Lighthouse to Leighton Red Bull Race board set up

The weed and the waves might make riding the slalom board a little interesting!

Can I ask A VERY STUPID QUESTION... I live in Melbourne and in the future would love to give the L2L a go. But it seems it has been linked up with the Oceanic Course Kite racing Championships. I thought the L2L was a professional to amateur race, meaning that one day I would love to give it a go.

It seems there is no link to just registering for the L2L anymore. I hope they let amateurs have a crack with the pros... It is a fantastic race it would be a shame to just let course racers take all of the glory.

OH on board construction from what I saw of last years winner he had a gunny slalom style surfboard custom. 3 fin tuttle set up with weed rake. The most comfy 3 strap setup. Not a wide board but set up for control and chop.... It would change if the winds where light....

I'm using the same board as last year in this years L2L race as its pretty fast and easy on my maturing body - as per this post the only thing I'm cooking is how to keep up with Marv, Dave & Ric in coarse racing as the dudes are smoking fast in every direction and super fun to try and keep up with. But I think Dale is doing a lot of cooking.

- In my opinion any type of free ride or slalom board AKA Marv's beautiful slalom TMV ( shame I was to gassed by day 3 to test it in Townsville) any of these boards are 95% perfect for the race and will smoke any twin tip or surfboard. That said a surfboard that is the tow in or big wave style has proven to be pretty fast.

If you rode a foil board you would smoke everyone easy - but you would need a nice flat day with little or no weed in gauge roads. Love to see someone try -

If you are bored and crazy enough & want to burn a few $$$$$ you can make a custom board and then test, test test, to get it going OK and hopefully fast and rideable, but as we all know who race regularly the real test is on race day. I've seen a few other custom boards in race and most are pretty slow except for Dale's board last year.

The really big question in the L2L is how much weed is over the race - well I've personally seen heaps every year except year 1 and I was on a surfboard so didn't really notice it - other riders have seen NO WEED as per Dustas post. A bit of testing on your race board in the open ocean I guess is what gives the home town advantage.

As history shows in year 1, Alex C the French speed specialist smoked everyone by 2 to 3minutes and he was in town for 7 days so he needed no home town advantage -

This year I'm betting on Dale, Alex C both past winners or one of the top national /international coarse racing guys fighting for a top finish - and if Marv B can keep the sweet Slalom TMV on the water with all that speed and in one piece he will be hard to beat. Marv watch out for the man eating flying fish. Haha

But also lets not forget Dr Phil who has been top in the top 2, 3 o 4 for the last 3 years and is a man who may shock everyone with his super determination & total fitness. Dr Phil has a crazy training routine where he rides 100% on a stock North surfboard in a broad reach up to 10km off the WA coast solo most nights of the week before the race and is super fit and loves the open, wild, scary, sharky Indian ocean.

Don't forget our local riders Marty, Alty, & Salid have tasted success before and will give 127% in race and Marty give you a mouth full of **** hoping you will fall off as you battle to the finish line to hopefully hold up one of those outrageous huge L2L winners trophies & a wad of cash.

Also - the organisers love riders from over East and overseas and they will always have room for 50% for local riders and newbies to the race.

P.S. My only advice to organisers of race would be to extend the start line by double - In IKA world kite racing events the start line is set by giving each kite 10m, so for the L2L race with 110 riders they would make start line 1.1km. EASY. This allows every racer to have a clean start & stops 99% on tangles on start line.

A bit of history & a few racers to watch out for:

JohnnoKeys

Well said Johnno,

I welcome everyone to ride foils. Especially the top riders. You will make life very easy for those of us who ride boards without weed collecting anchors in the water and give us podiums finishes. :-)

Not a year has gone by when weed hasn't slowed or knocked someone of their board. I even saw Johnno jump of because of a massive weed line so I didn't crash hard.

What has the average speed been for the L2L winners over the years?

i think this year 30knts average will be done for race ;)

I reckon if wind is 15 knots and on race day a 0.5m swell out to sea a race time of around 22minutes is very possible on custom slalom gear or foil. Last year I was on time for a 23 minute race finish time but slowed to 3/4 speed last 10km as I hit large lines of heavy weed in shipping channel and I didn't want to fall off and blow the race.

30 knots is under 20 minutes and is impossible from Rotto to Leighton on current coarse as a slight broad reach & max boards speeds are about 15 degrees below what we race on for this race. If race more down wind I reckon 20 minutes possible in very small swell - maybe Rotto to Scarbrough.

Foils would slaughter field in Ledge to Lancelin ocean race straight down wind but again to much weed in open ocean.

Get my L2L board back today after a few secret changes - hush hush maybe it has 2x curved 600mm rail foils in style of americas cup boats designed to get best of both worlds Haha - only dreaming

Maybe 35 knots in open ocean is possible after all...

Until race day

There was some speed testing going on in the bay today! High speeds - and big crashes!

it will be perfect 15knots I can see the future

The wind seems to be dropping off
it say's in the manual min 15 knts
whats the go will it be pushed out untill sunday

Just checked out the Forecast - Late breeze but looks good for all events for sure. I'd run a 13m and drive the **** out of the board. Swell looks down as well.

Could be a record breaking race

What you guys think??