Waiting, waiting waiting. There’s not much going on in Walvis Bay, unless you just like relaxing. Even the world wide web is out paced by the royal mail, one 56k connection struggles to keep sixty speed sailors in touch with the outside world, but just as it all starts to become to monotonous, the wind finally shows its face.

While headed out to the speed strip with a still air, within an hour the first grains of sand start to more across the beach. The wind fills in quickly to the minimum 18knots and the green flag is soon inviting sailors into the course. I took the Manta 59 with a Vapor 7.6 for a few rounds, but then jumped down to the 49 and 7.0, a bit underpowered in the sail but the smaller board slips through the water so much quicker it still proved to be a faster combination.

Each round runs for one and a half hours with two possible extensions of fifteen minutes each. The extensions are used to keep the course open if one of the top five start going quicker, it ensures a lucky last minute run won’t steel the round. I put in sixteen runs with each getting faster until the wind started to ease for the last two.

I had to settle for forth just behind Bjorn Dunkerbeck, Patrik Diethelm was second leaving Finian Maynard to take the round with the four fastest runs of the day. Karin Jaggi won the women with Valerie Ghibaudo in Second just in front of Zara Davis. The most impressive result was from Sjoukje Bredenkamp, she not only took the women’s kite record, which put her is a solid second place in the men’s kite ranking.

Since then the wind has failed to return giving the same results for the event overall. Now we wait again for wind, this time for the mile competition, and then to chase the record, but that’s going to take a lot more wind. Here’s hoping.