Day 1 Highlights

The day started with the men’s trials elimination under a rain-soaked kick-off day. The rain came in early in the morning at 6:00am and by 10:00am for the skippers meeting, the event site was flooded from the amount of rain that had dropped. The wind was marginal for the course racing while the mandatory skippers meeting was delayed by about an hour to allow for more competitors to make their way to the meeting. Finally at 11:00 am, the skippers meeting started but the wind had fallen off a little so the competition went into a series of postponements until 3:00pm when the wind picked up considerably. Event director Olav Van Tol decided to start with the Freestyle Trials instead of the originally planned Course Racing.

At exactly 3:30pm, the red flag for heat #1 was raised and the games went into a sequence for an eight-heat elimination series with the first round having six heats and a double elimination (round two) of two heats. It took a total of one and half hours to finish the eliminations under a 15° Celsius cold weather condition so the day wrapped up at 4:50pm. The wind speed ranged between 15 and 20 knots in the early heats but gradually dropped off in the later heats. It rained until the last heats were done so the competition was a total washout for the day.

Immediately following the final heats of the trials, mother nature decided to provide some brief sunshine and the skies started to clear so everyone is looking forward to some sunnier and warmer conditions for day 2.

A mini-concert presented by WE LOVE was held in the evening at the beach featuring Stefanie Heinzmann and Band.

[Source: extremeleElements.tv; Photos:kitesurfworldcup.de]