We are happy to say that Kristian from Wingsurfer won the long distance competition GPA (Grote Prijs van Aalsmeer) for the third time in a row within the wingfoil class!
The GPA Is a long distance marathon race of which the person that first crosses the finish line after 2,5 hours, making laps on a large lake called the Westeeinderplassen, wins. It’s originally a windsurf competition that exist of many different classes. One of them for the past 3 years, has been wingfoiling. It’s an extensive race being in competition modes for more then 2,5 hours. For 2023, this was the 30th edition of the race.
The start of this years 2023 edition was a bit chaotic. But as it’s a long race, there is time to make up for bad starts. This also happened to Kristian, first lap being in second place. But after making some mistakes and learn from them he took the first position in the second lap, not to give this place up until the finish after 4 laps.
The wind was quite light, but most of the race quite stable. Using a large floaty board if the wind would drop off, a Kalama Performance E3 104L combined with a Large Axis Foils Art Pro 1201 and a 6.5 Ozone Flux.
During some part of the race, smaller gear could have been used. But in the end using large gear did help for a stable overall race. Especially the last lap the wind dropped off a bit. From the staring buoy it was an upwindrace all the way to the other side of the lake. From there it was Downwind to a second buoy and back again to the start/finish line buoy. The large ART Pro 1201 foil helped a lot with both going upwind as going DW very easy.
Overall the IQ windsurffoilers where the fastest. Followed by some different windsurf foilers.
Many thanks to the organizers from Windsurfclub Aalsmeer for organizing this great day!