- Liam Proctor - Kitesurfer/Wakeboarder

Had a great time catching up with all the locals at Siblyback Lake on Sunday and competing in the first warm up competition of the year! Had a good ride with friends and managed to win the advanced category. Results: 1st: Liam Proctor 2nd: Joe Alford 3rd: Robin Snuggs

Thanks to  Ron Smith for the snaps! https://www.facebook.com/pages/RAS-Pics-by-Ron-Smith/378139602282225

'Windriders Defend Title'

Nationals write up in the expose featuring Sam Evans in the image and a write up of all performances during the event!

It has been a pretty windy winter here in the UK but the first weekend forecast without wind in months seemed to coincide with the SKA (Student Kitesurfing Association) nationals re-run. Thankfully the forecast changed, and in brief Saturday was gloriously sunny and Sunday was windy enough to run all competition heats!

Everyone arrived on Friday night and it was great to see mostly familiar faces, along with a few new attendees. The SKA committee decided to cancel the competition for Saturday and make the most of the swell and jumped in for a surf. Everyone else enjoyed early spring, listened to some music and played a bit of volleyball on the beach!

I thoroughly enjoyed judging the Intermediate and Advanced categories on the Sunday. The riding was exceptional in all categories (special mention to Cedric Bontemps for some of the most entertaining riding I've witnessed in a long time) and the company of Polly and Craig was top notch. Whilst the wind of the first few heats was a bit up and down, it came through from then on to get through all heats and finals smoothly.

The Intermediate and Advanced results were as follows:

Intermediates: 1st-Ross Browne (Exeter) 2nd-Ned Aufenast (Exeter) 3rd-Joash Clarkson (Exeter) Advanced: 1st-Tom Shaw (Bath) 2nd-Tim Wrinch (Bristol) 3rd-Cedric Bontemps (Southampton)

(Sam Evans (Exeter), Advanced)

As I went on the water to join Polly Crathorne (Cabrinha), Craig Smith (Flexifoil) and Martin Hayes (Kitemare) in the 'pro' comp, the wind dropped off considerably. I just set out to go on the water and have fun in my last ever ska event as a student. I even whacked in a couple of sent ali barrett esk front rolls in honour of him as this was my only ever SKA comp without riding with him. I got a bit overexcited with unhooked combos and loops/jumps so flew off down wind and have no idea what the other riders were getting up to but luckily the crowd/judges followed us down wind! I managed to crash 1/ land 1 salmon to blind which secured me the victory (not sure that would've gone down in the BKSA!)

'Pro' 1st-Liam Proctor (Exeter) 2nd-Martin Hayes (Swansea) 3rd-Polly Crathorne (Edinburgh)  

    I'd like to express further thanks to all of the SKA tour and event sponsors, without which these events would not be possible. The prizes this year were fantastic and I know the Exeter Winners are absolutely stoked with their personal and club prizes.

Flexifoil provided plenty of hadlow boards which now seem to be (quite rightly so) the no1 choice within the student community, as well as sending along their team riders to help run the event and provide demo equipment!

Supersaturated have been fantastic this year in both providing prizes/event tees and tour tees. Massive thanks to Ding and his helpers!

Bracklesham Boardriders (BBR) generously donated the ION battle jacket  and sand bags!

A special thanks goes to Kitemare for all their support and letting us use their new shop as a venue for prize giving(can't wait to see it finished in the summer!) Kitemare also provided a new hadlow wakestyle for the advanced winner Tom Shaw to throw down

Time for a less gloomy image! A sunny winter session in Exmouth!

An image of one of my kicker hits at the Beach Break Live Winch Pool Gap makes it into the expose 'In the Club House' article with a little interview. Check it!

The super slippy rope slider base is like no other on the plastic, but..... still doesn't hurt to get those obstacles wet before use ;)

Was great to get some riding in at the SKA zero2hero event. Riding with Flexifoil team riders Jon Bleiker, Craig Smith and Dave Roberts really got me in the zone to push it and landed some newer tricks in challenging conditions!

Had a week to recover from the 2013 Zero2Hero Kitesurfing event and wondering if that is really enough? It was the largest Student Kitesurfing Association (SKA) Beginners Weekend ever hosted. The weather was changeable with wind,nowind,rain,sun all within seconds of each other. That's why we love Wales!

SATURDAY

  As with all SKA events, the attendees were treated to a pleasant early awakening and it was under way.

At the beach we arrived to find tunes pumping and the wind picking up, it almost seemed too good to be true. Those arriving on the Saturday joined us on the beach and the total was then 150 people including 76 beginners.

After a graceful introduction by the SKA President, the first set of beginners were sent off with instructors to get their teeth into our sport. They all jumped straight on the foils and really cracked on with learning how to control the kites, all groups in both morning and afternoon sessions made excellent progress.It was absolutely fantastic to see so many beginners introduced to kite surfing at once.

In the afternoon the wind picked up, the sun came out and almost all of our free riders were out shredding until the beach was nearly all gone and it was time pack up…

  SATURDAY NIGHT

Saturday night was absolutely huge, the costumes were outrageous and Oli Rubes, Mr.Sim and DJ moon kept it going through the early hours.

  SUNDAY

The beginners had their second lot of 3 hour lessons, however, the wind was too strong to put any LEI’s in the air so they played games on the foils and were taught how to rig the LEI’s ready to jump into the water next time!

The free riders were out in some of the best conditions we have seen in a while with team riders from Flexifoil showing us how its done. I'm pretty sure every competent kiter got a session on the Sunday!

A big thank you to everyone that came along for making last weekend so fantastic!

Massive thanks to the following for making the event possible.

Student Kitesurfing Association (SKA) - http://www.studentkitesurfing.co.uk/zero2hero-2013-trip-report/

Flexifoil - www.flexifoil.com/uk

University of Supersaturated - http://www.supersaturated.net/us

The BKSA

Blast Kiteboarding

DJLee Events

JWGmedia.