On the last Saturday (24th of August) Fansurf Surfschool hosted the Estonian Championships of TwinTip Race at Kakumäe beach.
As you know from our previous posts and Instagram, we have had a certain aim to start competing in kitesurfing (kick off with race and move from there to big airs, freestyle etc.) Of course all in time when we are ready for it. The comment mainly goes for big air and freestyle, as we just have started to jump and learnt our first few tricks 😀
Anne-Mai didn’t have the plan to compete on that certain day. She was suppose to spend a nice day at the beach with her family, but as you all know going to the beach on a windy day usually means that you see other surfers and you suddenly have the urge to go on water. Luckily all gear was packed along and she was able to hit the water.
After a short session on water, one of the instructors from Fansurf Surfschool approached her and asked if she is going to compete. At first she was like “no I haven’t thought of it and also never competed before, don’t know if I am capable of it.” The typical hesitation for something new 🙂 It all sounded bit of a challenge and we never step back from a challenge, so she decided to sign up. It all took place on the last minute of signing up, so she missed the skippers meeting and all the rules were instructed to her by Fansurf owner just with a few seconds.
After that she also had to think through the “mother’s battleplan” how to organise everything so that she could without a concern be on water. She quickly breastfed her younger daughter (same time going through all the rules in her head, finally understanding that this was going to be one of those situations where you learn while doing it) and after that preparing the older one for a day nap. Then got a kiss on a cheek from her boyfriend (who stayed on the beach to babywatch their girls) with good wishes and ran to the water. Here we would like to take a brake and thank all the people who surround and help us by giving us the time that we need to do the things that we love. Honestly, THANK YOU, we couldn’t do all of it without you guys!
What is a TwinTip Race?
The TwinTip Race is a kiteboarding discipline where you have certain course with running elements on upwind, crosswind and downwind. These are racing events (like a yacht race along a course) that involve both speed and tactics and the goal is to outperform other kiters. The chosen equipment can be a conventional kiteboard (50/50 bidirectional kiteboard) and freely selected inflatable kite. Competitions are held by distribution table – fleets and eliminations, i.e. out of 4 fleets 1 is eliminated. The lower point system applies – first place gets 0.7 points, second place gets 2 points, third place gets 3 points, every next place points are equal to your finishing place. Final score is counted on the basis of your best fleets. As in the example (4 fleets 1 is eliminated), 3 of your best fleets will give you points and determine your final ranking (lowest score wins). Also naturally all Right of Way Rules apply!
The first fleet for Anne-Mai was more of getting an idea how it all actually goes. To her surprise the competition was held far out on the sea, which is actually quite logic as the speedboat has to be able to be on the water 😀 Out on the sea also meant that the water was deep – if you fell you weren’t able to put your feet on the ground and if it should totally go wrong you might have to swim for rescue. Also the waves got much bigger and generally you might be bit more out of your comfort zone.
So the first start for Anne-Mai wasn’t bad at all despite the fact that the wind had dropped a bit and the chosen 12m2 kite didn’t have that much power anymore. Others were using bigger kites – up to 15m2. The upwind buoy was pretty hard to catch, you had to tack riding upwind many times before you got it. This made the course much longer and tiring. One fleet had two rounds in it, so you had to catch that buoy twice! Riding in cross and downwind were easy compared to getting the upwind buoy.
Luckily on the second run the wind picked up and it got much easier to ride upwind, but at the same time got a bit harder on downwind because of the waves. The interesting part is that if you generally kite with certain distance from everybody (just to have the extra space if something goes wrong) then during race everybody is really close to each other fighting for positions. At some point some riders might even shout that they need more space to avoid collision.
First race, first place
Anne-Mai won all three races (fourth one was eliminated) and achieved 1st place in women’s class and stayed in overall ranking (races were held together with men as there weren’t so many competitors) on 7-8th place out of 12. And a fun fact, she didn’t know til victory ceremony that she participated Estonian national championships! She thought it was just another TT Race not that we have those competitions around here a lot. You can imagine her surprise…
About experience – riding was a lot more physical than you would expect! The next day Anne-Mai’s body was aching from feet to torso so that she couldn’t move properly. If you know the feeling when you wish that you wouldn’t sneeze because it is so painful, well it was a bit worse 😀 This might also be a clear sign that for competing we might have to start working out more! Anyways the experience was awesome, result even more awesome and definitely will do it again! Surf’s up!
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