It's been an up and down few months in relation to Melbourne and the Sailing world cup, with not only the Olympic bombshell being dropped only a few weeks before the event, but an incredible mix of conditions for the actual racing which proved that kite racing is not only action packed, but incredibly capable of competing in the elite ranks of sailing. 

With winds ranging from 0 knots to 45 knots, the kite racers toughed it out off Sandringham Yacht club along with the other 14 classes of boats invited to attend Sail Melbourne. With an unprecedented winning streak, Florain Gruber win first place in every single heat of the regatta, finishing with not only the lowest score of the event, but a completely clean slate with no protests, line breaks or equipment malfunctions for the entire event. 

In second place, with a more normal looking score of a few seconds places, a DNF and some slower places, Torrin Bright from New Zealand was also a top performer. Once a freestyle master, Torrins been working for Ozone kites for a few years now and has helped develop the Edge into the legendary racer it is today. Up with the Edge (and the kite of choice for Florain) was the North Dyno. These two kites are absolutely dominating the racing scene at the moment, just take a look at the photo above to see the beach full of Ozone and North. There's a few Cabrinhas, and one RRD in the mix there. Talk about domination! The way things are going at the moment it's almost a one design competition anyway! 

In the girls fleet, it was Ariane Imbert who stole the show. With almost a clean win she halved the score of Sunshine coast local Lisa Hickman, who in turn beat swiss girl Astrid Berz, after she failed to enter 4 races at the beginning of the competition. 

As for how kite racing went as a sport, well the jury's out on that one. We'll have to wait and see if kite racing gets invited back to the next big ISAF event, or will it be left to the PKRA and IKA to organise their own world cup events? 

Looking forward to the next big race here in Australia, there's not much on the horizon! Sydney have their race series starting up again in January, event organisers are considering including kite racing in the Sail Brisbane event at Easter, and who's going to step up to the plate and organise the Nationals for 2013? Anyone? Stay tuned to find out where it's going to be... or if there's going to be one... 

#News #Kitesurfing #North #Ozone #Rrd #Sailing