Arriving in Vietnam the Windguru forecast was not promising as storms over south-east Asia messed up Mui Ne thermals. No wind for several days is very rare for this winter kite destination, making main organizer Willy Kerr praying for just one day of good wind. Even without a main sponsor the KTA organization decided to pull this event off and work pro-forma for it all to come together, as one goal of KTA is crowning the Asian freestyle champion. Karma came around and Willy´s prayers come through: a full day of action from morning til sunset!

On morning of registration day the palm trees were not swaying at all and forecast was saddening -but a total of 40 riders made their way to registration, 25 for the freestyle competition. For mens freestyle it was very open as none from the KTA Boracay podium were here, and riders new to the tour added excitement upfront. For the womens freestyle 6 out of 8 riders were familiar faces from KTA Boracay, and in addition there were two Polish girls new to KTA (Helena Brochocka followed the European Tour last summer). In addition to freestyle there were also oldschool and big-air competitions, so of course “king of oldschool” Toby Brauer of kiteforum.com made his way over to Asia as oldschool events are hard to come by these days.

Luckily the weather forecast changed and storm clouds blew over: 3rd day it was time to get out on the water. Skippers was held at 9am, quite early for Mui Ne where winds usually kicks in around noon. Dark clouds inland created nice side-onshore winds and the first freestyle heat went off already in light winds at 1020. From there on the wind only got stronger and stronger until finals were completed on small kites. Mui Ne is known for the rough shorebreak, however this year the competition spot was further south than last year so waves were not too intimidating. The trade-off however was fishing lines in the competition area, when competing you had to pick your take-off wisely as the area was big but had certain limitations with plastic bottles here and there. Local kiteschool C2Sky worked hard for weeks with Vietnamese officials to get the lines removed -without Liz & Jeff there for sure would be no competition area at all (great work from the always smiling local organizers).

In first round of womens freestyle Ali Dudfield defeated the “joker” unknown to the others, a very strong rider from Poland, Katarzyna Lange. This was probably the most technical womens heat of the day, and as conditions got more challenging the smaller kites came out. Being sick almost since arriving I was happy to reach my goal of advancing through the first round defeating Helena Brochocka, then got a “free pass” to the finals as kiwi Su Kay unfortunately injured her knee in the semifinals. For the finals it was my turn giving Nanette van der Snoek a walkover as a binding came loose already in the first unhooked kiteloop. Ended very pleased with second, and all credits to Nanette who´s been training on Boracay this season -at only 19 years old she will probably be a rider to look out for in the coming years.

For the mens freestyle Canadian Sam Medesky made a strong appearance, a rider so far competing on the American continents. Polish Marek Rowinski Jr made 2nd place, while the nr 1 Filipino rider Ken Nacor is really holding high level against the younger riders on the tour. The battle in earlier seasons has often been between Ken and Yo (Narapichit Pudla, Thailand), but Yo has not been able to advance through in freestyle so far this season. As it is now Ken is the strongest candidate for taking home the title of Asian Freestyle Champion in KTA Thailand next month, where there will also be Asian race championships (for womens freestyle there are only a few Asian riders -here in Vietnam there were none). The countdown is on for KTA Thailand in March where Kristin Boese will also hold a KB4Girls event -until then we´re crossing our fingers the weather man will be on our side!
Photos by Jannicke Stav & Tommy Bachata

Topping last years event with 68 riders, yet again a record with 79 riders registering!
Now in it´s 3rd season KTA has really managed to build a positive reputation amongst riders. On Bulabog beach the KTA attitude and Filipino spirit come together for an event that has inclusion and friendliness written all over. Experiencing hands-on the positive vibes was probably what made Aqua Boracay announce that they want to be in it for the long run and sponsor this event for 5 years to come!

Strong winds on first day of competition did not stop riders from giving it all in freestyle, and single eliminations finished half an hour before sunset. In the judge tower were two skilled guys usually seen pleasing a crowd from the water; Turkish Sedat Celenk and French William Bourget. Together with two regulars on the judging team, Mars Gersbach and head judge Stephan Hertig, they had no breaks from first to last heat with 38 competitors going for their best moves. Being an ambassador of kb4girls I was especially thrilled to see 16 female freestylers signing up, and in the twintip raceclass there were 17! It seems girls inspire each other to enter the competitive scene -hopefully this will push the level and passion of kiting in girls even more in years to come.

Day two was a good mix of racing and double elimination. Moving on to racing, 62 riders (!) made a very colorful skyline -introducing the twintip race class KTA makes competition accessible for almost everyone. By encouraging riders of different levels to join for the fun of it, the organizers really hit one of the key points of events: promoting a love for the sport.

Freestyle Mens
Third day had perfect conditions for finishing freestyle double eliminations, and this event has really shown some up and coming young riders. The European tour seems more dominated by younger riders compared to the Asian tour, but the podium spots did not reflect this: 2nd and 3rd places in mens freestyle were both riders below 20 years old, in 3rd place Slovenian Jaka Komocar at only 15 years old! Another rider to watch out for is one year younger local rider Stefano Ganugi who ended 6th, pulling of kiteloop slims rumor has it this talent is without proper sponsorship… Ben Bowd had to defend his 1st place after singles, but could not hold up against entertainer Ukrainian Andrej Salnik who won after 2 final heats. A true entertainer always with a smile on his face: last season on Boracay Andrey took out a pair of flipflops and kited on them in strong winds!

Freestyle Womens
Weeks ago word on the island was Russian Champion Veronica Soloveykina would get to top of the podium in womens freestyle. Early on she impressed the crowd with a tantrum to blind and went through the competition winning all of her heats. Another powerful rider spending winter season on Boracay is Estonian Kristiin Oija; she landed a few air passes (blind judge, blind judge 3) and with higher consistency she will probably rise to the podium at later events. A very consistent rider at 2nd place was kiwi Susan Key who actually decided to stop competing back in 2007. Her skills are very much intact and hopefully this experience inspires her to come back and spread more of that positive energy! “Local” Australian Ali Dudfield of Freestyle Kite Academy Boracay landed an array of blind tricks securing 3rd place: this season she will for sure be in it for a spot on the overall podium.

Raceboard class
In racing all of the classes were on the water together, and what a spectacular show on the first day. In the production board class most people expected Yo (Narapichit Pudla, Thailand) to excel after breathing down the neck of pro-rider Bruno Srouka last season. For the womens racing it came as no surprise German Kathrin Borgwardt won. This might be changing though as there were 6 women on raceboards here on Boracay, and with forces promoting it as an Olympic sport it will certainly become more attractive in the nearby future.

Twintip race class
No matter varying conditions, Polish Michalina Laskowska took a well deserved first place with 4 out of 6 races won, and 2nd runner up Norwegian Rebecka Maudal gave her credits coming of the water with this statement “She is so freaking fast!”. 3rd place went to Russian Dina Muldasheva. For the mens twintip class it was a lot of local riders battling it out on the water as 6 out of the 10 spots are held by Filipino riders – but on top of the podium was the speedy and always cheerful Kerem Balik from Turkey.

Videographer Jim Thirion of Lines Productions and photographer Alexandru Baranescu are doing a terrific job; check out Kiteboard Tour Asia on Vimeo and Facebook for more visuals.

Greetings from Boracay,
Jannicke:)

To get to know more about Jannicke Stav visit her website.

For more photos, latest compatition updates and riders info visit Kiteboar Tour Aasia website.

Recife
We started our trip on September the 22nd. We flew from Munich to Lisbon and then Recife.
Marian Hund and I were able to stay in a really nice Villa in Recife, thanks to my friend Jana. Jana was joining us for the first 3 weeks of the trip and we really had a lot fun together. The wind in Recife is not that strong, but most of the days it was perfect for the 12m² Nobile NHP. We had a great kitespot right in front of the Villa. During low tide there was flat, waist deep water and no other kites at all. A reef is breaking the waves and keeps the sharks away.

After the summer in Germany and the cold water, it felt really good to ride without a wetsuit again. The water and air temperatures were both around +30°C. Besides kiting we visited the nice town of Olinda, it has some really nice buildings and a stunning view over the City of Recife!
We also had a nice Speedboat trip through the mangroves, were horse Riding in the jungle and kart racing with 35 horsepower go-karts. As you can imagine, it never got boring for us in Recife.
Check the first video from Recife here. After 2 weeks in Recife, we needed to go to Cumbuco, where we booked a nice Pousada. A plane would have been too expensive, buses made trouble with the big boardbags, so we took a rental car and headed 1000km up north to Cumbuco.

Cumbuco
In Cumbuco life was pretty much the same every day. We lived in the “Cumbuco Guesthouse” for overall 9 weeks and went kiting nearly every day. In the morning we got a nice breakfast and did a downwinder to the cauipe lagoon afterwards. Sometimes we took a buggy instead, to bring our camera gear. At the lagoon we were kiting for 1 or 2 hours, did a break during midday and went out again in the afternoon. To go back to Cauipe town, we took one of the buggy-taxis.

There is another lagoon, placed in Tabuba, were you can go by bus really cheap. We went there for a couple of days and also were filming for the second episode.
For Dinner we were cooking chicken and rice, sometimes pasta or we went to one of the local restaurants, where you can eat really cheap. Nightlife isn’t that bad either  You can go for a drink or two in a lot of different bars and there´s a small nightclub, were you can party till the morning light.

The last week before we had to leave, I got the brand new 50Fifty kite and I liked it a lot!!! It´s such a nice kite, perfect pop and really low bar pressure during the pass!

So in our final episode we want to show you our Cumbuco Life, kiting in cauipe lagoon. Click here to watch it.

On December 7th we had to leave Cumbuco and flew back home to good old Germany. Waiting for our transit flight we were visiting Lisbon, it was sooo fu**ing cold

A big thanks to all people who made this trip possible and so awesome!!!
Thanks to my sponsors and special thanks to all my new friends from all over the world. You made this to such a good time for me!
Cheers! Andi

All photos by Marian Hund.
To get to know more about Andi check out his website and profile.

Saturday started out very sunny, warm and windless! Looked like summer is coming back… 
In the morning we arrived to the surfclub Windekind in Oostduinkerke and we were the first ones there. We set up the Nobile tent and stand and we were ready to go!
In the beginning of the day nothing much happened, because there was no wind, not many riders showed up and there was nothing much to do around the club. We did have some people passing by our stand so that kept us busy.
In the afternoon stil there was no wind, so organizers came out with a SUP competition amongst the riders.The competition would be part of the final result in belgian champion. The day ended with a nice BBQ on the beach.

Sunday started sunny again but this time with a light 11 kts offshore breeze. The breeze changed direction in the afternoon and that gave us a nice light sideshore wind.
On Sunday so many people visited our tent, we did not even had a chance to see what’s going on at the competition area. A lot of questions were asked, a lot of eyes falling open when seeing the nice colours and boards! 
Most of the people where crazy about the new KISS “Click&Go” system on the boards. They were amazed with the the potential of this system, especially when travelling.
 The competition ended around 17 o’clock and final winner was Steve Verelst. Now 3rd year in a row.

Nobile Benelux is ready for the next event, that is: Belgian Nationals Waveriding, that will take place 1 and 2 October 2011 in surfclub VVW Heist. See you there!

The single elimination started against the young Italian who lives in Brazil; Cerruti, Asia’s experience and technical level was too much for the young brasilien and she was able to advance to the semifinal. The semi-finals were against Lennartsson, a seaonsed competitior who could pose a challenge to Asia. However Litwin was able to land her Slim, 313 and Blid judge and advance to the Final against the former world champion Bruna Kajiha. Asia was riding well in the final and going for big moves. She was almost able to lad a switch Slim and 720 pass, but Bruna proved to be too tough in her home country and was able to defeat Asia.

The double elimination Asia had to defend her second place finish and gets a shot at getting the top spot on the podium. To defend her second place Asia needed to defeat Clementine Bonzom of France to maintin her second place and have a another round against Bruna. She was able to beat Bonzom easily with more powered and technical riding. The Big challenge came against Bruna who was still on fire from her home victory. Eventhough Asia was riding super strong she could not stop Bruna and had to settle for a second place finish.

This was a great event for Asia Litwin with a Second place finish and a week in Brazil. Kiting every day in perfect conditions with the best riders in the world is what Brazil is all about. This is one of the tops spots to come to and enjoy the riding and lifestyle. Trade winds, Acai drinks, waves and great people, everyone should get a chance to kite in Brazil and it is even better on some Nobile Kiteoarding gear just ask Asia.
To check out Asia’s point of view check out www.joannalitwin.com

This year during the event for the first time we presented our 2012 products to the audience. All who came to our Showroom located at the event area had a chance to see and test Nobile Kitebording next season gear. Not only the boards made a really good impression on visitors, thanks to breathtaking designs and freshly introduced innovations, but we also received a lot of interest in our new KISS „clik & go” fins and pad mounting system. Everybody was amazed how fast and easy it’s now possible to mount and demount board’s accessories. Not to forget about the kites, both T5-Koinobori and N62 V3 collected really good opinions and proved themselves to be perfect choice to fly and ride.

In St. Peter-Ording we also had a meeting with Nobile Kiteboarding distributors from around the World. During 3 days we had a chance to see each other again, share the opinions about our products and spend good time together.

The main attraction of the event was of course the Beetle Kitesurf World Cup. Our team rider Joanna „Asia” Litwin was charging with no fear and by landing such tricks as Blind Judge, Sbend pass, 313 and Slim got herself to the 3rd place in the competition. Big congrats to Asia and good luck on the next tourstop in Brazil. Mike „The Knife” Blomvall was competing on his 2012 signature board 50Fifty. He knew what the judges were looking for (good trick execution and well powered), and secured himself a solid, 12th position in overall PKRA ranking.

One agian we’d like to congrats to our team riders for their results, and thanks to everybody who visited our booth and experienced Nobile Kiteboarding 2012 Collection. We’ll be launching new website any day now. All of you who didn’t have a chance to see us in St.Peter stay tuned to see the next season gear.

“I’ve been out on the new board a handful of times. I am loving it! I can’t believe how light it is. Very smooth, lots of pop, and doesn’t splash water in my face.”

Once again congrats to David.