Defi Wind Day 2: Results

I was very happy to get to the beach this morning and see the results of yesterday's race.

I came in 197th place out of 870 registered riders.  It looked like 767 had picked up their lycras to compete, but only 551 people actually started and/or completed the whole course with results. So I was in the top 1/4 of entrants or top 1/2 of finishers. Either way, I'm pretty stoked to have achieved my goal!

The results are in - I'm #197

The top finisher Patrik Diethelm did the whole 35km course in 45 minutes; the last to complete the course took 2.5 hours. My time and speed chart is below. It is interesting to see just how much time my fall in the water at 20 minutes used up. The rest of the slow periods were just a result of slogging through lulls.

Defi race GPS, max speed 44km/h, avg 25km/h.
Time for 35k, 1h 18min

My Defi day 1 GPS track - 35km of racing;
40km including getting to the start and back

Today the 8am skippers meeting was reasonably well attended since the wind was looking around 8 to 15 knots. Unfortunately it wasn't quite enough, so they kept us on standby all morning.

I had fun taking pictures and checking out the shops and gear. The sun came out and there were more non windsurfers on the beach too as Gruissan is really a family resort town, especially when the wind dies.

Safety boats on standby

What yesterday's winners Patrik and Karin
did while waiting for wind

The demographics of the Defi were definitely younger than the few events I've been to in North America. There are 100 teenagers under 20 competing, with a few 12 year olds complaining that they can't join the race until next year. While there is some grey hair on the beach, the vibe is energetic with kids just happy to get out on the water. Windsurfing in France is really big. Naish sponsored a girl power event where a cool group of young women windsurfers were interviewed. The NP RS:One races in the light wind were hotly contested.

There was a broad range of equipment being used yesterday at the Defi. There were a few guys sailing SUPs. There were some vintage boards and sails being used too. My Le Jai acquaintance Maarten from Holland was sailing an old BIC Vivace 290. But most people had cambered sails, and the pros had full on race sails with slalom boards. (While I have the soapbox, please don't ever let friends who want to learn windsurfing buy an old race sail. That goes for shop owners selling used gear too. Old race stuff is just too hard to rig and sail.) Today, it was great to see so many kids out enjoying the wind and water on pretty simple windsurfing gear and SUPs.

The afternoon ended with a huge helicopter group photo shoot. My thoughts of getting wet on a rental or demo SUP were dashed as they were all in use by other enthusiastic water sports fans.

Defi aerial group shot - I'm in the lower part, in amongst the sails

Later in the day Levi Siver and Jason Polakow made a quest appearance, signed lots of autographs and posed for pictures. They joked about riding one of the long rubber tubes down Jaws some day. They were also on hand at the evening video presentation of their new Oxbow movie Walls of Perception. It was a good flick showing how surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing share the same passion for water and waves.

There was also an amateur movie festival, with the funny documentary about a man's obsession with the Defi taking top honours.  The 2 man band Las Vegas Wedding absolutely rocked the place, and later the vibes were very cool as Bonaire windsurfer and musical poet Ruben Petrisie kept the crowd dancing with his rapping at the mike. I had to head to bed at 1am, as I am still sore from yesterday's race. All in all, a neat day on the beach hanging around with lots of cool windsurfers.

It is pretty amazing that windsport has picked up my blogs and posted some to their site. Check out:

http://www.windsport.com/news_article?news_id=1166

There are also a lot more pictures of day 2 at:
http://www.facebook.com/LeDefi