Is there any footage to download of the nationals?

Rob said he should have some shots up on kitesurfing.com.au/ in a few days

Rumor has it that some of the best footage ever has been taken...any truth to this?

erm...

im sure you mean those guys doing big airs with speccy grabs board offs kiteloops etc were actually landing smoothly

dont blame the rules for 3's mobes kgbs etc CRASHING and just plain not scoring ;)

Hey Dachopper,

You are way off base with the style of hooked scoring more highly than unhooked. Each trick was judged on its technical difficulty, height, smoothness and style and also landing.

The reason most guys were scoring better with big kite loops and board off was because these tricks were more dangerous to land and looked smoother in the strong winds. Most of the guys doing pull ups, KGB's and Mobes were eating it big time on the landings and were losing their boards and crashing kites. The few who were pulling them off hardly looked graceful whilst dangling one armed before sustaining a hot but wobbly landing with a big spray butt check.

There were a few guys pulling really stylish mobes and passes, they being Adam the Rat (overall power, skill and style), Norts (for the smoothest most graceful front and back mobes I had ever witnessed before the comp) and Ryland pulled a couple of nice ones as did a few others including Zebb Peters (who changed his style to what he could pull off in the wind conditions), but on the whole, most riders who favoued unhooked did poor looking raleys and even poorer looking s-bends and then expected to go through their heats.

Strong wind was the main factor for unhooked looking ordinary, as few riders ever practice unhooked in 25-30 knots and they just couldn't do the tricks without wiping out or looking shakey. Crazy moves like Rich Stenning and Andrew Grices kite loops, and Dan Andersons wicked board offs won good points because of the balls and skill required to even pull the trigger in that wind, and Dan for his high altitude, incredible smoothness and individual style. His kite loops were awesome too.

I like all styles of riding including handlepasses and unhooked if it is done clean and stylishly, but we didn't see too much clean and even less stylish. The winner was by unanimous decision amongst the crowd and riders, The rat was tops and Dan second, no question. Adams mobes and pullup kiteloops were awesome and deserved better points than Dans kiteloops and big board offs. Would have been a wicked final if Dan could have unhooked, and I give him great cred for sticking with the docs advice, he really wanted to unhook!

Just how many points is a raley worth and how many actually made a raley to blind with surface 3 ???? Most raleys were done with the kite at 60 degrees off the water, that's not a raley, it's a gayly. The priority bouy was good for all styles and favoured no one in particular. If you crashed and lost your board, 10 seconds was more than enough and you were supposed to leave the judging square immediately, but no one did!

Why should you get more time in the square if you crash your kite and lose your board, This only slows the action further, if you are competing the idea is to land the move or it scores nothing, if you cant land it 8/10 times, you shouldn't even be attempting it in a comp unless you have a good base of points and are on your last run.

I for one don't want to sit and watch as every rider comes in to try their hardest trick and smashes in a big spray followed by a thwack as their kite drills into the water and then have to wait for them to relaunch and regain their board and then see them get points for trying. What a joke that would be for the public watching. It may be progressive for the sport, but we would lose all the sponsors as the publics interest waned quickly. They would think we are all a bunch of bigger tossers than we already appear to be.

The judging was fair and the score reflected the riders who had variety, height, skill, style, technical difficulty and smoothness of landing in the prevailing conditions. Enough Said!






Good winds and Peace

From memory, I think that the heat that Norts didnt go through after those sick moves was because he did some of his better tricks out of the box and therefor wasn't scored.

I would like to put it on my site. What is the size of the file please?

10 4 will do