Hi,

There has been a lack of information about what happened at Nat's, did you get any wind? Did people get to ride? Did PolyKarbonate turn up?

Info please?

Just did a short article on www.nzkitesurfer.com - the wind was not normal Raglan wind - an very unlucky weather pattern but some riding took place with the help of teh current and it was certainly an awesome event to have attended, also plenty of surfing and wakeboarding/ tow in took place. Thanks Delphine/ Tony and to everyone else that helped out and showed up...

Orewa session good from midday Tuesday for anyone that can make it and is in area still

The preliminary winners of the partying discipline were (men): the Hippy, Jarod, Tim Stocky and myself. Mel and Jo cleaned up the women's event and were last seen breakdancing in Raglan's main street in the middle of the night with a bunch of pre-teen street kids.

I put in a thankless effort judging the partying, and was the last to leave the YOT club on friday / saturday nights choosing to sleep in my car right outside rather than some more comfortable lodgings on offer.

Gavin and Brad once again tied the 'old geezer with young bird young enough to be his daughter' lookalike contest. From what I saw, Murrell and Teensma were easily the biggest drinkers. All the grommets were a complete dead-loss and were wrapped up in their sleeping bags with hot cocoas by 7:00pm. Despite showing much potential to comprehensively humiliate us old buggers on the water, it turns out the kiting legends of tomorrow are a bunch of viceless dweebs, who think they're rocking hard if they miss dental flossing for one night. Before leaving town I literally and figuratively kicked little Mark up the ass to show him he's still a ridiculous piss-ant who's yet to experience the finer things in life.

Whilst I never made it into a wetsuit myself, pumped a kite, or talked about kiting for a single second I can report that Adrian Roper and I dominated everyone else on the water with a sterling fishing session that fed many of the kitegroupies loitering around the motorcamp. The Hippy also caught a solitary snapper but was quickly outsmarted by a seagull who snagged it off the back of his boat while he was checking Jo's plumbing below decks.

There were many competitors in the wakeboarding discipline, all with stories too tell but I'll leave you with mine as it is the most significant thing in my life right now. Completely cocking up a surface 3, I managed to load the tow rope up till it was stretched tighter than the Hippy's finances, then release the bar in such a way that it shot forward with twice the velocity of his antique boat. My right big toe, which was stationary at the time and completely unprotected by the binding, bore the brunt of the missile. Ever since there has been unspeakable pressure building up in that region and it has caused me to cry out on occasion.

My enduring memory of the event will be driving home late last night balancing a bag of ice on my big toe, half baked, totally sleep deprived, wired on painkillers and V, and wondering where the last four days went and what we did to turn the Raglan wind machine from such a sweet obliging angel into such a vindictive, malicious whore?!

I had one hell of a good time and only wish all my days wrere so fun filled !!

Well done all concerned for such 'Good Vibes" at this Years event. I especially enjoyed Lee actually making it to the event and being such a positive presence.

Lets do it again in november as skyrider claims we should, and if there is no wind he will have no option but to kiss all our asses.


Jo's comments:
As the newbie on the block, in acting role as cruisy groupie that loves to party, I have to add the weekend was beyond my wildest expectations.

Arriving in Raglan at 3am courtesy of the 'Hippy' to crash out exhausted in the boat parked in the mainstreet. Let me tell you this town just doesn't sleep. Roadworkers, council workers, milk men, @#***!!!.

Long story short the 'Hippy' came through for the last nite with top stylish accom, and all was well in the camp.

In my opinion the weather was a "monumental cock-up of global frustrating proportions to all the passion, chomping at the bit kiters who travelled far and wide to do their heat. However, the atmosphere was relaxed and easy going. The organisers of the event, provided all the goods, to keep one and all happy. The fishes and the loaves.
I have not met so many happy, friendly folk in one place at one time in quite a while.

Top job to all those that pulled the event together, and thanks for making all, especially myself, welcome.


PS The smoked Kahawai was sensational, as was teh fresh schnapper and Bailys - cheers fisher folk!!!! Love your work...

See ya all in November

Yeah! Well done Delphine & Tony, you kept everyone so well fed the last thing on their mind was mutiny.

I caught a stomach bug on Friday night, so Saturday at dawn, with little sleep I chucked the boat in the water on what looked like a very shitty 5-10 kt Easterly morning, one that no self-respecting kiter in their right mind would have got out of bed for....

As I rounded the Kopua sandspit.... bugger me if there wasn't kites up; On getting closer I was dumbfounded to see that the shirts were on and the 1st heat had just begun, the guys were at the mercy of an unrelenting king tide - if they weren't underpowered in standing wave/chop they were in dead in the water in backwash and eddy. When i was at anchor in the middle of the channel it was barely 10 kts & that was the puffs ( I don't recall a single gust all weekend ) !!!


The day for me became even shittier when - after dragging Jarrod the first victim of this credulous day to safety - I discovered I had forgotten to put fuel in the tank and was very close to empty.... Unbelievably more stress was to follow as a hoard of stressed out sycophants on the beach and a deluded dilettante with a microphone began to scream at me to rescue another victim.

Thank you Hipster for the gasoline i hope you enjoyed those little waves i whipped you along & wake-terrorising kitesurfers out surfing on mals was fun!

How anyone can conclude any National Kiteboarding result or carry on with a comp. using what went on that morning would be in serious need of an eye surgeon / brain surgeon.



You'll just have to all kiss your own asses because i will make sure i'm down in Taranaki if god-forbidding that circus ever comes back to town!

End note: Hey sorry if Im offending anyone, dont take me too seriously. This is after all a forum & we are all a bunch of Tweakers.

so you were the selfish single minded $%#^ that wouldn't go to the aid of a fellow kiter, as they got swept into the harbour!! mate i hope you dont need a hand one day and im the only one there! how on this green earth could you know that "they are fine"! redeem yourself move to mongolia! ha ha

and then i quote "dont take me too seriously. This is after all a forum & we are all a bunch of Tweakers."

djoblin; Pause and consider, my "fellow kiter" imagine what it was like for me learning to kite in Raglan by myself, no boats, no kiters - just some perplexed polesurfers looking on derisively. I have swum / drifted & self-rescued my sorry arse from all points of the lower harbour & from all positions on the bar and beaches. I have never needed the coastguard or the clubbies so far - touch wood ( my head will do, being nearest. ).

I have also taught hundreds of people how to kite & have always included the self rescue strategies that I have gained from kiting in Raglan.

I have recovered/rescued countless boards, kites & kiters and will continue to do so even at the expense of my riding time & body.

So MR djoblin if that was you screaming at me from the shore understand this: When some kiter is having a minor drift INTO the harbour( managing to get relaunched at the time you were screaming ) & i'm risking running out of fuel going.... Anyway its up to the skipper to decide what is the right course of action for their vessel, not some Jaffa that is all tweaked out because of some competition.

I went & gave the guy a lift once he started swimming, it wasn't the big deal you were making out it was.

Fortunately I was given some fuel from Armie cos i was on running on E.

I did two rescues out at Suckers the following day, far more critical for them and for me.

I volunteered my time, boat & money. I also was shitting through the eye of a needle all night long with a stomach virus on Friday and Saturday nights while everyone else was partying.

I wrote some shit on the forum before everyone came so now Delphine hates me....


Woe is me, I am a tweaker.

No worries! I was extremely upset and angry but it's all good now! and I do not hate you at all !
You're right, it's a forum and sometimes thing don't sound the way we would like them too!

See you soon!
delphine

If you kite in conditions where the wind speed is less than the water speed then you can expect to get into trouble. Let's see the Darwin award weave it's majic.

Another thing to consider is this. Getting swept into a harbour (except the waitamata) is way less dangerous than getting swept out to sea.

djoblin are you are prepared to reimburse skyrider every single time he rescues someone silly enough to kite in the above mentioned conditions? I don't think so.. so probably best to be grateful that someone like him is prepared to do what he does.

If you can't self rescue yourself when the shit hits the fan at a particular location then you shouldn't really be kiting there.

Thrasher- you are one seriously deluded idiot. Give it a rest dude!

How bout you try holding yourself back and only commenting on stuff that you actually have some experience on?

Once again you're hijacking a serious thread and killing the topic with your shit!!

I for one want to hear about what's going on in the NZ comp scene, and don't wanna hear your ramblings about nothing.

Many have said it before, I'll say it again, and we all know that it will have no effect, but ... SHUT UP!!

:roll: :shock: :cry: :!: :!:

you're right i've never been there before and i didn't go to the nats and from the sounds of things i'm glad i didn't go. But i have had experience with currents before and if the wind ain't very good then you are asking for trouble kiting in them.



Name the "shit" that you are referring to. I'm warning people about not kiting in dodgy stuff. I don't call that "shit".



From the sounds of things you don't know what's going on and from the sounds of what happened in Raglan... well nothing happened cos the wind didn't happen. Far from rambling about nothing i've just told you everything.




You'll say it again? Really? Can't remember the previous time you've said something to me as you've only posted once so far. You sound like a gatecrasher.. disssin the beast just to sound cool. You can't spell "way out" either i mite add.... oh i see WA is hinting something. you ain't from NZ you are from Western Australia... or as it is commonly known these days WWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Word on the street is that there will be some Nationals footage on Hyundai Sports Tonight. TV3, 11pm (tonight, Thursday)
Probably mostly of people standing around talking shit, but there might be the odd kite in the air too..

thrasher , you weren't there! you are probably a nice guy but you couldn't know how it was on the day, stay out of it. And if thats what it took to get people recued before they got in real trouble i would hope anyone would fork out, i know i would!

Sky rider, (why don't people just use their real names?) apreciate you were nearly out of fuel, and sick, that sucks, sucks more to be the guy waving to be rescued, thats my point. now 'tweaked out jaffa' thats low and uninformed, i live in whangarei most of the time, and would never "yell and scream," added to that was on crutches all weekend due to what i thought was a snapped PCL and torn cartalige ( turns out its an ACL and cartalige. which is worse.) so might have been a bit tweaked due to no kiting for me for the next 6-8 months :cry: , and all the BBQ fumes i inhaled cooking for the masses with the ever helpfull Anna and Andrew.

hope to meet you properly on better terms next year when i can kite again!

Dan (the tweaked out jaffa, still hobbling around)

It was all about Mark Jacob's, was that footage all from the nats? It looked like he has some wind behind him at times....

Yeah that was all from the Nats. Daffers should post the vid on the Nationals website in a day or two.

No worries Dan djoblin, i got my lines crossed up and tangled on that one, I'm sure the tweaked out Jaffa knows who he is.... It's all water under the bridge now anyway: We are but sand to the tides & these are the days of our lives - I'm injured too.... Popped the capsule in my ankle joint so it's gone all uncontrollable and hyper-laxative a little bit like my attempts to communticate on this forum.

The Nationals were bloody well organised & I'm really impressed with how Delphine is following through with protecting the site & the possibility of having competitions there in the future.

It's a bugger of a current to deal with and from my observations on the Rescue boat, I think in future we need a solid 15 kt minimum to be set, also it would be good to choose a weekend with less extreme tides - say 2.5 , 2.8 meter instead of the 3.4m or whatever it was last weekend.

Also if we were cunning we would call it a fishing competition - make it mandatory that everyone bring 125 kgs of fishing gear with only a small allowance - say 25 kgs for incedental items such as kiteboarding equipment.
As soon as you announce "Hyndai Fishing Nationals Raglan" you can almost certainly be guaranteed 25 kts N.W. followed by 30kts S.W.

This is why i carry a fishing rod in my car to go kitesurfing, in the belief that the raglan wind gods wont know what Im up to till I get there