Weston Beach Festival '99

This years Weston-super-Mare was blest with three days of cloudless blue skies. There was a lot to get through with rounds of individual dual line, individual multi-line, pair multi-line and the third and final round of team dual line.

The plan was to complete the precision on Saturday and the ballet on Sunday. Avon kite flyers demos, the head to head "it's a trick-out" competitions, rokkaku fights and other demos would keep the crowd interested in between bouts of serious stuff.

Friday morning Practice

Crosslines were on the beach practicing early Friday morning. By late morning Punchline were at the other end of the beach. There was only 0.5 of a point out of 100 between the teams after two rounds. This years championship was to be decided on the average of the best two rounds scores out of three. The game had therefore gone down to the wire and there was everything to play for.

Early on Friday morning there had been little or no wind, but as the tide turned and the sea made its way up the beach the wind increased. It was over 20mph by the time Crosslines left the beach but clean and straight off the sea. The whole range of Flexifoil Matrix kites had been put through there paces and Crosslines were ready for battle.

The two teams were not the only kite flyers on the beach, some were even in the water. Weston with its shallow sloping beach is the perfect place to learn to kite surf especially when the wind is blowing on shore. Several kite surfers were out including one of the dual line pairs team Firefly. These guys must be making the local windsurfers think about changing from sail to kite as some serious speed and air can be achieved from the later.

Let battle commence…

The number of competitors meant that this round would be split over the two days with team precision Saturday afternoon and team ballet Sunday afternoon. This together with the fact that tides were not very high obviated the necessity for the early morning practice sessions evident at the earlier rounds. Getting down to the beach by 8:30 meant that banners could be erected and kites put together and ready for practice immediately after a 9:30 pilots meeting.

The wind was light, but then it had been the previous day, the question was when would the stronger wind kick in and how strong would it be. The individuals had to struggle through the morning and the masters were put on first in the hope that there would be more wind for the novice and experienced later.

After lunch the wind had picked up but not as much as it had the day before. Team precision was flown in 8 to 9 mph winds again straight off the sea, almost perfect. Ultralight kites and 90lb lines gave just that feeling of power required to get some crispness into the figures and the routine.

Crosslines came out of the arena feeling satisfied with our performance. It looked as though Punchline had flown reasonably well and now it was down to the judges. Crosslines had scored just over 69 with Punchline less than 3 points behind so it was all down to the ballet.

Sunday Still Sunny

Another early set up before a quick pilots meeting and it was out onto the beach to find out what the winds like. This morning despite the clear blue skies the wind was blowing across the beach from the north and was stronger and blustery. Equipment choice could be testing. Hopefully things might improve as the tide comes in in the afternoon.

The afternoon arrived and the breeze was still as unpredictable. It was time to trust Crosslines new secret weapon a set of recently modified vented Matrixes. These coupled with 150lb lines coped admirably with the gusts and on light lines kept going through the lulls.

The nerves were tingling but the final element of this years championship could not be put off any longer. We all went out and did the best we could on the day and then we had to wait for the result.

Avril Baker, the event organiser, kept the tension going by announcing all the other disciplines results before getting to team. Results for ballet were Punchline 6.40 (2nd) Crosslines 67.3 (1st). Crosslines are UK National Champions!

The results for Weston are set out below.

And these are the overall results. The scores in red are the counting scores being the best two from the three rounds.

Hard luck Punchline it was a close run thing. Vortex did well for there first year together, we will have to ban James Bond music next year! Flame did very well for this years newcomers (National Champs, Experienced Class!). Zen need to work on those flexifoils but they appeared to have fun which is what it is all about at the end of the day.

Additional news from Weston is presented in a separate article. (Aug '98)

You can return to the Headlines Pagefrom here.

Other ResultsThis article concentrates on the team event.

In the other events it was a clean sweep for the Robertshaws. Carl took Indi Dual and Multi Line and Multi Line Pairs went to Evolver.

The results for the other disciplines can be found at STACK UK's Web Site Netspaces.com/stack.