King of the Cut Wing division

I did the Kotc and was way slower than the front runners, becasuse i just surfed swells with the wing parked to the side. The most fun you can have with your pants on

The KOTC was epic this year. Probably the best wind we've had in the nine years the event has been running. The wingers packed the fleet, but a big shout out to Marcus Tardrew and Dale Chapman for paddling it. I sat behind Marcus for a good 10km and had a front row seat to a downwind masterclass by one of the worlds best DW Foilers. In the past four days I've clocked up over 100km on the wing. The king of the cut is more than a one day race. There is so much stoke in the lead up to the weekend. Plenty of crew doing runs every day. This year was a little light in the field for the SUP Foilers due to east coast travel restrictions. Heres to a bigger and windier 2021 KOTC. My goal will be to paddle it on the foil next year.

Yep I hear ya PeterP
However I am more than happy to mix it up, sheet in and use the power of the wind and water to go as fast as possible, across, over and down the bumps occasionally
The race was an absolute blast, It's so exhilarating when you straighten up and go screaming down a big swell at max speed

Days like today though, where Dale Chapman swapped the paddle for a wing and joined me just cruising, surfing and sharing bumps for miles with grins from ear to ear are the absolute best though, no question about it.

#bestever

So bummed to miss the KOTC this year!!

Nice work to all the crew who did it this year and great to see still some good numbers with really mostly only crew from WA, next year is going to be a big one i would say!!

We have to remember ding racing will be a sailing sport long term so the fun some feel when going downwind might really not be apart of the racing side unless the course is set to a way that you have to ride bumps to go downwind. I like to call the wing racing side at the moment POWER dinging as really we are just loading up the power of the wing 90% off the time.

Great to see some many crew getting into it and also great to hear the ones that are doing it are also looking at using it as a stepping stone to paddle downwind as well as this is really a something special side of the sport and while it can be tricky at the start it is something that is well worth the short term pain.

Can we do the KOTC over 3 days next year please so we can SUP one day Ding the next and then DW foil after that!!

I'm going to get a blast for this but what the hell. I like the fact that there is not much competition foiling going on and there doesn't appear to be a lot of interest in it.(except for DW )
Most foilers just seem to be into it for the pure enjoyment of it alone ,and not to be competitive or better than someone else.
It's a bit like the early days of surfing, when it was done to escape and and just be in the moment and enjoy the free energy.
Competition with rules,committees,winners,losers,fees,sponsors,protests etc is just the opposite of this, and often just brings out the worst in humanity.
I realise that some money and development is generated through competition, but so far there seems to be enough demand for manufacturers to survive without it.

That looks magic!!!

Frenchfoiler.

It is a few minutes for the Sup Foilers to get out into the ocean bumps and take off, so probably deduct 5 minutes off their official time.
Marcus was running an NL190 and stopped a few times to take ribbon weed off his foil.
I think he ended up riding half the race with weed on anyway. I think on a good day the SUP foliers are still fastest craft in the ocean.
The paddlers did a straight line race 24km, wingers had to go closer to shore at the mid-way mark (for a safety checkpoint). I ended up doing 27km on the wing with the zig-zagging around. Hopefully 2021 sees more Sup Foilers in the race, I'm sure the wing fleet will be even bigger.

Great video. Looks like an amazing event. Wish they had shown more of the foilers.