Bristol University Powerkite Society

On Saturday morning Adam (resident old-man), Jack (incoming treasurer), and myself (incoming secretary) got up at an ungodly hour and hit the road bound for the Student Kitesurf Nationals 2010 in Calshot. This PHONOMENAL weekend was organised by the legends that are Southampton Uni Kitesurfing Society, thanks go to Alex, Ali and the rest of the crew!

Its the first time this has been organised and they did a wicked job. We had 29 competitors from all over the country, even a lad from Edinburgh made it down! Most of the riders were from the bigger clubs like Southampton and Plymouth. Unfortunately Cardiff and Swansea were all off on their trips so we missed out on a few more competitors there! There were two categories, the advanced where some serious talent was laid down with some epic kiteloops and insane powered handlepasses. There was also an intermediate category, in which me and jack competed, with riders throwing down anything from just upwind riding to rotations to first raileys (that’s an unhooked superman for those newbies amongst you) to jack’s “sexy one handed drag”.

The wind unbelievably was in full force when we arrived, shame about the day-long torrential rain! It’s a credit to the organisers how good a time everyone had despite this! There was a great vibe all day long fuelled by an endless free supply of red bull under the teepee and tunes provided by their DJ truck.

Saturday’s competition took the form of three 10 minute heats where riders had to throw down their best stuff, always saving the crazy for the last minute. Judging was done by three of the UK’s top riders, headed up by James Boulding (UK No. 2)

Jack had a great day’s riding, doing especially well seeing as he only had his first lesson a few months ago, he’s been kiting five times now and he’s already jumping, some inspiration for the rest of you boys and girls! The photographers captured his best moments, with the commentator proclaiming that his one-handed-drag would “look sexy anywhere in the world!”.

I had a rather unsuccessful first heat, with nothing quite going my way, especially an enormous railey wipeout where I managed to lose grip on my kite and had to get picked up by the rescue boys… slightly embarrassing to say the least! I nailed the next few heats on the flat water lagoon and managed to qualify for the play-offs which I then pulled it out of the bag and won it, qualifying me for the final… which started exactly 60 seconds later… a big thank-you goes to James and Valentin from Soton who dragged my shattered arse back upwind! By this stage the wind was really dying off and the finals were essentially a massive blag, very entertaining however as it meant the more amateur among us could try some daredevil stuff without too much risk! I had some nice downloop frontroll transitions but ended with another failed railey, and finished my day with a wade through the mud. Bringing my total of self-rescue finishes to 3 out of 5 heats!

After we packed up, soaking wet and exhausted but in excellent spirits we headed for Southampton for a spot of pre-lash and coconut bikini making for the after party at the student’s union. I definitely wasn’t drunk enough for the frigid walk in a grass skirt…. We all enjoyed the wipeout photos, and the amazing list of prizes was handed out, including wetsuits, harnesses, a free holiday, a beach break live ticket, t-shirts, hoodies and Aquapacs to name a few! I made it onto the podium with third place in the intermediates taking home the beach break ticket, and if I may say so completely dominated the opposition in the pint downing race. I was also awarded the booby prize for having the soggiest kite of the day! There were dozens of other comedy and serious prizes, then the advanced riders then took to the podium, with Richard Burton of Edinburgh Uni taking the victor’s position, massively impressive considering the temperature of the waters up there!

From there the party took off in true kitesurfer fashion, a great night with a lot of new faces who we plan to be seeing a lot more of in the months to come! Highlights being the whip round for the dirty pints for the soton co-presidents, the moment when the DJ somehow mixed in the commentary from the England France match, harry managing to trip over has grass-skirt repeatedly, constant criticism form all angles on alignment of coconuts… and many others that we thankfully can’t remember…

On Sunday we all met up back at the beach for the “hangover session” and just chilled, later having a meeting to discuss the reforming of the Student Kitesurf Association (SKA), the legendary organisation that ran the infamous Aussi Kiss events. The plan is getting us all together more often for more competitions, casual meets at the beach, and general lash. There are big plans for the future, watch this space!

Southampton will be running this event bigger and better next year, and we want to bring more riders and more spectators to share the stoke! It was a brilliant weekend and it was a shame more of you weren’t there to join us, and come away with a massive amount of sick freebies (including some slightly questionably additions in the welcome goody bag..!) Myself and Jack would both like to give especially thanks to Adam for being our official ‘kite-bitch’ for the weekend!

Harry Gregory

Bristol Uni Kitesurfing Soc Secretary

Very sorry, this blog has been very neglected this year. I can only promise it will be better next!

Check back soon for this terms line up of lessons and events that you will not want to miss =)

Neil.

We are finally breaking with a tradition of seven years… Recently we have been moving more and more towards kitesurfing as the sport grows in popularity and more people see kiters out on the water at their local beaches. To reflect this, we have recently voted through a name change for the society. We are now:

Bristol University Kitesurfing Society

How cool isn’t that! Don’t worry though, we are not abandoning landboarding and static flying. We still have the kit for it and they are still great ways of getting your kite and board skills up to scratch before heading out onto the water. We have also got a new domain name:

www.bristolkitesurfing.co.uk

Neil.

Essaouira, Morocco is surprisingly awesome and exciting. When Jimmy Hendrix used to hang out there in the 70’s he said it was the best place to regain his spiritual awareness. Many other people say the constant wind and sea air gets you high better than cannabis.

We turned up at our super cool hostel at 4.09am, and the town looked awesome at night – all winding streets and white-washed buildings and broken flag stones. But completely deserted. By breakfast time, it was mentally bustling and a meal of square pancakes and mint tea was sooo welcome. We didn’t quite get our negotiations of the price right but it only cost £1.75 anyway so I am not complaining. We also had a massive melon and managed to get some currency. And got lost.

We were pretty surprised that the windiest city in the windiest country in Africa during the windiest month of the year had no wind on our first day, but we went for a swim down the beach with thousands of other people. Naturally Adam was a wimp and thought the water was too cold, but Tara and I reckoned it was fine to ditch the wetsuits for when the wind picked up. And on demand the next day it did. A lot. Infact we got 25 to 30 knots every day from then on.

Most days we went about 20 miles further north to a beech called Sidi Kaouki, where rumour had it that the wind would be cleaner and the beach less full of wind surfers (what a lame sport). One of the best parts of each day was taking our kit on the local bus. Sometimes it took about 25mins and twice it took over an hour and a half! We had one breakdown and one feinting woman all in one journey once. All in all a good value journey for 50p =)

There was also a great cafe for lunch, and a lot of the cool people from the hostel came up with us each day and surfed using the hostels (free!) surfboards. We even managed to recruit a bristol fresher to the society while we were there. Half way through the week Adam and I did a massive down winder to the far end of the bay and it was absolutely epic down there. The wind was always smoother at the far end of the beach and there was nice flat water between the waves for jumps and tricks. On the way back we obviously had a massive upwinder to do which took about 20mins but sooo worth it.

But besides the kitesurfing there was so much going on. Tagine and meals out. Buying spices at the spice market and eating Kalimari at the fish market. Beers at the hostel were awesome, lounging around in the hammock and playing drinking games with the French Canadiens (who all had terrible music taste). I think we are definitely going to have to do Morocco again, but we will probably rent a car and travel down the coast from Essaouira to Dakhla, stopping at all of the spots along the way. And if nothing else, we have learned a lot about holding down 9m kites in 35mph off-shore wind!

Neil.

After some major stupidity by our webspace provider (they accidentally deleted our site and all of its backups) we are now back in business. Over time this blog will fill up with news and photos from our trips, events, and socials. If you want to write some entries then let me know and I will give you an account.

A warm welcome to any new freshers reading this and joining the uni in the autumn. Please say hello on our forum and if you want to get a head start over your peers then you can see when we are going kiting over the summer here. I look forward to meeting you in a few months and heading down the beach =)

Neil.