Thanks for all the great org. WAKSA; esp. you Alex, Phil, Mike, Jess, Veebs and too many more to mention. Most impressive was how every single person at the comp. pitched in to help set up and breakdown.

What a bizarre weekend though!

Sat., little to no wind & 40 degees....really excellent social gathering with fine bbq and lovely setting. A good day at the beach, but little kiting.

Sunday nuking wind all day. Great how the WAKSA infrastucture held up. Standing around in 30 knots being sandblasted all day long is tiring on man and machine. Despite moon-like conditons, a spectator crowd made the walk and was rewarded with some of the most awesome riding ever seen....by me at least.

Huge airs with loops and very fast landings....and everyone was overpowered. Even little old me on a 7m. It is amazing to see how high a 40 kg junior can go on a 9m. There should be some great visuals coming out as there were many excellent photographers and cinematographers there too.

A special thanks to all the competitors who braved challanging conditions and put on a great show. And, they handled everything thrown at them with maturity and respect.

Some of us old farts kept looking at each other all day saying "its picked up some more, are we really goig to go out in this again..........yea, what the heck", but we were postponed, lucky.

Already looking forward to the re-run or the next one..........what a blast, literally.

I forgot to mention the time that our judges put in....thanks Damo and team.

Woke up today fairly stiff and sore but overall think I got away fairly lightly. Someone said I was Lucky, I`m not sure if I would call be taken out lucky but it could of been a whole lot worse. Winning Lotto is Lucky!! Something just had to happen with that much wind and heaps of riders going nuts.
Huge shame Dans mashed his hand up, hope he`s back on the water soon.
Someone said they had the crash on tape, I would love to see it, I didn`t see Dan coming in at all, just smashed me straight over! Glad it wasn`t one of the young groms. I would Imagine with Dans level of skill he was able to make some avasive action before the hit. Saving us both some serious injury.

Keep it safe!

Matt.

Here's a couple of photos from Sunday at Woodies.

Dan doing a handle pass. Not sure what the technical name for this move is?
seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=3382

Big air. Not sure who the rider is though.
seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=3383

Me doing a board off
seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=3384

Joe

quote:

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Originally posted by gruezi
I think that's Matt's boost here

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One of his little ones before the breeze kicked in.

good for you boys and girls blasting at woodies. Up at Lano, walked down to the beach at 8.30 am with my coffee ...... 2 kites out already!! So I had a 2 hour session at South Passage in Nasty 2m surf (finished by 11.30 FFS), all the while thinking, hmmmmmm, glad I'm not trying to put on a show at Woodies, probably bust my nuts.
Trust me Gruz, we're getting too old for this sh!t.

quote:

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Originally posted by gruezi

Hey Puppet, notice how our avatars seem to have a similar pose........is it an age thingy?

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Dont know about 'the pose' grueziman
but the 'age thing' could have something to do with them both being cartoons instead of real life pics

You are right Puppet..here is the wind graph.

www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=3385

on a par with gero nats... there was plenty of wind. some monster kite loops. love the double pass attempts :)

post it :)

post it

That wind sure was strong ...and them groms were doing awesome stuff in the conditions...
Sorry to spoil the big wind strength estimates ...
I held up my anemometer for a good 5 minutes when the wind was at it's strongest and the strongest gusts were nearly blowing me backwards off my feet ...Stongest gust I got was 28.5 knots ...This is f***ing strong wind ..
Hey there may have been the odd 30 knot gust out on the water..
One day I may see someone kiting and pulling off tricks in 35 knots but I remain very sceptical at this prospect...

Does anyone know who won the women's final between Shan and Jess? (for my sake! - she's been waiting in suspense to find out)

I couldn't find the results on the WAKSA website?

I'm not sure if there are any official results as yet.

The sunday was more or less blown away. One full round of the open was run, and part of the second round. It was suggested the second round would be re-run.

One i(f not two) full rounds of the youth (u/18) was run.

One full round of the masters was run.

There is a result in the womens but I'd better leave it to the WAKSA guys for any announcements.

the plan was to have at least a full second round and potentially a third round in the open. top 8 riders from heats go to quarter finals.

effectively that means if you won your heat your currently looking at a quarter final.