Some news from Anapa

By V.Zakharov

Translated by Dibutil

SOURCE

The Black Sea Cup has started its kiting program. Today we had course races and freestyle competition.

The major news is: There is WIND here!

And what a wind! Yesterday while training a Kahoona-7 in zenith was lifting a not-so-small fella couple meters up by just pulling the bar. Nines were a little bit too much. For the first time in my life I have seen 4-5 meter kites on the water.

In short, some gusts were up to 17m/s (35 knots - Dibutil). I even started thinking about a 7-m kite for myself..

One could see a real advancement of the kiting in Russia: with such wind there were 40-60 kites on the water. The water here is very funny: you fall a mile off the shore and... hit the bottom of the sea with your favorite body part. This is the best place for newbies and learning - huge shallow areas and absolute no surf at any wind. Here you can push for speed until your eyes are blown away!

There is three of our guys here (from Novosibirsk - Dibutil) - Alex Palekhin, Mila Polyakova and me. Everyone decided to go for couse-race as the most eye-catching, prospective and popular kind of water kiting :-) Let me be forgiven by Uncle Nick (a free-styler - Dibutil) who spent couple years learning handle-passes, but this joke has some truth in it!

Points, places - this will come later. We are enjoying the race with good chances for results. Racing at 10-14m/c (20-30 knots - Dibutil) are so exciting that the real competiotion matters no more. But with no doubt we will do our best!

Today we had four races - overfiled with impressions. Not sure how many people raced - around 30.

The race course is a dream! First, about 2km of sharp half-wind (not everyone can cut it to the mark). Then the same 2km back but very fast to the starting mark. Then 2km of pure upwind tacking and finally down-wind to finish.

The race on the backstay courses is something amazing. Pilots and kites are falling, while trying to reach the usual winter speed. Why winter? Because the top of the racers are coming to here to Anapa from the winter protocols.

Alexey Rajev (the Race Master) deserves our great respect. He manages all marks, starts and finishes. At the average depth of water of 1m it is easier to move marks walking through the water without touching the anchored boat.

The wind is promised for five more days (God, help it be true!) It is so great here!

Freestylers are raving! Looks like they are coming to double-passes...

Watch for more news. I will try to post in the evenings if will be able to stay away from delicious Kuban wines at $3 per liter...

Cheers!