WA Wave State Titles - Wedge Island Wave Comp

Monsters indeed.

A big thanks to Russ, WAKSA and volunteers for taking the time and effort to put on a wave event for us all. With the amount of competitors it would not have been the easiest thing to coordinate I am sure.

Had a great weekend and enjoyed the relaxed feel of the event. So Cheers.

Theresa

Results:

Juniors:

1st: Bill Hampton

2nd: Robert McMahon

Women:

1st: Therea McKirdy

2nd:Kate Turton

3rd: Michelle England

Masters:

1st: Ben Mardon

2nd: karl Leavy

3rd: Tony Loxton

Legends:

1st: Russeell Curtin

2nd: Dave Murphy

3rd: (tied) Kent Wright & Ray Quahs

Open:

1st: Ryland Blakeney

2nd: (tied) Carl Bevalacqua & Will Phillips

yeah well organised Russ once again- big thanx. also to juddy,waksa and the volunteers etc. had a fun weekend. light winds and small waves but still got on the water and good to catch up with some faces we hadnt seen in a while. and thanx to kite addiction for donating all the prizes for all competitiors. and thanx to Jez and the crew at monster for coming up and providing some drinks and beats.

Great event and very well done Russ for organising. It takes a lot of effort to run something like that and for no reward. Except winning the 'legends' of course.

Have been to a lot of events and this is better organised than anything I have seen with heats starting like clockwork. Everybody clear what they had to do. Judging shared around nicely and fair.

I bombed out early but I'm not bitter! Next year I will know to stash a light wind kite, full length lines and stop eating a month before!

The light wind could not be helped but in some ways is a good thing as I was amazed how the barriers of light wind wave riding have been pushed so low by the newer kites and peoples rising skill levels.

Just a few suggestions that might help for next year. This is in now way meant to be critical by the way just helpful suggestions for a bit of tweaking.

1. Disqualify anyone free kiting in the competition zone. Its hard enough to judge already. I had to judge a heat with 2 guys on white 12m rebels in the contest zone only one of whom was in the heat. If they are already knocked out, then ban them from next year's event.

2. Add 1000x 20mm nylon streamers to the kites, as well as having the colour matched vests. A thin coloured streamer looped onto one of the rear corners of the kite would be lit up and stand out clearly against the late arvo sun, which made seeing vest colours impossible. It would have minmal effect on kite performance.

3. The afternoon judges position was perfect. Place the judges tent on the hill right at the start next year, as a lot of the manoeuvres were hard to see at beach level with the rider behind a wave in front.

4. hate to let the tiresome subject raise it's ugly head but some would prefer that rather than running different age categories [at least half the open would have qualified as legends anyway] lets have seperate strapped and unstrapped contests . The guidelines of a 2 point higher wave score for unstrapped riders doing the smae things is a bit arbitrary and there was precious little advantage for the strapped guys in such light winds. I felt Corey in particular was underscored as a results with some very progressive 180 lip smack air reverses into handle passes scoring lower than a couple of lip hits from the strapless competition. Much fairer and quite doable to seperate them out and then we can ride twice as many heats if entering both categories.

5. Could only be better if the monstrously endowed 'Monster' girl bring her also likely monstrous identical twin sister next year?

I am sad I missed it. However, it has been great seeing the pics and write ups. I am esp. happy for da Radman, well done! That air with Will in one of the pics has excitement written all over it.

Light wind kiting would have been my thing too............but my largest kite is a 7M.

To Niall's list I would ask if the judges has binocs?

Huge thanks to Russ the legend and of course WAKSA....always a good show.

Great Day... My highlight was hanging out with the Monster gal.......

Thanks to Russ for putting in the hard yards to get the comp off the ground.

I agree with Niall that it might be time to split the comp into Straps / strapless for the future instead of age groups.

Although I agree to ride at a high level strapless takes more skill than strapped, somewhere like wedge with small soft waves takes a lot of the advantage out of riding straps.

To give extra score to strapless can be an issue as I would argue it is harder to ride switch than strapless and those riders werent given extra consideration.

I believe it should be judged purely on what is done on a wave, not what the person is riding. I ride a skimboard sometimes, if I rode that in the comp should I have been given extra score above a surfboard with fins beacuse it is harder? If I gave that to Mike should he get extra score again becuase he added riding switch to the difficulty?

In saying that if the players in the sport want to push strapless mabee there does need to be seperate divisions. It could help with moving into the future. If a comp was held somewhere where there was a big advange to straps, say big Main Break it would help to keep things fair and not have to change the amount of bias the judges need to keep the strapless competitive.

For someone like Ry who I think should have won the event regardless of any extra points he may have been given. I feel it takes something away from his wins when there is a judging bias.

Just to be clear, in this comp I dont think the judging bias changed the finals results as both Mike (riding switch) and myself didnt find the best waves. In previous comps we have had there has been no direction to give extra points for strapless, this was the first.

It is something to think about for future comps. If not and the bias coninues, it might in fact make the guys who ride straps take them off if they want to do well.

Interested to know how people went in comparison to their own expectations?

I noticed some crew mentioning they wanted to see how they rated compared to some of the better known or seasoned riders...

So how did you go?

Hey gabmonkey,

Great pics of my littlins, I may have to get you to email me some copies. They good looking kids, they take after the mother.

Hey Default,

I must say I was cr@ping myself at the beginning of the heat, my legs where shaking and the adrenalin was through the roof.

Starting getting more confident as the heats carried on, the wind was a bit too light for me on my 9m Ego for my first heat. Tried my old 12m in my second heat and it was shocking - too slow and like driving a truck. Moved back to my 9m and with the wind a knot or 2 higher I was going alot better and the nerves had settled ddown.

I reckon I could have gone alot better if I had a little bit more wind or a better light wind board.

Cheers
Rich

Im happy to lose some points for riding with straps if it means I can still enter the comp against unstrapped.
I was underpowered and cant remember what I got the points for, but just stoked about being in the comp.
Surfing is not my back ground, I see the connection and the trend which must be 90% unstrapped in Perth.


But segregating the strapped riders will stop the progession of the sport and keeping both avenues open would be the fair choice.

Unless you want to start surfing comps with kites, instead of kitesurfing wave comps keep an open mind.

And the line.."because its harder" isnt a good reason to give any one extra points other wise you have to start awarding points for riding with out wax, how big the board is etc.

If you want to go down this avenue, and its quite clear, you have to introduce a class event, where every one is forced to use the same board and kite on the day.

Boys, anything more than a handful is a waste....