Hot off the press! First event of the year – PKA 2016 national series

The  format for the 3rd round of the PKA 2016 national series, which was held on 23rd/24th January, was four National Series races on Saturday then on Sunday a two hour endurance race called the Icicles. This is a fun race and does not count towards the national series and is a great way to come and get involved without the pressure.

Massive well done to Ryan McGavin in 1st place, Mark Sherlock in 2nd and James Martin in 3rd, with Karen Cutbush taking 1st ladies in this third round of the PKA national series.

Due to the storms removing the top layer of sand, we had it agreed by the local council that we could use the top end of the beach, this threw everyone as Westward Ho! is a disc beach, but this weekend it was a bigfoot beach with hard and soft sand combination.

Saturday morning we arrived and the tide was still on its way out but the beach was drying fast, the wind was directly offshore which had some rather nasty gusts coming through causing quiet a lot tense moments. We managed to hold 4 races Saturday before the tide chased us off the beach and it has to be said the star of this weekend was Ryan McGavin flying his 9m Peter Lynn Aero, he was on point this weekend not making any mistakes claiming 1st in all 4 races, the offshore wind which caused some of us issues didn’t phase him as he led the way in each race.

Sunday we all arrived with most of us being a little thick headed due to being chased off the beach at 14:00, the wind had swung to be directly up the beach from the town end. Being chased off left too much time for the evening’s festivities and it was more than obvious a few of us were still suffering. The race master changed the endurance race from 4 hours to 2 hours and decided if tide and time allowed we would hold 2 more national races after the endurance race. As the race started it was Adrian Lavelle that stormed away on his Peter Lynn Vapor 2, he pulled out a nice lead and led for the entire 2 hours. The wind during this race went from 15mph to 2mph then 20mph and back down, kite choice was key but Adrian’s low wind jedi skills saw him through to win the race with his partner Allison taking 1st Ladies, Ryan McGavin came in 2nd with James Martin claiming the 3rd spot.

Just want to thank Gray Wass for organising the beach access, all of our marshals and our race master.

See you all at the next round which is at Hoylake on April 16th.