
The final showdown of the British Kitesurfing Association’s (BKSA) national tour will play out on Westward Ho! beach this October when the UK’s best kite surfers compete to win the British title at the British Kitesports championships.
The RWE npower renewables Kitetastic Finals Week will take place from Sunday 14 to Saturday 20 October at Westward Ho!, near Bideford. Over 100 competitors will attend the week-long event which features a number of disciplines all propelled by powerful kites. The event will finish with the BKSA British Champions being crowned at a special prize giving evening on Saturday 20th.
Event organiser and BKSA Chairman Richard Gowers is excited about the tour’s culmination. Richard said: “This is the first time we have held a major kiting event at Westwood Ho! and I can’t think of a better place for us to bring the tour to a close. The beach has plenty of open space and works in most wind directions. Although the first few events of the year suffered from light winds, we have had a fantastic season that has taken us across all areas of the UK. The talent and ability of the competitors taking part today is phenomenal and the race for British Champion is still very open.”
The competition will feature top female and male kitesurfers who will compete in the water in freestyle, race and wave events, whilst on the beach competitors will take part in freestyle kite landboard and kite buggy competitions.
This is the final event on the BKSA tour, which has held legs in seven venues across the UK, including Watergate Bay in north Cornwall, Clacton on Sea in Essex, Redcar on
Teesside and Troon in Scotland. Peter Sawyer from Kitemare, a Barnstaple kitesurfing shop and sponsor of the event, said: “Westward Ho! is a great place for kite sports. A few years ago there were only a handful of locals out there and now on a good day you might see 50 to 100 people and its a very friendly atmosphere. I have been travelling up and down the country competing for years, so it is nice to finally have a competition at my home beach. There are a few local sponsored riders that haven’t competed on a BKSA tour event before and so it’s going to be a kind of grand unveiling for them. Jon Bleaker and Dan Sweeney are definitely ones to watch in the pro men freestyle. They both trained abroad last winter and are equally hungry for success.”
Sponsored by RWE npower renewables, local kitesurfing shop Kitemare and Torridge District Council, the Kitetastic Finals Week starts on Sunday 14 October with the Wavemaster all fleets event.
Westward Ho! is one of the few beaches in Devon that welcomes kitesurfers, buggies and landboards. With its wide sandy beach, is regarded by kiting enthusiasts as one of the best venues in the UK with up to 60 people kite surfing and kite buggying at peak times.
Also called kiteboarding or flysurfing, kitesurfing is an extremely young sport with a very recent history. Kitesurfing involves standing on a surfboard in the water while holding and steering a multi-line kite in the air, which propels the surfer across the water. Although the sport originated from the advent of windsurfing and the kite itself, kitesurfing didn’t truly emerge until the late 1990s and wasn’t popular until the beginning of the 21st Century.
Fancy having a go yourself? With the support of Torridge District Council and Sport England, the organisers are putting on a week of FREE coaching session for beginners to try out the sport. To book your free place email events@kitesurfing.org