It's official now: we will have a World Champion competing at the East Coast Windsurfing Festival Cape Cod on September 19-20! Kiri Thode, PWA Freestyle World Champion 2013 and currently ranked #2 in the PWA freestyle competition, just booked his flights.
The pro freestyle competition at the ECWF Cape Cod should be fantastic - top East Coast freestyler Mike Burns was recently spotted in Kalmus working on one-handed Burners and other crazy freestyle tricks, and will do his best to add Kiri to the list of PWA freestylers that he has beaten in competition. We are also expecting top level PWA freestyler Phil Soltysiak again at the event; at the recent competition in Fuerteventura, Phil and Kiri competed in a very close heat that Kiri won (Kiri finished the event in 2nd place, Phil was 7th).
We are very exited to get the chance to see the inventor of freestyle moves like the Kono and the Kabikuchi on Cape Cod. Here's an movie of a Kiri Kono:
So mark your calendars, and join us at the ECWF Cape Cod on September 19-20 at Kalmus! As much as we love to see Kiri and Phil compete, this is primarily an amateur event, open to windsurfers at all levels. We will have fun races and an amateur freestyle competition, and a couple of new ideas to make racing more fun for all. On the 20th, we will have a raffle for all competitors where we give away many fantastic items from our sponsors, which include some amazing items like a sail, a winter wetsuit, a free ABK windsurf camp, and much more!
Many thanks to all the windsurfers who have helped to make this possible by donating! We have raised almost $1,000 in less than two weeks, making this possible. We are still looking for additional donations to reach our fundraising goal of $1,500 - every donation helps, and shows support for windsurfing and one of the really outstanding windsurfers from Bonaire.