Kitesoul Magazine #4 English Edition

Below is a small diary I wrote last June 2014 which sums up theyear:Heading to our 1st Kitefoil event in la Ciotat for the French InternationalKite foil event was like going to my first Race event in 2007in Portimao. Preperation involved running a round the car park lookingfor screws, allen keys, sand paper, drills, has haw blades etc.People all have their own view on what is right & what is slow whilewe, to be honest, are still learning. Compared to the Formula 70Class where you have your 4 kites, 1 x production board & a coupleof sets of fins, there is nothing that we don’t really know & are notprepared for. But this is now after 7 years of development that wefeel like this, it was only 4 years ago that we would show up in theevent tent for kite racing and find that someone had produced anew board in a garage that had 3 fins and not 4 or had put a centreboardon a twin tip.Whereas this we had questions which needed answering:+ Do we wear seat or waist harness?+ How much smaller kite should we take?+ Where is the foot pressure upwind+ How far is the board angled over?+ dD we stay on the foil for all pre-start manourvers?One of the surprising things was that there was way less kite tanglesthan at the formal class events. I think this is because the levelis even higher at the kite foil events. You have to have a very goodlevel to kite foil & then to kite race. You have to remember that thefrench have also been doing this long before we got excited aboutit, many times racing with over 10Thanks to our sponsors: Edgewatersports, NorthKiteboarding, Volvo,Meanline Fins, ION, Taaroa.http://www.team-bridge.comhttp://www.team-bridge.com/myportfolio/olly-foiling-at-woodies/