By winning 7 bullets of the 10 races held during the final 2 days, after 2 days (and another 10 races) of qualifying races, F-One Team Rider Maxime Nocher largely dominated the regatta and wins the 2015 Kite Foil Gold Cup in San Francisco. Bravo to Max ! Runner up was Nico Parlier (France) and local Johnny Heineken 3rd. In 4th place F-One Team Rider Joey Pasquali. Max will still need to finish ahead of Parlier in the final stop in Australia to be crowned world champion (October 8-13). Max would have been crowned here in San Francisco if Parlier would have finished 3rd… hopefully Max can continue on his last 2 wins here in SF and a couple week ago in Italy.
The race was a tough battle between Max, Nico Parlier, Johnny Heineken and Joey Pasquali . Those 4 put quite a show and were going very fast. It was a great spectacle. Joey did not have a lot of time to practice last week so it was great to see him finishing strong in the last day of the finals. Nico Landauer had a great overall regatta and finished 7th. Romain was in the top 10 for most of the finals but ended up 14 after a bad start and some equipment issue in one race.
Overall, it was a fantastic week for F-One with 10 racers flying the new F-One Diablo foil kites in the top 20, most of any brand. A huge congrats to all those racers and also a big validation for the Diablo since all the best racers were present, without any exception. Not a bad result when you think that the first protos appear on the scene just a mere 5 months ago…
Huge congrats to Maxime Nocher (1), Joey Pasquali (4), Nico Landauer (7), Bryan Lake (11), Romain Castel (14), Nicolai Sponholtz (16), Ty Reed (18), Alex Caizergues (19), Seth Besse (20) on flying those new Diablo.
And finally big congrats to our youngest rider Nicolai Sponholtz who, by finishing 16 overall, is the new US Nationals Youth Kite Foiling champ ! This is what Nicolai had to say:
Beyond stoked to win first place in the Youth Kite Foiling Nationals and 16th place in the Kite Foil Gold Cup in San Francisco today. After four days of nonstop hydrofoil-kite racing around the bay, I ended up 16th place in the Gold Fleet, which comprised some of the best kite racers in the world. Way too much fun. Huge thanks to my family, my sponsors Bluerush and F-One, my friends, and everyone who made the Gold Cup in San Francisco a reality. By far the most challenging and most rewarding regatta or my life. Finally, massive congratulations to @instagrom27 and @daniela_moroz (2nd and 3rd juniors) for keeping me on my toes out there. I’ll never forget this.
The Levitaz crew filmed the regatta from above and the footage is truly amazing. Thanks a lot to them and enjoy the show. Finally, we want to thank the St. Francis Yacht Club for running races like a swiss clock.
