I wasn't there but after reading the post-race posts I am at a lost as to how they awarded a 3rd place. I would have thought the 3rd place prize money should have gone on the bar.
Hey Slack, you will need to learn to gybe the Cape Doctor before next year's event, yes it was a fun but strange day.
Thanks to the Lancelin Ocean Classic organizers for including kitesurfing back in the event again for the 1st time since 2004 - stoked & already looking forward to next year!
Be great if we could race the same course as the windsurfers so we could compare times & use the cray boats as markers - maybe starting just before or after the windsurfers?
Thanks also to WAKSA & volunteers for all their hard work - sure there's a few lessons learned but your efforts are really appreciated & I'm sure it will be bigger & better next year :-)
Nice speed Kent, I think coords I gave you may have been wrong as east coord was same as 3rd mark on original course map, not sure who would have original coordinates. How did you find Cape Dr board? Is it quicker than your board from L2L?
I don't think I'm gonna make any friends with this post, but this thread has given me a couple of laughs as it reminded me of a comedy skit I heard on the radio some time ago that went something like this. . . . "I live just outside Beverly Hills. They wanted to call it Beverly Hills, they were gonna call Beverly Hills, they shoulda called it Beverly Hills, but I live just. . . just . . outside Beverly Hills.
Hearty congrats to Ian Young , You live in Beverly Hills central ! ! Would'nt want to water down your victory in any way. That was an extremely commited (hard core ) effort. Don't think you liked it when I said your FS was hard core when you were rigging at the L2L race, but I think you just proved it, cheers , J
Reading back what I wrote I didn't really put it very well and it ended up sounding like it was all about me, so I can see I will end up with red thumbs.
In all other forms of sailing if you don't round the marks you are disqualified full stop.
Otherwise what happens and what happened in this case is everyone follows the leader thinking they must be on the right course, if you see a few kites in front of you going full speed in a certain direction you naturally assume they are sailing the course and then nearly everyone follows suit, except the wise ones, i.e. Ian and Rusty.
Im sure nearly everyone wasn't aware it was the wrong mark when they missed the 2nd one but nearly everyone knew that they were missing the last one without really looking.
There is a few photo's on FB but yes there should be a lot more eventually.
www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.317774108324342.55237.291098247658595&type=1
From my Facebook:
"Dale Stanton & I, followed closely by Marty Farrow, led the pack @ what we thought was the 2nd mark of the Lancelin Ocean Classic 2013 kite downwind marathon. Shortly afterwards the horrible realization dawned upon me that it was in fact the 3rd mark! So I tacked back upwind & eventually found the 2nd mark - not easy to find 1m high white buoys 3km offshore in an ocean of white caps! In the end Russell Curtin & I were the only ones to complete the course. Not the best way to win but I'll claim it all the same."
Also for those interested in a bit of kitesurfing history in this event - here's a post from Jan 2008:
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Kitesurfing/General/Ledge-to-Lancelin/
So pumped for this event, hopefully the organisers will place boats on each mark and fly kites to make them easily identifiable, nothing that hasn't already been said.
The event has the potential to be awesome with a few tweaks here and there, gotta get the course situation right, I also wasn't happy about the last minute course change to include an extra mark. This confused me incredibly when I hit the 3rd mark and realised I had forgotten about the extra mark that was included.....
Super hard decision to retire from the race after I realised I couldn't head back upwind without taking 2 hours to complete the course, which I thought was pointless. (great work Ian/Russel). I'll be honest and say I was fuming when I got to the shore, I putted to shore and ran parallel for the rest of the race to stay out of peoples way with a very long and embarrassed face....glad I wasn't the only one to miss the 2nd mark.
Wicked work by the WAKSA volunteers again,and I hope the organisers continue again next year, they have the chance to make a mends and they will surely be rewarded.