St. Peters-Ording, Germany 07
PKRA Stop @ St. Peters-Ording, Germany
It is Thursday the 16th of August. After a super nice session at Workum on my 11m Yarga together with my best friend Randy Hereman (F-one, Netherlands) and his girlfriend Pauline Boussard (F-one, France) I’m driving back home. Tomorrow we are going to St. Peters-Ording, Germany for the PKRA stop.
After a good sleep we wake up and start packing the car. Two board bags full with equipment, six boards, ten kites, six wetsuits it all fits in the car. We almost forgot the most important; two trays of Go Fast, to stay awake and it gives you a good boost before the heat! Time to go…
Emmeloord – Groningen – Oldenburg – Bremen – Hamburg – St. Peters-Ording
Seven hours later we arrive in St. Peters-Ording. We had so many roadblocks and traffic jams, that we are to late to pick up the key of our apartment at the Tourist Office. We are lucky, they dropped our key at the event site on the beach. Around half past nine we driving over the beach and already see the big event area, it looks even bigger than last year. We finally we got the key of our apartment, now we only need to find it!
It is easy to find the apartment and it looks really nice. But we can only find two single beds… After a long journey truth our small apartment I found a double bed in the closet… crazy German people hiding beds in closets!
Day 1The first morning in St. Peters-Ording starts with no wind and a little bit of sunshine. We have a nice riders lounge with security always good to have them for the Groupies!!! There is no wind at all, but it is cool to see everybody again. After eating some ice creams and my first games of kicker all the riders need to come to the big stage in the center of the event area. A lot of people came today to see some World Cup riders in action, but no wind… Now it is time to introduce all the riders. We where all standing on the stage with our country flag in our hand and singing our country song! That was day one of the competition…
Day 2It is a little bit colder than yesterday and the weather forecast looks not so good. During this event we have three disciplines; Freestyle, Boarder Cross and Course Racing. There is a little bit of wind, but not enough for Freestyle, so the organization decides to start with Course Racing. Sami Gali won all the three races with his Waroo Pro 15m and his wife Gina Esteva won two of the three race with here Waroo. The event starts immediately good for Best!
Day 3A nice east 5 knots strong winds blows over the event. It looks like a day with not so much action. But especially when you don’t aspect it… After eating all types off ice creams and to much kicker Randy and me needed to do something else. The beach is huge, so it was time for some nice kite 360’s and some kiteline jumping! After playing with my Yarga we launched Randy his Bandit. The Bandit is official the best kite to do the bar pass, it flew for more than 200 meter! Perfect, Jeremy from Extreme Elements.tv has it on tape so it will be online soon!
Day 4Finally there is wind, a little bit off shore, but there is wind! Again the first discipline on the water is Course Racing. After two races who where won by Sami Gali there was a small break to eat something and after the break we finally start with the Freestyle. The first freestyle heat of this event is my heat in the trails. It is gusty but I’m nice powered on my 9m. The heat starts; strange there are only three guys on the water. I realize that my opponent was not on the water, that is cool! That is a pretty relaxed trails heat.
The tide was going out again so they had to move the judge tower, after the tower was on his place the Main Event started. The level got again higher! A lot of switch moves and all tricks preformed with more power. I had a hard heat against Micheal Schitzhofer, we where both overpowered on our 9m’s. Micheal is the winner of the heat…SHIT!!! The single is over for me, lets hope for good wind in the double and a good heat!
So much rain today and super strong wind we decided to relax and go to the sauna for some hours. It was perfect, nice and warm!
Day 5You never know what kind of weather it will be in St. Peters-Ording. Yesterday so much wind and rain and today no wind and sunshine! Good day to dry all my kites and to update my blog.
Day 6Perfect blue sky but again no wind. The day starts like yesterday every half an hour there is an update. You never know what the wind is going to do, so everybody stayed around the competition area. During the day the wind started to turn to North West, that is a good sign. The weather forecast for Saturday looks good, nice 20 knots from North West.
The organization of the event made a slider to entertain the crowd. It was fun to see how some guys did some nice slider tricks and of course some hard crashes.
Day 7Finally there is a little bit of wind. The wind is onshore and light, pretty steady. At 11 o’clock they announce that the first possible start for the course racing is at 11.30. The wind stayed and they can start. Those guys can go upwind so fast, they use strange custom boards with big vins. It is cool to see what they all try with there boards, big boards, small boards, boards with an extra middle vin.For the Freestyler’s it is again a little bit of a boring day, hopefully we have some good winds tomorrow.
Day 8We need to wake up early! The skipper meeting starts at 8 o’clock with a first possible start at 8.30. The first discipline is Boarder Cross; this is a race where you have to jump over obstacles and perform some small tricks. I’m in heat 8 and as soon as I got my colored lycra I went on the water. It took me 4 races to get upwind with my 15m, the wind was still really light. The green flag went up and the race started, I could not even stay upwind…this is so bad! The Boarder Cross was not so much fun for me…
After a break of one hour the wind picked up and the Double Elimination started. My opponent is Rocky Chatwell from the USA. I’m nice powered on my 11 Yarga, p
erfect for the conditions. Little bit waves and nice flat water between the waves! My heat went pretty good did all my wakestyle tricks, but it was not enough to beat Rocky. It was a close heat, he won with a 2-1 decision of the judges.
“In heat #21 Rocky Chatwell (Crazyfly, US) had a close heat against Bas Koole (Best) of Netherlands. Both riders performed technical and powered tricks but Chatwell won with a few switch variations.”So my final result is 25th, not so good, but I’m happy with my heats. It gives me a good motivation to train harder and now I know what I need to train more. To win a heat it is not so important to do doubles, because the risk factor is much bigger. Just do all your moves switch!
The last heat of the day is Mallory De La Villemarque against Randy Hereman. Randy was riding powered and with a lot of style that Mallory had no chance of winning, 5-0 victory for Randy! Tomorrow it is time for the last heats of the Freestyle.
Day 9Nine o’clock we are standing on the beach pumping up Randy’s kites, he is in the first heat against Rui Meira. First one ladies heat and after that it is time for Randy! After a nice session and some real serious tricks from both riders, the winner is Rui Meira. A nice 6th place for Randy, congrats man!
The finale is between Kevin Langeree and Aaron Hadlow, super spectacular to see. Kevin is not crashing at all and shows his constant riding, performing all of his tricks also switch. It is clear for me Kevin wins this event!
That was the PKRA Stop @ St. Peters-Ording; if I look back I had a great time! Some days where a little bit boring, but you forget them fast if you have some nice hours on the water. We left St. Peters-Ording around 7 o’clock and around one o’clock in the night we where home again.
-Bas Koole-