Action at Day 2 of the Rhosneigr Park Jam 2016
Features / Thu 29th Sep, 2016 @ 12:00 pm
The second day of the Rhosneigr Park Jam kicked off yesterday with the UK delivering some of its most challenging conditions yet! The wind was nuking; the rain was flying sideways and with visibility down to a few hundred yards, at times you couldn’t see the fishing boats just off the beach! That didn’t deter the riders, though, and they were on the water at 8 am kicking off the heats with a plan to run as much of the event as possible through the day.
The Liquid Force and Funsport kicker was where the action kicked off with the first heats for the ladies being run on that with the guys following on. Noè Font was looking sharp this morning as some of the riders struggled with the challenging conditions. With the wind so strong the usually sheltered bay where the park has been set up was kicking up quite a chop. This made it tricky as the kicker was moving quite a bit, not only as the riders headed towards it but even as they hit it and jumped off they could feel it moving.
Needless to say, many edges were caught on landings too, and it looked like slamsville out there! Riders were pushing for 5’s and 7’s and the crowd on the beach lapped up the show. As the tide filled in the action switched to the North Slider as the men lined up to take their hits. There is a kink in the slider which has proved tricky to get dialled in as you have to air onto the main section. With the chop and high winds not helping it was impressive to see the guys handle it so well. Sam Light and Eric Rienstra were looking confident for this one and Aaron Hadlow impressed the crew on the beach too! Ewan Jaspan backed up his performance from yesterday, and James Boulding was also making it look effortless.
With the slider done the crew switched the kicker to allow the riders to hit it from the other direction, favouring the regular footed amongst the crew. The weather hadn’t let up at all during the morning and with the riders now riding away from the beach to hit the kicker they were often disappearing into the misery blanket of rain that had settled in around us. Thanks to the speed of the crew the men’s comp was over pretty quickly and they could call a result from today’s action meaning if the weather didn’t deliver tomorrow the event could crown the winners and hand out the silverware.
The girls were next up, and Sensi Graves, Karolina Winkowska and Manuela Jungo headed out into the elements again to go to work. They had already run the first round of the kicker earlier so the action headed straight to the North Kiteboarding slider were the girls put on a solid show despite the gusty winds. Karolina was looking dialled, but Manu and Sensi both got some good hits in too. To finish the day and release the riders from the gloom the girls had a final heat on the kicker, and the show was over.
It was cold; it was wet, and the weather was miserable, but the action was off the charts… it’s all done bar the cheering, and now it’s just up to the judges to decide who will take the crown. With nuking winds forecast tomorrow there is still an opportunity to get some action on the water, either extending the competition format or perhaps using the more favourable weather forecast to get some solid media from the event in the bag, let’s see what the elements deliver!
By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!
