FAST TRACKS
It gradually got brighter and the breeze started to build, initially from the south, then as the day wore on the wind came round to an almost perfect south-westerly direction allowing the speed hungry racers to start laying down some seriously fast speeds along the beach. But fast enough? With everyone using personal GPS to do the timing, the usual questioning of the other riders started with the familiar “So how fast have you gone?” chant. They all lie to each other of course, and some even cover up their devices so no one else can see. But it was becoming clear that no one, even the overconfident kitesurfers, was getting close to 38 knots let alone 38.44, the harbour record over 500m. The women though were potentially having more success with Zara Davis achieving 32.95 knots on her GPS over 500m, but was it on the course where it counted?
Reports of damaging storm force winds hitting Ireland were on the news and were heading our way also. So a plea to the race officer, Dave Sibley, was put in, could we keep the course open longer? Yes was the answer as everyone wanted the record to go, so an extension was granted but this meant that the results would not be known till the next day when all the GPS devices were handed in and the computers and the software did their thing. There were a lot of sleepless people that night!