Sunday, 25 March 2012 00:20 |
Day four here in Santander looked like a lay day which gave the ISAF evaluation panel for the kiteboarding format trials the opportunity to present their first conclusions to the 18 sailors from 10 nations and 4 continents. An equipment presentation then took place in the boat park for the ISAF equipment committee before the evaluation panel hit the meeting rooms for further discussions and finetuning of course options. Around 1400 a 6-7 knot seabreeze filled in which allowed the kiters to head out to the course area and race the multihulls and skiffs. They took also the opportunity to have a chat on the water with ISAF resident Goran Petersson and VP Teresa Lara and explain equipment and tactics on the water. 2011 slalom world champion Damien Leroy and 2011 course racing world champion Johnny Heineken spent over an hour to explain our sport to Goran and Teresa. Today was also a showcase of high performance - the skiff and multihull evaluation panel confirmed wind readings of 6-8 knots max and the kiteboards hit the courses of the other boats with more than 25 knots boatspeed and amazing upwind angles. Definately everybody here in Santander is talking about this low cost high performance craft now. After racing the other boats for another hour the kiteboards headed back to the CEAR where discussions about the proposed kiteboarding format for the sailing world cup and the Olympic Games continued. Tomorrow will conclude the ISAF kiteboarding trials with the simulation of all course options for a full event setup. This will be a box course for the opening series, a box slalom course for the final series, and a short track course with a reaching start for the medal rece series. The ISAF evaluation panel will then prepare their report to the midyear meeting in Stresa, Italy, beginning of May 2012. |