​Riders Battle It Out In The 10th EDGE Race Cup
 
The weekend of the 25th-26st of May saw the 10th annual Edge Race Cup, sponsored by Grenadier Estates take place in Exmouth, Devon. Over 30 riders registered for the event with one international riders arriving from USA. The striking fact is that the standard of riding on their hydrofoils has risen appreciably across the board in both fleets, both in terms of speeds achieved and success rate of tacks and gybes, notoriously hard manoeuvres to master. This year in the Gold fleet there were 5 women ‘Kite for Gold’ riders who hadn’t foiled at all last September and the top riders in that fleet weren’t lapping the slower ones as had been the case last year. 
 
Whilst the racing took place some way off shore, the colourful flags and tents at the beach race site were situated where the new Watersports Centre will be constructed within the next 12 months. It is an enviable location, with both extensive sandy beach and waters upon which to kitesurf. Visiting competitors were very complimentary about Exmouth as a venue and the initiative to make it a Centre of Excellence is fully justified. Representatives from different Kite manufacturers attended with demonstrations of gear and coaching available. Many members of public enquired about the event and were keen to find out more about the sport. Competitors were very appreciative of the benefit of free parking generously provided by East Devon District Council who are in the midst of rerouting the road in preparation of full site development.
 
Saturday saw Champagne sailing conditions, sunny waters and winds of 8-12 knots, perfect for the hydrofoilers with 5 races for each fleet being successfully completed. These craft are so incredibly efficient, that the leading riders are able to sustain speeds in excess of 30 knots in such wind strength. The wind dropped on two occasions, necessitating some rescues by the attentive support boat crews. On Sunday, the forecast rain and drizzle held off, but so sadly did the stronger stable wind that was anticipated. The race team did well to set a course and worked hard to get the racing completed. Initially due to a drop in wind causing an abandoned start, the decision was made to initially race only with Gold Fleet because their ‘foil’ kites require less wind to be effective than the inflatable ‘tube’ kites being used by those in Silver fleet. This is the only distinction between the two fleets, although since the faster riders generally were in the Gold Fleet, they sailed an extra lap per race compared to their counterparts in Silver. After 2 Gold fleet Races, the Silver Fleet joined them to complete three races. With the wind finally stable and strong, the grins of racers were biggest when they returned from the final race.  
 
Racing was tight in Gold fleet with Connor Bainbridge and Guy Bridge having a battle royal and trading first and second places. They consistently opened a substantial gap from the others lead by Ellie Aldridge, Josh Carey, Lance Olner, Jemima Crathorne and Maddy Anderson with close racing within the whole fleet. A notable mention goes to Dane Wilson who scored five 3rd places on Saturday before having to return to his 49er Olympic campaign for his native USA.
 
There were battles throughout Silver Fleet, notably for top spot with 15 year old Angus Fellows vying neck and neck with Lee ‘Pasty’ Harvey a Master with a long heritage of Kite Racing. Fellow Junior Mattia Maini had a strong Sunday to finish Third, behind Angus in Second and Pasty winning the chocolates.
 
 
 
Chunk of Devon provided racers on both days with a choice of their delicious steak and vegetarian pasties between races.
 
Following the racing on Saturday, racers were able to enjoy free beer at the Exmouth Festival generously donated by  Crossed Anchors Brewing and discounted food from The Little Tavern whilst seeing the live Music on stage.
 
 
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Edge Water Sports would like to thank all their sponsors who contributed to this year’s Edge Race Cup Grenadier Estates Chunk of Devon Crossed Anchors Brewing Salcombe Gin F-One kiteboarding UK Olly bars British kitesports Duotone kiteboarding UK FATFACE The Beach House Flysurfer Ozone kites Mystic Red Bull ION  Da Kine , Maxtrack and Levitaz
 
Final Results
 
Gold Fleet:
1st – Guy Bridge
2nd – Connor Bainbridge
3rd – Ellie Aldridge
 
Silver Fleet
1st – Lee ‘Pasty’ Harvey
2nd – Angus Fellows
3rd – Mattia Maini
 
Women
1st – Ellie Aldridge
2nd – Maddy Anderson
3rd – Jemima Crathorne
 
Masters
1st - Lee ‘Pasty’ Harvey
2nd – Ian Savage
3rd – Nick Ajderian
 
Youth (U19)
1st - Angus Fellows
2nd -Mattia Maini
3rd – Francesca Maini
 
Junior (U17)
1st - Angus Fellows
2nd -Mattia Maini
3rd – Sandy Bailey
 
 
 
To find out more about EDGE Water Sports please visit:
http://www.edgewatersports.com/
 

The weekend of 11th and 12th June, Lee competed in the 2016 British Kitefoil Championships take place at the Edge Cup in Exmouth.
Run by 5 times World Champion, Steph Bridge the event attracted top international riders as well as the best racers in Britain, making a fleet of 42 kitesurfers, competing for the £5000 prize pot and  various titles.

With light winds of 6-8 mph on Saturday the racing was tense at the front of the pro fleet with World No. 2 Olly Bridge taking out 4 wins out of 4. With a few rescues in the Am fleet as the wind dropped off towards evening, racing was called off for the day with promise of more wind and sunshine on Sunday.

Sunday came with sunshine and variable breeze of 10 - 12 mph that allowed 2 races before the wind switched offshore and due to the tide made it impossible to race anymore.
Lee finished in 7th place overall and 4th in the British Nationals.
Overall results
1st Olly Bridge
2nd Guy Bridge
3rd Florian Gruber (GER)

The 2015 British Kitesurfing Racing Championships took place at the Edge Cup on 6th and 7th June in Exmouth hosted by Edge Watersports.
Split into three classes of Formula race board, Foil board and Open fleet there was a great turn out of over 50 riders from 8 countries including the Top 10 in the World for the Formula class.
On Saturday the wind was blowing Westerly 15-20 mph which meant for some great action packed racing with the Formula and Foil classes completing 8 races each and the Open class 4 races.
This year I competed in the Foil for the first time after working with Fastafoil over the last year, I was super keen to see how fast I was going and line up against 2014 British Champ Guy Bridge along with 4 visiting French guys. For the first race I used the 10m North Dyno and was super happy to take 3rd place with half the fleet using faster Foil kites. As I wanted more power I quickly headed in to change up to the 13m Dyno and took 2nd place in Race 2 behind Guy Bridge riding on a Spotz 2 hydrofoil and Ozone Chrono 9m Foil kite who was blisteringly fast and overtaking all of the Formula guys after 2 laps despite them starting 1 minute ahead.
For the remainder of the races I placed 3rd behind both Guy and Theo de Ramecourt (France) which I was super pleased with after having some great battles with Mateo from France in 4th who overtook me on most of the upwind legs with his ultra fast Elf kite but I managed to overtake him again on all the downwinds with good speed and fast foiling gybes which made the difference.

In the Formula class 2013 World Champion Florian Grubber from Germany held a narrow lead from Florian Trittel (Spain) and Olly Bridge (Exmouth).

While we took a break for lunch the Open fleet hit the water for 4 races. With a mix of riders using different boards it was Matt Taylor from Praa Sands that was leading the fleet riding a Sector board and North Dyno 13m. A great result from Matt after lots of hard work and awesome to see my coaching paying off with a win in his first event.

After a great days racing it was off to Pebblebed vineyard for some top nosh and fine wine, courtesy of Jeff. Thanks again for the amazing food.

Sunday dawned and as the forecast predicted it was light although at 9am there was just about enough wind blowing down the estuary at about 6 knts. The course was set and we headed out with me as the only tube kite able to get off the beach on my 18m Dyno. As quite often happens in Exmouth as the sun came up the sea breeze started to work and cancelled out the Northerly wind meaning everyone got rescued before we could start. We then waited to see if the sea breeze would fill in enough and around 12pm the course was reset in 6knts of southerly wind. 
Yet again I was the only inflatable able to make it to the start line but felt powered and was making my tacks and gybes. At the start I was bang on the money, but was simply blown away by the speed and pointing ability of these big foil kites in such light wind. Half way up the beat the wind dropped a bit and my kite simply fell backwards into the water after a tack. I was then sat there watching all the formula guys get slower and slower as the made there way to the windward mark and by the time they started coming downwind, the wind had dropped so that even the foil kites would not stay in the air and everyone was rescued again.
That marked the end of racing apart from a paddleboard race which is always a good workout against the 8knts of tide in the channel.

Thanks to Steph and all the Edge Watersports team for another great event, the rescue cover and beach marshalls were the best I've ever seen! Big thanks to all the sponsors for making it happen and everyone for turning up. It was great to see so many foils and have such a buzz around this new discipline. I can't wait for next year, lets make it over 30 Foil boards!

Thanks to my sponsors-
North Kiteboarding, FastaFoil, O'Neill, Ketos, Supersaturated
Cheers
Lee 'Pasty' Harvey

Results-
Formula- 1st Florian Grubber (Germany), 2nd Florian Trittel (Spain), 3rd Olly Bridge (Exmouth)
Foil- 1st Guy Bridge (Exmouth), 2nd Theo de Ramecourt (France), 3rd Lee Harvey (Hayle)
Open- 1st Directional Matt Taylor (Praa Sands), 1st Twin Tip Lance Oliver, 1st Women Bel Stanley

Rou Chater - Iksurfmag
To learn to Kitefoil or for kitesurf foil coaching click here

We still have a couple of spaces left on our exciting Kite Surfari to Boa Vista next month. If anyone is interested please contact [email protected] asap as flight prices are changing all the time and with a max number of 6 people, we don't want you to miss out.
Full details of the trip can be found here or simply go to our Holidays page.
Check out what we can expect in the video below from Edge watersports latest trip to Boa Vista.
With warm water (shortie needed on windy days) and constant 9-12m wind with hardly any other kiters, Boa Vista is the perfect place to improve your kitesurfing level with coaching from BKSA Coach - Lee Pasty Harvey

Pasty Cup 2012

Saturday 26th August saw the country’s top kitesurf racers descend on Mounts Bay for the 2012 Pasty Cup organised by Pasty Adventures Kitesurfing School and run by Penzance Sailing Club.

With the buzz surrounding the announcement that Kitesurf racing is an Olympic sport for Rio 2016, the UKs top racers were joined by several newbie’s to the kitesurf race scene including 2 guys who were previously on the Olympic Windsurf development program and are now training for Kitesurfing in Rio, making a fleet of 10 kites flying around Mounts Bay.

Rigging up at Long Rock in 18-20 knts of breeze, organiser Lee Harvey went out first on a 12m kite along with Mogsy from Wales who was on a 13m. As soon as they made their way to the start line around 2 miles out to sea the wind notched up and most of the other riders noticed in time and chose more appropriate kite sizes from 7-10m as the wind meter on the committee boat read an average of 25knts with 31knt gusts.

With the amazing organisation of the race crew thanks to Mike and co. from Penzance sailing club, the 1st race started on time and was promptly won by UK Tour leader, Olly Bridge (15) from Exmouth followed by his mum, 4 time World Champ, Steph with 2010 UK Champ, Callum Edge fighting hard just behind. The next four races were much the same with Olly winning and some close fought battles along with the occasional big crash behind, as huge gusts blew down the race course. In the 6th and final race, Olly was winning yet again before deciding to head back to the beach on the 2nd lap of the 2 mile course as the wind notched up yet more, knowing that he had already won the prize pasty, due to being allowed to discard your worst result with 5 races to count. Callum seized the opportunity taking the win, which meant he finished just 0.3 points ahead of Steph while Lee struggled again as the breeze increased meaning he had to count a dnf.

It was then back to the beach for Prize Giving presented by Alex Hapgood.

The unstoppable Olly Bridge took the win and the Pasty Cup 2012 with Callum Edge nudging ahead of Steph for the 1st time ever. Other notable performances came from former windsurfer Tom Squires knocking Lee Pasty out of his normal 4th spot and local boys Ryan Crawford and Craig Smith with a great effort getting round after only recently buying race boards. It was then off to bed for a rest for some while others scored a wave and a few had to leave before heading to the sailing club for curry and a band.

All of the sailors loved seeing us kitesurfers out there and there was some great feedback such as-
amazing control, such speed, general praise and interest in how well we were going around the course and how good it looked. Mike even said he’d like to see and run an event with 100 kites, so maybe the Kitesurfing Europeans or Worlds will be in Cornwall one day soon?

Huge thanks to Penzance Sailing Club, especially Mike for providing the committee boat and being an excellent race officer, Barry and Robin on safety in the rib and for videoing, Joe of www.jnpevents.co.uk for the pics and scoring and big thanks to Mark Chadwick for enabling a kitesurfing event to be held at PZSC. We look forward to coming back for a bigger event next year.

Next up for the racers is an RYA Test event in Weymouth in end of September followed by the IKA Worlds in Sardinia 1st week of October. Meanwhile Lee is off to Mauritius for the 2nd stop of the 2012 KSP World Tour which runs from 7th -16th September.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @PastyAdventures to stay up to date.

For kitesurfing lessons in Cornwall go to www.pastyadventures.co.uk Blake is manning the fort while Lee’s away on Tour so you will be in good hands!

Results

 1st Olly Bridge 3.5, 2nd Callum Edge 10.7, 3rd Steph Bridge 11, 4th Tom Squires 25, 5th Lee 'pasty' Harvey 28, 6th Gareth Mogsy Morgan 31, =7th Sam Chown & Denzil Williams 40, 9th Craig Smith 42, 10th Ryan Crawford 43 pts. 

To view and purchase all the pics from the day go to http://jnpevents.co.uk/photocart/index.php?do=photocart&viewGallery=10090

Video coming soon ;)

Last weekend saw the Edge cup hosted by 4 times World Champ- Steph Bridge. After mostly finishing 3rd, I ended up 4th being beaten by Callum by 0.3 points after he bagged an equal 2nd and got took out in the last race which gave him average points meaning he beat be even though i beat him in 7 out of 11 races. Jammy git!
the report from Edge is below-

On the friday, Steph and me ran a Race Coaching clinic which was attended by the RYA and 9 of their development squad along with 3 other kitesurfers who are keen to get into kite racing. With around 25knts of breeze we covered the basics of getting into kite racing, including gust management, rules, footwork, upwind/downwind sailing and mark rounding. All learnt lots and I think the RYA were suitably impressed. 
Lots more to come so stayed tuned for Race Coaching dates at www.pastyadventures.co.uk and www.edgewatersports.com
Cheers
Lee

Edge Race Cup - Report

 June 23rd and 24th saw the 3rd running of the Edge Race Cup, now established as the premier kitesurf racing event in the UK.  The record entry of over 40 kiteracers came expecting great kitesurfing conditions and were not disappointed!  Amongst the entries were organiser Steph Bridge 4 times Kiterace World Champion and previous UK National Champions Denzil Williams from Cornwall and Callum Edge from Weymouth.  The weekend also saw many 1st time racers get down to Exmouth seafront and join the action.



The action began on the Friday with a race clinic run by Lee Harvey and Steph  Bridge- 12 kiters joined and learnt up and down wind techniques, directional board footwork, stance, kite position and race strategy.  The day also saw the Royal Yachting Association in attendance to learn more about kitesurfing prior to its inclusion at the Olympics in Rio for 2016.

Saturday dawned with a good force 5 south westerly wind blowing and an out going tide resulting in challenging sea conditions ensuring the race board fleet were sent out on the water first.  3 races were run in quick succession with fantastic fast racing with the Exmouth Duo of Steph Bridge and her eldest son Oliver Bridge setting the tone for the weekend and dominating the fleet.  Oliver Showed amazing speed and control in the rough conditions and came away with 3 first places in the morning session.

 

Then it was time for the amateurs and ladies fleets to get into the action.  Stand out performances were seen from Murray Smith from Dartmouth and Mathew Causen from Bristol as well as local teenager Alice shoulder in the ladies fleet.  After a brief lunch break the course was moved further out to sea and both pros and amateurs were sent out at the same time.  The sea conditions were now a little kinder and it was time to set both fleets off at the same time.  It was impressive to see forty racers all starting at the same time and some great racing continued.  In the ladies local rider Bel Bailey really came to the party winning a number of races and beating all the amateur men in 2 races but with Alice shoulder right on her tail the overall result was looking very tight.  In the men's amateur fleet local doctor Tom Debenham was on fire getting some great results followed closely by another local James Bainbridge.  In the pros there was no stopping Olly Bridge with 2 more race wins abruptly ended with a disqualification in the last race for starting too soon.  Other pros with good results that afternoon were Callum Edge, Lee Pasty,  Denzil Williams and Steve Stubbs,  All they had to do was work out how to beat Olly!

The Saturday night party was hosted by the River Exe Cafe and despite the rain everyone had a great time with excellent food and wine provided by our  sponsor pebblebed wines.

The Sunday dawned with light winds and the pro's were sent out to do battle, in these very difficult conditions only 1 race was run won by Steph Bridge proving that experience counts when the going gets tricky.  The afternoon gave much better wind and slacker tides so everyone was back on it for the final deciding races.  In the ladies fleet it was a battle down to the wire between Alice Shoulder and Bel Bailey, both were super powered and gunning for the win just coming out on top by 2 points was Alice in her first ever race event!  In the amateur fleet it was down to a 3 horse race with Murray Smith just edging out Debenham with Bainbridge third.

The Race board class continued to be dominated by fourteen year old Olly Bridge winning nine races out of eleven, an amazing performance, second was Steph and third  Callum Edge.

It was a great weekend of racing and enjoyed by all participants, roll on 2013.