If you are looking to improve your kitesurfing, Pasty Adventures Kitesurf School have some great clinics coming up in Cornwall.
Run by BKSA Coach and British Champion, Lee Harvey each clinic is aimed at improving your level using real time demos via a speaker system and 2 way headsets.
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28th August - KITEFOIL Clinic at Marazion
This clinic is for people that can ride on the foil and want to nail turns and transitions, as well as start ripping upwind and downwind at speed.
Ketos Foils and North Kites will be available to test.

 17th September – Intro to Wave, Gwithian or Marazion
If you are just starting to ride a surfboard, this is the clinic for you.
North kites and boards available to test.
 
1st October – Wave Clinic, Gwithian
This clinic is for people who are comfortable riding the surfboard in the waves and want to improve their turns and overall wave ability.
 
For more info including back up dates, please see the website-
http://www.pastyadventures.co.uk/kitesurf-clinics.html

I am pleased to announce that I have joined the ION UK Team.
The new suits are super soft and stretchy and along with their other great products I feel really happy to have joined such a great brand.

Be sure to check out the full range of products www.ion-products.com
I am currently wearing the ONYX Amp 4/3 and love it. Along with the current range of products there are also so exciting things on the way to help improve the way we ride waves, whatever craft we use.

Along with my other main sponsors North Kiteboarding and Ketos Foil and with product support from Inlayz, Satorial supplies and JP Surfboards, I have all the tools to be the best I can be on the water whether its light winds and flat or huge waves wind or not.

​We are also pleased to be using ION products in my kiteschool Pasty Adventures for all kitesurf lessons at Gwithian and Marazion, Cornwall.

Thanks to everyone for all the support and I hope to see you in the water sometime soon :) 

While out in Dakhla recently running the Pasty Adventures coaching camps, I also managed to score a few sessions myself. Conditions were the best I've had yet with wind and waves everyday for two weeks. I also managed to fit in a bit of foil testing for the new Fastafoil freeride wing and had my best freestyle session for many years even landing a few handle passes!
For details of the coaching trip click here- 
http://www.pastyadventures.co.uk/news-blog/dakhla-kitesurf-coaching-holidays-the-best-yet 
Here's a video of a few waves :)

I am super happy to win the IKSurfMag Wave Classic held in West Cornwall from 20-25 October. With British Kitesports cancelling the Wavemasters at the last minute it was an amazing effort by the team at Iksurfmag with help from Kernow Kitesurf Club to run such an amazing event with a great turn out and some wicked prizes along with a goodie bag for all competitors.

With great conditions the weekend before the comp, most of the 22 competitors enjoyed pretty perfect Gwithian and the forecast for the week was looking pretty tasty.

As is sometimes the case with contests the wind never really played ball on the first day with it just teasing enough for an expression session where I used the 15m Juice and Whip 5'6 mostly doing some airs.

Tuesday and it was ex hurricane Gonzales providing 40+ mph of wind from the NW. Unsuitable for any of the contest locations we headed to my favourate spot of Porthleven. The busiest its ever been but was great to see some others out enjoying my wave. It was super windy, I was riding the Neo 5m with full depower at times and using the 2015 5'7 Pro Series which provided amazing grip, allowing me to tuck into a few tasty barrels. A great session made better at prize giving when I was awarded Wave of the Day for 'owning the pleace' :)

Wednesday and Thursday and it was back to comp action, starting at the Bluff. Light winds and slightly onshore conditions made for tricky conditions for the first round, however all the usual suspects made it through along with some surprises who showed they were a force to be reckoned with.
Thursday and the forecast looked like cross off down the line conditions for Sandy Acres with a pumping swell. Yet again the wind gods were unkind with low cloud blocking the wind in the morning but some great waves. As the tide dropped the sun started to come out and the wind picked up but unfortunately turned more onshore and the waves dropped considerably in size. Still was perfectly good to compete in and the comp got underway after a quick expression session.

With light winds again I rode the Neo 12m in my semi final against Ned Taylor who rode really well and then with the wind dropping even more for the final rode the Juice 15m which worked surprisingly well in the waves and allowed me enough power to smack the lip and stay upwind in 10knts.

Big well done to Rich Burton for 2nd and Mikey Mikes on 3rd who both rode really well all week and took out previous champ George Nobel in the semis.
Also well done to Marc Rowley for winning the seniors and Sukie Robertson the ladies.
Thanks to my sponsors-
North Kiteboarding, O'Neill wetsuits, Pasty Adventures
and support from-
Satorial supplies, Inlayz, JP surfboards, Freeriders, XM leashes, Astrodeck.

Big well done to everyone involved for an awesome comp, can't wait for the next one :)
Read the official write up here- http://www.iksurfmag.com/kitesurfing-news/2014/10/iksurfmag-wave-classic/ 

Really pleased to announce I have joined the Fastafoil Team and will be helping to test and develop the Sencillo Kitefoil and Race wings to make foiling accessible and easy as possible for everyone.
Over the coming months I will be keeping everyone up to date with my progress, firstly learning how to fly and then onto more advanced techniques with my foiling diaries. So that you don't miss out subscribe to my Technique Blog or keep an eye out on www.kitesurf-magazine.co.uk. 
Once we have completed the testing process the Sencillo Foil will be produced in the UK by F-Hot giving us a really great UK made foil at a copetitive price. Stay tuned to www.fastafoil.com for all updates on this, at the moment looking like end of August for the first ones and orders are being taken now!

Foiling is the future and I am amazed at the feeling you get from flying and how easy it is to learn with Fastafoil, Sencillo. Foilboarding lessons will be available in Cornwall soon at Pasty Adventures
Cheers and enjoy
Lee

I had an amazing month out in Dakhla, Morocco where I ran a 10 day Wave Coaching camp in conjunction with Kite Morocco (see write up here) followed by competing on the PKRA World Tour where they held the only scheduled KiteWave contest for 2014.
As such 49 men entered the waves which is a massive record and more than the Freestyle which had 47 men. This meant they had to run Qualifiers with only the Top 12 IKA ranked men pre-qualifying into the main event. This was a pretty tight system with the likes of Mitu, Airton, myself and many other top wave riders having to qualify.
The first day of waves was Wednesday when we all went to Oum laboiur and started competition around 1.30pm after it took a while to get everyone there and the stuff set up to go. The good thing was as the tide came up it started to pump with nice head high sets reeling down the perfect right hand point.

With only one race crew and just 3 judges, they ran 4 heats of 9 people on the water for 10 mins, with the best 3 from each heat advancing to the main draw. Pretty tight and impossible to get any good waves and even for the 3 judges sat in a bus to see those waves, but I was pleased to make it through.
In round 1, I had No. 1 seed Pedro and Airton, so pretty tough and again only 10 mins to catch 2 good waves which is tricky on a super settie point break.
I felt I rode really well and seeing both Airton and Pedro fall on some good waves thought I had the win? But no I placed 3rd with only 0.33 seperating all of us and on looking at the scores there was a massive split between judges with 1 giving me a 6.9 and the other a 5 with the 3rd a 6.0. That's the problem with having only 3 judges and the reason you need 5 so you can drop the high and low to get the average, which means if one judge misses something you do not lose out.
So that meant into round 2 where I faced a local Moroccan guy. This happened the next day in smaller waves but still nicely rippable. Again I felt I rode well and coming to the beach was told by loads of people I had the win easily including the guys girlfriend, Kirsty Jones. Yet again I lost and looking at my scores they had what I thought was my best wave by far as only my 3rd best. Seems they weren't scoring the inside section as they couldn't see without turning round in the bus!
So that was it for me. The next rounds went down with some great riding but also some more dubious judging. The PKRA really needs to sort their act out if they are serious about running the World Wave Champs and have a seperate crew with dedicated surf judges so that they can run at the same time as the freestyle rather than just an add on!!!!
Well done to Keahi and Moona who were both ripping and deserved the wins.

For the next three days all us wave riders were stuck at the lagoon where the freestyle was running, as Dakhla Attitude would not take us to the point. Didn't bother us that much as it was small apart from sat & sun when it was pumping again! Still the wind was howling, so we all did some strapless freestyle and then watched the freestyle finals. Aaron made 3rd in the singles but unfortunately crashed a few too many tricks in the doubles when it was blowing 30+ knts. Well done to Marc & Gisela who took the wins riding with the most power and landing the most tricks in the super chop!

So that's it for World Wave comps for 2014 unless the PKRA sort it out? Shame as with that many entries it shows their is the demand for a Wave Tour, I would really like to improve on my 17th place!

Thanks to all the friendly people that helped me out during my time in Dakhla :)

Check out our road trip up the West Coast of South Africa where we found some amazing surf at Elands Bay :)

Stay tuned for Part 3 - Kitesurfing the Doctor. Coming soon

On Sunday 15th December 2013 it all came together for myself, Lee ‘Pasty’ Harvey and Neal Gent to Kitesurf the notorious Cribbar located off Towan Headland, Newquay, Cornwall.

The Cribbar which is known as being England’s biggest wave is a fickle spot needing a large, long period swell and a low tide before it even starts to show its teeth. With its location off the headland out in the Atlantic making it really affected by the wind, the Cribbar only has a rideable wave a handful of times a year at best. Add into this the fact that we need the right direction and strength wind to be able to kitesurf out there and it drastically reduces the number of days so much so that I have been waiting for 4 years to tackle the beast. 

The day before this Neal actually windsurfed the Cribbar along with Ross Williams but due to the wind being on it all day it was a bit bumpy and they both took a few beatings. Thankfully the wind swung SE and dropped right off overnight, so much so that when we arrived at Little Fistral car park it was blowing dead offshore about 10mph. Steve Thorpe was already rigging his windsurf kit convinced it was going to start blowing soon and sure enough by the time we had walked out along the headland to check the wave, the wind had started to swing cross off and pick up a lot. We looked round to see Steve swimming his kit out off the old lifeboat station, so Genty and I quickly ran back to the van to drive round to North Fistral to launch off the beach while Ross and Jan Sleigh decided to wait for a bit more wind before rigging their sails. Standing at the beach looking out at double overhead close outs crashing onto Fistral it was hard to know what size kites to use to be safe enough to get out of trouble but not too powered to be able to ride the wave. Neal chose to use his RRD 7m Religion while I went for my trusty 6m North Rebel, both of us were strapless using 6ft JP Surfboards with Inlayz.
By the time we launched around 9 am, it was pretty windy and with the tide on low we timed it perfectly. I scooted out through the huge rip in front of Fistral rocks with Neal right behind me, who unfortunately was just too close in for a huge set and took a couple of beating s before making it out the back and start riding down to the reef. Getting into the line up it took a while to get my bearings and work out how deep you could get without getting taken out by the 20ft+ waves. As the Cribbar is really a right it was not ideal down the line conditions, but we will probably never get a huge swell with NE wind. The answer was to try and backdoor the section and smash a few turns without getting too deep and washed onto the razor sharp rocks below the headland where your only escape would be swimming around the corner and around one mile to Newquay harbour. Everyone had some amazing size waves with us all hooting and hollering each other in and shouting go deeper boy. The photos really don’t do the size justice as they are taken from 300ft up on the top of Towan Headland, next time we will hopefully have a boat or ski as support and media vessel!

An Awesome session shared by just us on the kites with 3 windsurf friends and a fair size crowd on the Headland.

Big thanks to JNP Events for taking the pics, Neal Gent for being my wingman and also the first person to Kite and Windsurf the Cribbar. Bring on the next time!
Cheers
Lee ‘Pasty’ Harvey

We are really excited to be going back to Dakhla, one of our favorite places in the World to Kitesurf.
For 2014 we have sorted out a really great deal with our friends at Kite Morocco staying at the new Dakhla Spirit Surf House.

• 7 Nights - £545 (1st - 8th March) per person (includes 5 days coaching)
• 11 Nights - £675 (1st - 12th March)per person (includes 7 days coaching)
  

Price includes shared accommodation at Dakhla Spirit, 3 meals a day, all transfers in Dakhla, coaching from Lee Harvey & more.
Strictly limited to 6 people per coaching session. (i.e 6 for wave, 6 for freeride).
Private room and beginner packages available, details on request.

Flights are currently around £300-£330, for the 1st - 12th we recommend using Royal Air Maroc, Gatwick - Dakhla 
and for the 1st - 8th we recommend using the RAM Heathrow - Dakhla flight which we have found cheapest with Edreams.
Due to the need for an overnight stop in Casablanca on the return leg we recommend staying at the nearby Relax Airport Hotel (formally Atlas Hotel) which has a free shuttle outside the airport and costs around £60 for the night including breakfast.

Places are strictly limited to a max of 6 for Wave coaching and 6 for Freeride. Please don't hesitate to contact with any questions or queries. We have been to Dakhla many times so can help out with most things!
Email lee@pastyadvnetures.co.uk to book, this is a one off special deal and probably your last chance to visit Dakhla for under £1000!

More info on the website http://www.pastyadventures.co.uk/dakhla.html

I look forward to you joining me on a Pasty Adventure in 2014
Cheers
Lee 'Pasty' Harvey