Lewis Crathern’s February Update

‘What an amazing season in Cape Town, the time really flew this year! Coaching Clinics, Youth Training, TV Episodes, Photo Shoots and more. Here is my February update that I write to you from Worthing/UK as I plan my next adventure…’

TGR ‘Locals’ TV programme

Early in January a really amazing opportunity came my way. I was asked to be part of a TV Program called ‘Locals’ with a guy called Erik Roner, (from Jackass and Nitro Circus) The program is all about Erik travelling around meeting extreme sports people from different places. I played the part of the Local from Cape Town and showed him around everywhere. It was a full on week where I felt like I packed all 8 years of my Cape Town experience into 1 week! Waking up at 7 and getting home at 11 really took it’s toll but I loved every minute of it. We literally done every activity possible inluding Mountain Biking, Ostrich Riding and also Kiteboarding as it was one of the themes of the show, Erik learning to Kiteboard!

Erik is also a professional athlete, specialising in Skiing and Base Jumping so we had a natural understanding of each other. It made it easy to work together. I look forward to sharing the show with you all when it airs in the States in a couple of months.

VW T Magazine article

Whilst I was in Cape Town a lovely article of the life i live with my van was printed in VW t Magazine. Those of you that have followed me for some time will know how important my van is to me. When I’m back in Europe I go everywhere with it. It’s my mobile office, bedroom, kitchen and place to change in out of the cold. I even run clinics from it and have meetings inside. VWt sent a photographer down for the day and the photos were just amazing. Never in my life have I been able to park up on the stones, it was really special.

VWt magazine kindly sent me a PDF of the full article, click HERE to look at it in your browser. I’m really happy with it. Through the write up and the photos they captured my life with ‘Vanzee’ perfectly.

Cape Town clinics continue

Throughout February I kept on running all sorts of different clinics. Best youth training carried on and we saw some major progression from everybody. Some of the riders are even aiming to compete at the Junior World Championships in Europe, whilst others completed there first downwinders to Big Bay. I really enjoyed these clinics this year and its something I aim to expand around the world.

My personal clinics carried on as well, and much progression was made. Some of the students really surprised me. I recall some great days in Langebaan where Trantje learn’t to jump pretty much straight away landing clean! We got it on video so she can remember the day for the rest of her life.

Gathering content for 2014…

With everything else going on in Cape Town it’s sometimes hard to gather all the content I need for myself. It’s not just the Kiteboarders that travel to South Africa for the winter, lots of Photographers and Video makers do to. There are also some local ones that I have made good friends with as well. I worked with all sorts of people like Bianca Asher, Eyeforce, Fatsand, Kiteworld Magazine and more.  Being in the right place and timing the waves is really tricky but when you get a good shot its all worth it. Hopefully some of these shots will make it into some publications this year

Camrig

Just before I left to go home I got some great news that Camrig are supporting me with some products to help me capture my lifestyle. I use my GoPro camera pretty much everywhere but now its even easier to capture what I do with these specially designed mounts. The photo above is a screen grab of a video I made using the line mount for the first time just a week ago. You can see the video HERE. With all the videos I have made before, I hold the camera in my hand and fly the kite with one hand. Whilst that does give a nice perspective of what I would like everybody to see, it can be quite restricting. It feels like ultimate freedom to have both hands on the control bar whilst capturing some epic moments on the water. I can’t wait to use this stuff more.

So thats my February update. My next trip will be off to Spain and France for 5/6 weeks in the van I can’t wait to tell you all about it, see you next month,

Lewis