PKRA - MONDIAL DU VENT 2010 - DAY 4 - Light Winds

“Let’s play the waiting game"

Leucate, La Franqui, April 13, 2010 - It was a very difficult, frustrating and challenging day for all the riders, crew and especially Erik Troostheide, the PKRA race director, who waited around the whole day for the wind to pick up in strength. The wind just wouldn’t make up its mind what direction it wanted to blow and how strong. Just as soon as the wind seemed to be picking up in strength it was always 3 to 5 knots less than suitable to run the competition.

Many riders pumped up their kites and spread their lines on the beach in anticipation of strengthening winds. Jesse Richman (Cabrinha, USA), Alex Soto (F-ONE, D.R.), and Florian Gruber (North, GER) were amongst some of the riders who had their kites up in the air testing the wind strength. Michael Schitzhofer (JN, AUT) jumped in and out of his wetsuit more than 3 times today waiting for the official warm up announcement that never seemed like was never going to be announced. In the end, the re-run of his heat was postponed until tomorrow due to the light winds.

After nearly 9 hours of waiting for the wind to decide if it was going to cooperate or not, Troostheide made the final announcement stating that the competition was canceled for today and will resume tomorrow if the wind conditions are more suitable. The forecast for tomorrow does not look promising, but you never know what the actual weather is going to be until it’s actually happening.

Even though the wind was being unfair today there was a lot of entertainment happening all around the event site yet again today. Numerous amounts of happy, smiling people were out and about checking out the action and fun exciting displays up in the sky. It was so nice to see the longest kite in the world lighting up the sky with it’s beautiful colors, also a humungous octopus kite flew over the event site and above the heads of giggling children.

Riders amused themselves by playing some beach volleyball, while others danced and sang to the hip hop music playing on the beach. Brazilian rider Reno Romeu (North, BRA) was so anxious to fly some sort of kite, he didn’t care what he was flying unless it was something that lifted him a few meters up in the air. Thanks to Sky Fly de Leucate for enabling Romeu to get the chance to fly a few meters above the ground instead of above water.

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The mandatory riders meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at 8:30am with the first possible start at 9:00am.