ECWF Cape Cod Results

Sunny weather with air and water temperatures around 70ºF greeted the 34 competitors at the East Coast Windsurfing Festival Cape Cod last weekend. Over two days, competitors had lots of fun in windsurf races and a freestyle competition. When the wind was very light on Saturday, the standup paddle boards and paddles came out for SUP relay and "long distance" races.

The winners of the "mixed tandem" SUP division

Another Saturday highlight was the first-ever tow-in freestyle at Kalmus. PK could not stop smiling at the prospect of towing Mike Burns around on a jet ski, and Mike impressed the crowds with beautiful one-handed Funnels.

Mike going for a one-handed Funnel during tow-in

 Racing was intense despite the mostly light winds, with 2 heats completed on Saturday and 4 more heats on Sunday. Two competitors showed up with old Division II boards, which had seemed unbeatable at the 2012 ECWF Long Island - but the "Flying Spaniard" Gonzalo Giribet showed that flat bottom race boards can be even faster, placing first in all six races. Since he was so fast, he had to go around again in the 5th race. He rounded most competitors, and came in 1st and 10th in the same race!

View of the races from Phil's RC helicopter

Here are the race results:

Racing - Men's Open Division

1. Gonzalo Giribet
2. John Yanusas
3. Pete Roesch
4. Sean Jancski
5. Jay Baldwin

Racing - Men's 7.5 Division

1. Jerry Evans
2. Dani Sfeir
3. Mike Burns
4. Alex Gleyzer
5. Gene Gleyzer

Racing - Women's Division

1. Liz Patton
2. Jeanne Baumann
3. Jill Marr
4. Pam Levy

The freestyle had a total of 15 competitors, including 3 women, and saw very intense finals with multiple Duck Tacks, Ankle Biters, Rail Rides, Guilliotines, Matrix attempts, and too many other tricks to mention. Gonzalo surprised everyone by using his 9.5 m race sail and his race board in the first few heats, but switched to a smaller sail when the wind picked up on Sunday. Here are a few pictures:

Jerry rail riding, Mike duck tacking, Gonzalo inside the boom

Gonzalo fin-first railriding

Jerry sailriding

Despite fantastic efforts by Jerry and Gonzalo, Mike Burns was once again impossible to beat, and took the "King of the East" title. Here are the freestyle results:

Freestyle - Men's Pro Division

1. Mike Burns (King of the East)
2. Jerry Evans
3. Gonzalo Giribet

Freestyle - Men's Amateur Division

1. Rich Simmons
2. Edward Spencer
3. Martin Schauer

Freestyle - Women's Division

1. Christina Burns (Queen of the East)
2. Jeanne Baumann
3. Pam Levy

A number of special trophies were awarded:

• Best Crash: Jerry Evans (some of us wondered how he did not get hurt!)
• Best Style: Gonzalo Giribet (for finishing a race with a rail ride)
• Best Stoke: Pam Levy (for traveling from Minnesota, and competing in all events after learning her first freestyle moves just a week earlier); and Peter Richterich & Nina Schweikardt (for organizing the event) 

I plan to post more pictures and videos from the event in the next few days. A lot of pictures have already been posted to the Cape Cod Windsurfers group on Facebook. Here is one example, where Hardie captured Gonzalo's race stance beautifully:

Phil Mann, one of the many sponsors who made this event possible, made a couple of videos with his remote-control helicopter on Sunday: