Cabrinha Kiteboard Racing - Heineken de-thrones Wasson in 25 knots

by David Wells on 15 May 2010 Cabrinha Kiteboard Racing - Johnny Heineken fresh off his solid fourth place performance at the Kitesurfing Worlds returned to the St. Francis Yacht Club's Cabrinha Kites Thursday Night Kite Racing to beat UltraNectar's Chip Wasson who had been dominating the series to this point.

Once again San Francisco Bay delivered big winds that had most riders scrambling to get their eight or nine meter kites ready to go while some brave souls departed the beach on their 12.0's. 'I hope it lightens up at the end of the day like last week so I can beat some of these guys' said one competitor as he rigged up. That was not to be. As you can see from the iKitesurf.com graph the wind built quickly and then held a solid 25mph through out the racing with gusts exceeding 30mph and the lulls never going below 20 mph.

Race one was a battle between the three sailors who would be mixing it up all day. Heineken and Wasson were also pressed by Stefaans Viljoen. Viljoen is a previous champion of the series. With a two knot ebb tide providing all the chop they needed and the wind a steady 25 mph the gun sounded and Heineken was off. Showing the speed that nearly had him on the podium at the Worlds Heineken took the bullet with Wasson not too far behind and Viljoen in third.

Race two saw Heineken show he was beatable, as one mistake is all it takes in the highly competitive racing that is found at the Cabrinha Series, and both Viljoen and Wasson capitalized by putting themselves between Heineken and the finish line. Wasson took the win, Viljoen second and Heineken third. A notable performance however was put in by Geoff Headington who sailed super consistently and was pressuring the top three at times. Headington's scoring line of four-four-four on the day shows that he is within striking distance of the podium at any time.

Race three saw Heineken return to form and take the win with Wasson in second and Viljoen in third. With Heineken (one-one-three) and Wasson (two-one-two) each were tied with five points. It then went to the tie breaker which Heineken won by virtue of his two first place finishes leaving Wasson in second and Viljoen in third for the day.

24 boards lined up on the starting line for this third race in the series and the racing was much closer than in the previous two events. Joey Pasquali again sailed well with a five-five-five scoring line.

With all the work around fin set-ups there seems to be a consensus that next year we will see three fin set up as the mainstay. That being one big fin in the center and two smaller thruster style fins on the sides. With that said I took a few shots of the various fin set ups and posted them below. There is a quite a variety and you may recognize many Formula Windsurfing Fins being utilized. A lot of the riders have been taking old Formula fins and cutting them down. I am not sure who donated the two Techtonic Fins in the first photo but that was a crime. Those were still good fins!

Next Race May 27 - Bring your small kite and see you there.

Results

1 White 18 Johnny Heineken
2 Yellow 15 Chip Wasson
3 Green 7 Stefaans Viljoen
4 Black 4 Geoff Headington
5 Lgt Blue 5 Joey Pasquali
6 Red 8 Eric Due
7 White 0 Kevin Richards
8 Lgt Blue 1 Marcello Segura
9 Yellow 4 Eric Geleynse
10 Blue 15 William Morris
11 Green 12 Ty Reed
12 Orange 5 Frank Wittke
13 Orange 8 Bruce Johnson
14 Yellow 1 Erin Loscocco
15 Blue 2 Steve Gibson
16 Blue 19 Andrew Koch
17 Yellow 8 Bret Hersher
18 Yellow 9 Rick Larsen
19 Yellow 18 Nick Levi
20 Orange 3 Tobin Fisher
21 Blue 0 John Gomes
22 Yellow 6 Alex Bucur
23 White 2 Darren Bass
24 Blue 14 Hugo Kenyon