The second PWA event of 2011 in South Korea opened in traditional style, where nothing was saved on a big opening ceremony. Its nice to have a good forecast for the event and spirits were up, while the weather cleared and the sun started shining on the PWA world cup at Jinha beach.

In the first race a controversial decision was made to cancel my semi final heat after I already finished 2nd behind Steve Allen, thinking we'd be qualifying for the final. In that heat Bjorn had a bad start and used too small of a sail 7.8 on a medium board; because the race director had a problem with one of the boats and couldn't measure the wind, it was a reason for him to abandon the heat as Bjorn dropped of the plane and shouted.

With my 100 kgs I never stopped planing once on 7.6 with medium board around the course, and Steve Allen actually passed Bjorn in that same gybe. In the re run the wind picked up to 30 knot gusts and I didn't make it to qualify for the final. Basically, we got robbed! At the start of the next racing day we were heat 1 looser final and I got wedged at the start line by 2 guys, tough luck! It seemed anyway an over early start but the general recall never came and I actually had to tack and gybe to make it over the start line. Purely because of great board speed, I still managed to pass 1 guy to finish in 15th. Not such a good start of the event though.

In the second round I missed the final by a hair and had to settle for the loosers final again. Coming a little early to the line I sheeted out and sailed in the turbulence of everyone, having sailed lots of good heats before even beating Bjorn and Antoine a few times. So this was another bad start and so an average result again. Come the 3rd round, I sailed decent and managed a 9th place by winning the losers final.

Finally for the 4th race it was time to show my face in the finals! Starting up by the boat with Bjorn, he started with more speed although I nailed the start at zero seconds. I had to sail into free air behind him, meanwhile Antoine put his board in front and Finian squeezed around the mark in second, but dropped off the plane in a tight gybe. Now I was chasing Antoine down the reach, who was in 2nd place to Bjorn. Antoine is the most precision gyber on tour and incredibly difficult to pass as he never leaves any room at the mark. A 3rd place finally moved me up the rankings a little bit.

Equipment choice has been tough, while the wind would be on the limit one second, and over 25 knots in the gusts! In the last race I decided to stay on 7.6 and medium board, having the advantage in the gusts but it was barely enough around the gybes. You had to arrive in a good position and gybe wide to keep planing. In the semi final I tried starting at the pin for a change as Josh was getting some killer starts there this day. There was a huge lull right before the start line but me and Gonzalo got through that right in time and got off a superb start. Unfortunately we where called back with a postponement flag up on the boat, it seemed like they had a problem with the timing and we had to do it over. In the restart I didn't get away quite as well and qualified for the loosers final; starts are everything but incredibly tricky below the mountains upwind; not only the wind was gusty, it was shifting like hell. Ben van der Steen and I got off a great start by the boat, we thought, and got a huge header as we had to point into wind - while the guys at the pin got away on a shift with the clear advantage. With no more wind on the last day of the event, this was the last race in Korea managing to finish in 10th position. Bjorn just squeezed by Antoine in the last race to win the event as in Vietnam, leading the overall rankings.

At the start of the racing season, I'm currently in 8th position moving into the 3rd event at Costa Brava. We made a good advance with the TR-7 race sails, immediately showing in consistent top 10 event results.

Aloha
Peter Volwater H-24

Photos : PWA/Carter