Essex Kitesurf Club – Round 3 of the ‘Eastbeach Open’

Essex Kitesurf Club’s ‘East Beach Open’ free comp series has been a huge success. Here’s Joe Hockley’s writeup on the third and final event of the year…   With the event called on for Saturday with the forecast predicted for around 18mph we thought it was game on, we all gathered for a 10am call and the wind was building, then proceeded to rapidly drop away to nothing! Then the rain came and came but we had a back up plan to run on Sunday, so we packed up and a 10,30am call was made.   This time we were meet with 20mph, so suited up and kites in the air the pro’s headed out, got to the water and it died, it seemed that it may not be our day, but the weather hadn’t counted on the steely determination of the Essex kite club. Although not essential to get a result from the day, it was what we were all hoping for, the tide rolled in and brought the wind with it, we were on!    With six pro men, Dave freeman, Ash Garwood, kev matthey, Richy flindall, Rob woodford and myself. Without going into too much detail, if you wanted to win you would have to ride and win six heats, we have a bunch of hot young riders in southend , Rob woodford was ripping as always, Rich too and kev matthey was killing it.    As we moved through some close heats we could start to see who would be in the final. Eventualy we made it ,Dave freeman, Rich flindall and myself,,    so now we moved onto the beginners, with Martin Hilton, Spike taylor, Paul Naylor and Jason Coetzee in the final heats, these guys really pushed themselves with some nice big jumps and some bigger crashes ,hats off to these guys to ride in the biggest rain squall of the day. As we moved thru it came down to Spike taylor taking the win on the day with Martin Hilton second and Paul in third.    Massive thanks to the intermediate riders who hung around all day and helped out to run the event, now it was their turn!    It was decided between them to run them in a half hour best overall impression format, the standard of these guys is high and a bunch of them could easily compete in the pro’s. Myself and pro rider kev matthey judged this and it was super fun to watch with the positions changing every five minutes, but coming on strong in the end was Dean Mackintosh with some smooth transitions and his new trick the dark slide kiteloop, it paid off and took him the win. Mark seabrook started slow but built momentum to take second and kitepix own George Treadwell taking third with some nice moves, especially a tail grab transition.    So we made it guys, in three months we put on 3 amazing events with over 50 competitors ,it was really good fun for me and thanks to everyone who helped along the way because it truly was a team effort, cheers, Tone, Rich, Si, Cheryl, John, Jamie at wetndry boardsports, Bill at sports corner, Richys kiteschool, kitepix and mostly all the guys that rode thanks for coming,joe    
PRO MEN:
1st place: Dave Freeman: 50,100,50,100 total 300 points
2nd place: Richie Flindall : 100,50 total 150 points
joint 3rd : Ash Garwood : 100 total 100 points joe hockley total 100 points
 4th  place: Kev Matthey : 50 total 50 points

INTERMEDIATES
1st : Dean Mackintosh: 50,100 total 150 points
joint 2nd: Jim Thomson : 100 total 100 points 
Paul Towler : 100 total 100 points
joint 3rd: Ben Wilson : 50 total 50 points
Mark Seabrook : 50 total 50 points
joint 4th: Adam Tomms : 25 total 25 points
George Treadwell: 25 total 25 points

BEGINNERS

1st : Paul Naylor: 100,25 total 125 points
2nd : Spike Taylor: 100 total 100 points
3rd : Martin Hilton: 50 total 50 points
4th: Peter: 50 (wasn’t available to ride off for 3rd)
5th: Graham:25 total 25 points