Competitions
Troon - BKSA Round 3
Date: 26th- 27th August 2006
Result: 3rd, pro-ladies
So far I think the best trip would have to be heading to Scotland for the 3rd round of the BKSA Tour. Just before the event we travelled to Kintyre to meet up with Mark and the guys who were following the wind. The scenery was amazing passing through Argyll forest and the huge Loch’s Fyne and Lomond. We kited at a lovely spot in ‘Machrihanish’ with clean rolling waves and a magnificent sandy beach. Unfortunately however the wind didn’t last for long so our kiting session was cut short but I definitely hope to come back to this spot!
Friday saw the start of the Troon event sponsored by ‘Windthings’. It was held on ‘Barassie’ Beach with the island of Aaron dominating the horizon.
Unfortunately Friday proved to be a rather windless day so those who were keen had a wakeboard session behind the zapcat and the freestyle was transferred to the next day. Saturday arrived with more promising conditions and it was decided to run the junior and amateur ladies heats. Everyone set up their big kites and hit the water for a warm up. The juniors heats went first followed by the start of the ladies amateurs but the wind started to drop and the black flag went up to call an end to the event. Unfortunately the wind did not return and the Freestyle was again postponed to the next day.
Sunday arrived and it was decided by the judges to shorten the heats to 5 minutes instead of 7minutes in order to fit everyone in. The amateur ladies finished their heats first followed by some exciting riding by the men’s amateurs.
Now it was time for the Pro-men/ladies heats to start and people gathered to the shoreline to watch the action at close hand. The wind was light and very onshore so it was going to be struggle for riders to stay upwind!
5 women competed in the Pro-ladies freestyle event. The winner from heats 1&2 progressed straight to the final heat leaving the other three to battle it out in a second chance semi-final leading to a spot in the final.
In my first heat there was enough wind for all three of us to show our best tricks and luckily I landed all my tricks in the 5 minute heat. Some say I should have made it through to the final but the Judges decision was for me to go into semi-final to fight for a place in the final.
I decided that I had to try the best I could and I went for all the technical tricks that I could land. It worked and I won the heat and progressed through to the final.
The Final arrived but the wind had dropped even more, I had already entertained the crowd in a roly-poly up the beach in last heat so it was going to be a challenge to stay upwind. The heat started and in the lack of space I managed to pull off 3 or 4 tricks, it looked like Steph and Carrie were also finding it difficult to stay upwind and we ended up very close and busting tricks in ankle deep water. The results were:
Pro-ladies:
1st Steph Bridges (North)
2nd Carrie Begg (Fone)
3rd Victoria Heather (Slingshot)
Pro-men’s:
1st Lewis Crathern (RRD)
2nd Robin Snuggs (Flexifoil)
3rd Sam Light (Naish)