here then are the KITEFORUM.CO.NZ 2003 AWARDS, celebrating another funny ole year of achievement, controversy, disaster and bizarre incidents - the wide and wonderful world that is the new zealand kiteboarding community.


CONTEST OF THE YEAR was the 2003 Christchurch Nationals (big nod to Neil) - were there any others?

UP AND COMING GROMMET OF THE YEAR must be shared between Tim Pithcathly and Andrew Tewnion for deservedly sneaking into NZ's top ten and showing the old guns a move or three.

Finalists; Ben Pithcathly, the Bright brothers, the Tamariki bros.

WEBSITE OF THE YEAR goes to Underground Kiteboards for scoring a phenomenal 23,000 unique visitors since its relaunch in February.

Finalists; kiteforum.co.nz's successful start-up, anabatic's new look, pt chev & tamaki sailboard's comprehensive product listings, assault's design.

PROLIFIC WEBSITE POSTER OF THE YEAR was easily he who goes by the moniker 'BlownAway' who set records for posting on this site (114 to date), plus similar amounts on virtually every other forum and apparently daily reports on his own BLOG site.

Finalist: 'Guest' a multi-headed anonymous character with poor spelling and grammar but often quite strident opinions about random subjects, sometimes in poor taste and requiring deletion.

COMEBACK OF THE YEAR must go to Underground Kiteboards after suffering a catastrophic factory fire in July and rebuilding by the end of August.

Finalists; Nick Grant for getting back on the water after a serious illness, Aucklander Mike Hardy, returning from six months in London to pick up kiting where he left off, and (drum roll) directional boards?

EXILE OF THE YEAR could be Dave 'Trump' Edwards who left for Maui immediately after the 2003 Christchurch Nationals and hasn't been seen since.

Finalists; Mike Raper (Hong Kong), Mike Holland (Hawaii).

INTERNATIONAL PERFORMER OF THE YEAR is another sure thing for Cindy Mosey - hard to beat a couple of world titles.

Finalists; National Champions Gavin Broadbent and Aaron Smith for their efforts at the Red Bull King of the Air in Maui, Underground Kiteboards for their continued international popularity.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE YEAR was Anabatic's popular website forum which was taken off line in April and has never returned to its former glory.

Finalists; Windtools kites, C-Quads, wakeboards.

ADVENTURE OF THE YEAR must be Cindy, Andy and Dave's voyage in 'Mosey Along' from NZ to Fiji, various Pacific Islands and back to Nelson.

Finalist: Mission Control's successful recce of Great Barrier Island with about a dozen kiters.

RETAILER OF THE YEAR is Auckland's Kiteworks for sticking to their onions and standing the test of time, continuing their traditions of selling quality kit, teaching kiting and repairing broken dreams on a daily basis.

IMPORTER OF THE YEAR can only be Earl Berry's Windsurf Technix which continues to ship in container-loads of Naish equipment, most of which promptly vanishes, never too be seen on the water. Question: where have all the AR5's, ARX's and Aeros gone?

MANUFACTURER OF THE YEAR can only be Peter Lynn kites who continue to crank out vast quantities of unique and innovative products from their R&D base in Ashburton.

Finalists; Underground, Decay & DVNT kiteboards

ADVERTISER OF THE YEAR based on sheer spend must be Auckland's Bayswater Wind Sports and associated brands.

CAREER CHANGE OF THE YEAR goes to Derek Teensma - former retail sector employee who now 'edits' Wind & Kite magazine and Ski and Snowboarder for Pacific Media.

CELEBRITY OF THE YEAR could be Christophe Depperraz for his cameo role in the Export Gold TVC, still showing on your TV screen.

MOST BIZZARE INCIDENT OF THE YEAR remains unbeaten to this day - Steve Palmer's dousing by fire extinguisher of partygoers at Christchurch nationals prizegiving.

Finalists: Cookie's naked romp at Christchurch Expression Session, the Lee McClelland vs Dave Kay (and family) brawl at Anabatic Kiteboarding on Orewa's main street, Nigel Marsden's unplanned flight landing on the roof of his own house.

KITEBOARDER OF THE YEAR is Gavin Broadbent for his overwhelming enthusiasm for the sport, that has seen him dominate competitions, travel extensively, import kites and boards and generally rip at every concievable opportunity.

KITEBABE OF THE YEAR was 'one-time kiwi' Laurel Eastman for her revealing photoshoots around the world.

Finalists; all female riders (let's face it they look a hell of a lot better than your average bloke)

Award winners can get an authentic KITEFORUM.CO.NZ Award embossed in gold lettering and framed in imitation rimu by sending a stamped self addressed envelope and $540.00 to PO Box 285, Silverdale. (Special pre-Christmas deal!)

feel free to add your own categories and finalists that i may have overlooked...

:oops: WELL ... as one of the runner up's in the "PROLIFIC WEBSITE POSTER OF THE YEAR" catagory, i choke up with a tear of glee at the thought.
Random, bad speller, over opionionated etc as i am.
Good to see some positivity in here for once, and for that i take my hat's off my mult- headed body to you Shann!
STILL, as this forum is for opinions of Kiwi kitesurfers, hopefully other's will add to this list once they finish their time on the water .... and as for me, i'll try to do the same once i wake after my day at work!

ps: going by my memory of past conversations in here, TOTALY shocked at the Lynn's "MANUFACTURER OF THE YEAR" award ..... i could almost go to say my point's of view were wrong in relation to a few conversations previously had in this forum ..... but then voting one of your own creations the "WEBSITE OF THE YEAR" sort of trashed that theory into a kind of flaming heap.
Keep challanging my views, as i'd like to be proven wrong.

i like to think i'm a fairly fair-minded sort of character myself and am not averse to giving credit where it's due. kiteforum.co.nz has come from nowhere this year to become a part of our culture, and is an important part of many kiter's days (my observation anyway).

i have nothing against peter lynn and fully rate them and their spawn as the grand-daddies of the sport in this country. they continue to produce stuff that wasn't there until they made it - genuinely industrious and industrial - unlike most of the so-called kiting 'industry' who are really working in the wholesale / retail sector and have possibly never produced anything original in their lives (not unsimilar to car or insurance salesmen - only more expensive).

another award category spung to mind. VIDEO OF THE YEAR, but i can't remember which or if any were produced this year. stomp would win it though and kane's little beauty: 'kane likes to fly kites' which i was showing to some friends today and was reminded what a sick blindside rider the old boy was even a couple of years back.

if you really think that -"kiteforum.co.nz has come from nowhere this year to become a part of our culture" god help us all
that would make us a bunch of bitchy girls whose best from of rebuttal is "I'll meet you at Shakers in half an hour to duke it out"
the idea of the forum is great - it is just a real shame you use it for your own constant self gratifications

thanks for your thoughts. a tip about the use of double quotation marks: by literary convention, these are used to indicate a direct quote - usually verbatim from the mouth or writings of the originator. it is technically incorrect and the mark of a complete moron to use them when re-collecting approximately what someone has penned, especially in this case when the comments are on the record not so many mouse clicks away.

I think I know who one (or even both) of the above 'guests' could be... a big Graham perhaps... his flabber fully gasted by the Lynn acknowledgement.

Best Vid? Stomp was two years ago. This year Neil put out 'twenty three' which covers the Chch scene last summer season really well. I threw together all my footage since Stomp and came up with 'Random Shit' which is a tedious yet varied 54mins, everything is so rapidly oldschool but still a bit of a nostalgic watch. Also did 'Wanakite' 30 mins showing what we got up to on our road trip to NZs first organised snowkite meet down on the Pisa.

when do we see these televisual feasts?

Kane, nice guess but wrong.
G.
And less of the 'big' bit, remember we are still comming down to see you all in a little while you busted up old cripple! :twisted:

new category: CINEMATOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR goes to kane hartill, once again for his wide body of work and many outstanding contributions to the academy.

finalists: steph (no doubt she did most of the work), apple macintosh (they did the rest) and special guest starring kane hartill (and friends) romping it up in the south island of new zealand... also starring the south island of new zealand (shot on location in the wild, right alongside another big budget bonanza THE RETURN OF THE KING [a dark trilogy based on the life and times of orc, gavin broadbent, and his dealings with the visigoths and grommetoffs of the southern plains - also starring chris brent as big chief visigoth, pete lynn as court jester and decay as IT guy / dagger designer for the grommetoff alliance, aaron, steve and tim as the dark horsemen of the apocalypse and all directed by darth vader played by adrian {he who must be obeyed}])

but i digress entirely...

tap tap tap is this thing on? Hi, on behalf of Peter Lynn Limited, I'd like to thank everyone who made this possible. Ummm lets see Shaan for conciving and granting the award, even after having the start of his kiteboarding career halted by the packing problems possed by C-Quads. The cynic in me would suggest that you've broken the spring in your wanger and need a new one, but I'm sure you're being genuine. My folks for something or other they must have done in the past to get me where I am today. The wind for blowing. Umm that's it really. Don't forget though that R&D has "expanded" into Chch with the beach house, that's right we're bigger than Ashburton now. Unfortunatly we seem to do more "research" than "design" given the wind conditions of late.

Again, thankyou and goodnight.

Chris

I say bring em all back! Go the C Quads man.... bring on em wakeboards and get those boosters, mossie and stamosies tuned and back to the old school. Go back to da day when the deadman was the in thing and people wore bingings and uses high rocked pickleforks or rode directionals... bring back those 2 line wipi classics... and the long saftey leashes that attached to your wrist... the main loop man, none of this chickenloop stuff.....