Photo © Ozone

Photo © Ozone

Photo © Ozone

Photo © Ozone

Congratulations to Su in NZ for taking 1st at the Nationals on her trusty Instinct. Unfortunately we couldn’t get her one of the new Instinct Sports in time for the event but that didn’t matter

Wishing you a quick recovery Su, read on for her report

Cheers

Team Ozone

“Hi all,

So January flew past as quickly as the rest of the summer. A couple of weekends ago I found myself at the New Zealand Kitesurfing Nationals, down in sunny Nelson, catching up on sleep under a beautiful blue 13m Instinct. Waking up every so often to explain the amazing attributes of the kite and checking which breeze was winning the battle.

The Nationals were due to start on Friday the 19th, but the conditions didn’t allow it to happen until Sunday morning when the SW wind came over the hills and kept the Sea breeze at bay for two days. I made it through the qualifying round into the Open Division, but due to a tweaked neck didn’t ride the next round. I opted to get it sorted before I had to defend my title in the women’s division. Luckily Cindy Mosey, former world champ, was able to arrange an appointment with her sports therapist who had me feeling better by 10 am on Monday.

The SW kept cranking and the opposing tide made for some good riding in the Open and Junior divisions. By the time it was the women’s turn the tide had turned, but the wind had picked up, so the ladies headed out on smaller kites. The first heats were run in descent winds and I was perfectly powered on my 9m Instinct. The wind however dropped as we were getting ready for the final. With my neck not being fully recovered I decided to stay on the 9m, to avoid any nasty yanks from the gusty wind conditions, but was on my Decay 130×41.5cm board, which was a stable landing platform. I also have to mention the X-Lace bindings I was using from Dakine that helped prevent the jarring from hurting my neck and kept that board on my feet at all times!

With the out going tide speeding up - the final turned into a marathon nine-minute heat. We’d tack out and back performing our tricks and then race up the beach to do it again. This gave me a chance to get the running commentary on the other competitors. I only wanted to do enough to win, as I was still in a mighty load of pain. So it became a bit of a game of ‘up-the-anti’, starting with basic rotations and one footers, moving onto raileys and surface passes, then to s-bends and uploop raileys and finally the forward loop kiteloops and F16’s came out on both tacks, which finally clinched the title for me!

The prize giving was a quiet affair on the grass at the beach, but that made no difference to me – I was still stoked to have had the opportunity to defend and retain my title as New Zealand’s Women’s Kitesurfing Champ.

The wind is cranking here at the moment with the first of the Easterlies for the Cyclone season pushing through. I would be over-joyed at the thought of some descent swell and wind, if it wasn’t for my bent foot. I stomped a beautiful downloop s-bend on Friday evening, which had me spend half the night at hospital getting poked prodded and x-rayed. The good news is it’s not broken, the bad news is I’m still off the water for 6 weeks – no wonder it’s so windy!

Good winds to you all.

Su K”

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