Tyrone Rawlins

This year I decided to get more involved with kiting in South Africa and got a bee in my bonnet to put an event together. The Struisbaai kite festival has happened for the last 2 years, in conjunction with a Yellow Tail Fishing contest.

I got an awesome response from the kiting community who were very eager for the event to happen, so much so that there were way too many prizes and ended up raffling off most of the prizes to the 45 entrants 12 of which were girls - great to see they are getting involved.

There was a host of top international riders that came to the event to either compete or just hang out: Aaron Hadlow, Kevin Laangeree, Christian, Helen Thompson, Emma York, Jo Wilson and a bundle of South Africa's top riders.

The event is a weekend long, and is really just an excuse to get out of Cape Town and get everybody together for a good time - day and night, everybody hangs out at the backpackers in the evening sharing stories, listening to music and getting out of hand.

The event itself is either coarse racing or big air depending on the conditions. This allows anybody at any level to enter, allowing beginners to ride with the pros at no major disadvantage. It rained most of the weekend, but on Sunday the skies cleaned up and the wind was perfect. 20knots clean warm water and 4 foot waves - coarse racing was on...

The swell provided for many thrills and spills, the coarse was very fast: beach start, out through the swell around a buoy and back to the beach.

Everybody seemed to have had a good time that weekend and people were stoked with the prizes they got. Thanks to Terri Kidson who put so much effort in helping to make the weekend such a success. Carl, Cornel and the backpackers' for all their help on the weekend.

Helen Thompson (Scotland) won the ladies division. I ended up winning the men's - I swear it was not rigged... haha, never thought I would ever win a speed event.