stop. The wind at the start was up to 18 knots then it became really gusty and there were a lot of crashes around the safety boats. A lot of racers were getting towed out of control in the downwind and even in the upwind. It took 28 minutes for the first place competitor to complete the course.

Once again the North team dominated the race with a first and second place win for Dirk Hanel (GER) followed by Sky Solbach (USA) and Sami Gali (ESP) representing Best. Although Charles Deleau decided not to race on the final day he remained on top after 10 races, thus earning the Course Racing World Championship title.

After the event, a handful of athletes were seen on the water giving an expression session including Robby Naish who was at the beach along with WBO Champion Wladimir Klitschko who joined in to please the crowd.

COURSE RACING FINAL YEAR SUMMARY:

It all started in Mexico last March at the opening games of the PKRA 2008 World Tour. Right from the very start, the North team asserted their dominance in the racing events with Sean Farley taking the lead early, winning 7 out of 9 races earning a total of 4.9 points. Teammate Charles Deleau grabbed 2 wins to finish 2nd place with 14.4 points. Sami Gali of Best Kiteboarding came in close at third with 17 points. In the women’s event, North racer Steph Bridge won 5 out of 9 grabbing the lead early with 7.5 points while teammate Angela Peral crossed the finish line ahead of the ladies in the last three races managing to stay in 2nd place with 10.1 points. Cabrinha’s Susi Mai finished third with 21 points.

For the 5th year running the KPWT Kitesurf Wave Masters World cup took place in Portugal, but this time it was not at the usual world renowned windy Guincho.

This year the KPWT joined forces with the Ocean Spirit Festival in Santa Cruz which is a huge festival of music and riding waves. This year it would also host the Kitesurf Wave Masters world cup as well as the surfing, skim boarding and kayaking championships!

Santa Cruz is a small surfing town North of Guincho and in between the famous surfing coastline of Ericeira and Peniche, slap bang in the middle of endless miles of long white sandy beaches blasted by the full throttle of Atlantic swell.

It’s not a short journey down to Portugal from Wales in my Animal van and as the wind and waves were a bit stingy for last years wave Masters in Guincho I decided that to make the drive worth it I was going to go early and track the wind and swell down all the way from Brittany where I would be stopping off for the annual Flexifoil gathering on the Queberon Peninsula.

With good timing, a bit of flexibility, and a regular up to date forecast we managed to move with the swell and wind all the way through France and Spain until we reached the west coast of Portugal. We scored a few of the classic surf spots on the way and discovered some new places in my faithful Animal van that made me not want to get on a plane again! When we didn’t have wind we had waves and when we didn’t have waves we had wind and when the wind was light we had a Flexifoil buggy and when the waves were small we had the stand up paddle board! Unfortunately we had to kiss good bye to the buggy in France as it was getting a bit too cosy in the van!

Ironically the wind decided to go to sleep during the week of the Wave Masters and only blew for half a day towards the end of the week which meant we were able to start but not finish the comp.