Pasty Cup 2012 - report

Olly Bridge

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 ;)

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