Its Extreme Kiteweek 2006


The wind God’s finally smiled on Cairns for the 4 annual It’s Extreme Kteweek with conditions ranging from excellent to perfect over the 5 days of kiteboarding activities.

Riders from all over Australia and overseas starting arriving on the weekend and quickly settled into epic conditions at Yorkeys Knob located just 12 mins drive north of the city.

Wednesday morning saw 25 riders board the boat for Green Island, a coral island 20 km off the coast which gets really clean wind.
A low tide stopped us riding straight away but by lunch time saw everyone hit the water in 18 – 25 kts of flat water bliss. Several riders had brief encounters with sharks and Blake from Tanum sands got badly lacerated when his kite powered up on a landing and he got dragged over some nasty rocks…ouch.

As Thursday rolled on the forecast improved to 20 – 25 and stayed that way until Sunday. Following the briefing at the beach about 20 riders drove to Machans beach for the downwind dash for cash which saw Craig Mewitt use his local knowledge to narrowly beat Matt Payne from Townsville and Dave Sorrensen of Newcastle.
The rest of the crew hit the epic flat water of the river mouth and by 4 pm everyone was truly satisfied that riding in Cairns in winter is a great antidote to cold windless days in southern regions.

Later that night the crew arrived at Gilligan’s for free drinks and the 3 minutes of fame DVD comp where 8 entries were judged by our expert panel. The standard of riding, filming and editing keeps getting better. You can look forward to seeing all these on the KBM video with each subscribers magazine.

Friday saw day 2 of the freeride comp and featured a best trick session which was taken out by Sean Craike of Lenox Heads with a trick that doesn’t even have a name yet. We also ran 2 elimination heats to narrow the men’s open division down to the top 12 for Saturday’s finals.

Lots of crew also hit the Cairns Cable ski park to experience the kickers and sliders on super flat water, while others polished up their skills on the Slingshot training trampoline in the rigging area.


Saturday was even better than Friday with clear blues skies and 20 kts on the water by 9.am. With a the stereo pumping and the a running commentary on the beach heaps of spectators began showing up as the juniors hit the water for a 20 minute final. The boys had plenty of moves to wow the crowd and Sean Craike finished ahead of Mitch Brown and Andy Yates.

The women then hit the water and revelled in the good conditions with Angie Vanhoof taking the title for the second year in a row. 14 year old Jaimie – Lee Smith of Yeppoon came in second in her second comp with Fiona Grubb taking third spot.

On to the masters – over 35’s. Local powerhouse Carig Mewitt blow the field away with his one handed front mobes but Eric Greenwood did not let the heat go by without boosting a variety of new and old school tricks. Tony Shea took out third place.

Down to the finals of the men. Two elimination heats gave us our top six for the day which saw Paul Jackson, Sean Craike, Ben Foote, Dan Gossert, Dave Sorrensen and Alex Lewis go hard for 12 minutes before Dan and Dave getting edged out to leave us with the final 4.

The final was intense with plenty of tricks going sideways including ben Foote crashing big and taking out the crash of the week award. By the end of the heat the judges thought Alex Lewis landed the best tricks even though Paul Jackson had been on fire until the final but missed a couple of his usual moves. Sean Craike was third and Ben Foote fourth. Ben was later awarded the most promising unsponsered rider and picked up a new 11m F-one kite and Nobile board thanks to our sponsors ….a very happy boy was Ben.

Another night of presentations and partying at Gilligan’s wrapped up the best Kiteweek ever.

Thanks to everyone who came and our sponsors

Slingshot, Mobile/ Schinn Kiteboard, and Catapult who were the major sponsors.
Also thanks to our supporting sponsors Wipika, F- one, Airush and Mystic.
Gilligans were awesome with many of the riders staying there and thanks again to Cairns Cable Ski for the free cable sessions.

Don’t forget to see the full write up and pics in the next Kiteboarder Magazine.