In late 2011, the North Wave Team went to Cape Verde, home of our team mate Airton Cozzolino, to get a first ride on our brand new Neos and Fuses in any conditions! Bad luck with swell, but nevertheless an unforgettable experience with blue waters and wind every day made this a place worth visiting again! Enjoy watching Jaime, Sky, Patri, Jeremy, Dirk and Airton exploring this beautiful piece of earth!

North team riders – Blazej Ozog, Steph Bridge, Narayna & Alice were amongst the 15 riders from around the world chosen to represent their country & the rest of the world of kiteboarders for the format evaluation carried out by ISAF. 5 days of testing different course formats including Slalom, Boarder Cross, Course racing, short track, Enduro & more. The trials were run from the High Performance sailing Centre in Santander (CEAR) & took place alongside other test trials to decide the womans skiff for 2016 & also the Mixed gender mulithull. The team had a huge chance to showcase the sport to its best – given any opportunity to race with the fastest boats, showing the huge strengths : Colour, high speeds, crashes, close cut moves, close to beach media exposure, tactics,beach life, ease of transport of equipment & affordability.

Within the next couple of weeks the evaluation report will be a positive one – many have just been blown away by the possibilities. In conclusion it was decided that a box style (quatro) course was most suited for big fleets & added the exciting start line -up then coming altogether for the reaches round the course. It was concluded that the upwind does make it more difficult for spectators to follow however the leg length’s would be short to keep the high visual impact.

The ‘short track’style course in line with the Americas’ cup Catamarans would be introduced during the knock out & would end in a 4 person final for the gold medal. This course involves a reach start, upwind & downwind gate with a further reach finish. Again – really easy to follow, can be run very close to the beach & involves skill & tactics also.
These 2 courses will be short 10-12 mins & the size of the course will depend on the wind strength & size of the fleet. They will be introduced now going into the season. Perhaps some of the highlights of the Olympic evaluation included blasting across the bay in 6 knots of wind but travelling at 4 x the speed, Meeting the president of ISAF, introducing the committee members to our sport from a very basic level, out performing all other craft on the water with speed, upwind ability & VMG.

The next big decision will be in May if ISAF decide to include kitesurfing within the ISAF World Cup events. We hope that they will postpone the decision until November for whether kiteboarding and/Or windsurfing can make it into 2016 Rio Olympics. This will allow more time to prove our sport further to the national member bodies around the world.

(words & pics – Steph Bridge – Edgewatersports – UK)

This round of the Asian Freestyle Tour Championship moved aside for the first ever Asian Old Skool Championship. A championship event that has grown out of the KTA’s Old Skool Project of last season, which though as move of a side show grabbed everyone attention whenever it hit the water. So it seemed only right to give this discipline although as yet un-sanctioned by the powers that be its own platform and the full recognition it deserves.
 
Germany’s Toby Brauer perhaps one of the world’s best Old Skool riders however stole the show with tricks and moves fresh out of the bag – a varity of 450tricks, board kick flips, mega rotations, overhead board spins, leg passes and even a deadman board flip. Really that is one of the attractions of this style of competition anyone can create something completely new at any point in time and blow everyone away. Vietnam’s Lai Hoang Phi was very close for second, another local rider showing how strong Old Skool is in Mui Ne, but even he could not hold back Brauer in full flow. In the end though freestyle winner Sam Medysky was to show he was equally at home in this discipline also and pulled out some impressive last minute trick action to nudge him just above Phi to take the second place, with Bräuer the clear winner and first ever Men’ Old Skool Asian Champion.
 
For the ladies the big upset came when favourite for the competition New Zealand number one Su Kay also riding for Cabrinha torn her knee landing a railey to toe side move. This would allow Norwegian Jannicke Stav(Nobile) to sail to the finals against Nanette van doer Snoek (North) who had ousted Australian Ali Dudfield (Slingshot) in the previous round landing stylish back to blinds and powerful sbend blind. For the ladies, the Dutch rider Nanette van der Snoek was on a roll in the finals holding onto the consistency she had built up in previous rounds to take the first place from Stav who pushed hard but could not knock Nanette off course this time out.

Congrats from North Kiteboarding!!!

Winners:

Freestyle
Women:
1. Nanette van der Snoek
2. Jannicke Stav
3. Ali Dudfield
Men:
1. Sam Medysky
2. Merek Rowinski
3. Ken Nacor

Asian Old Skool Championship
Women:
1. Astrid Berz
2. Nanette van der Snoek
3. Julia Deip Anh Thu
Men:
1. Toby Braeuer
2. Sam Medysky
3. Phi Hai Long

Here we have the rider profile of the Welsh Kitesurfing Legend Kirsty Jones, who has pushed the limits of kitesurfing to deeper levels since she stormed into the kitesurfing scene over 9 years ago! Winning multiple world titles in the waves is not enough for Kirsty and since the beginning of her career as a professional kitesurfer, Kirsty has raised a significant amount of money for various charities through her long distance solo kitesurf crossings and is constantly using her skills and knowledge to help protect our oceans and marine life through various ventures and projects. Since a nasty knee injury last year, Kirsty has been developing and running her KJ Experience courses and retreats combining kiting, surfing, yoga and ocean awareness, while also storming back onto the competitive scene, to prove that injury and obstacles can just make you stronger!