Guy Bridge has been smashing some records lately, Rou Chater witnesses him blitz the fleet at the Red Bull Lighthouse to Leighton race in Perth Western Australia. Check out how fast he went right here...

Guy Bridge smashed the record at the Red Bull Lighthouse to Leighton race in Perth at the end of last year. Despite a crash, which, in his words “kinda knocked me out a bit”, he battled on and crossed the line with a time of 18 minutes and 49 seconds on the clock!

The calendar of kiteboarding events just seems to get busier every year. Whichever way you look at it, that’s a good thing, more events means our great sport gets showcased on more beaches, and that’s great for everyone. It seems we are entering the post Virgin/PKRA handover debacle now with the GKA taking on the freestyle tour for 2019 in addition to their already very successful strapless tour.

On the race scene, the Hydro Foil Pro Tour has been successful alongside the IKA events sanctioned by World Sailing. Kiting is looking pretty healthy at the moment in terms of the competitive scene. If there is one event I’d sell the house for though, without a doubt, it is the Red Bull Lighthouse To Leighton in Perth, Western Australia.

Of all the events I’ve been involved with over the years, this is the one I keep coming back to, for many reasons. Perhaps the real draw is that unlike professional events where you need to be a pro to be involved, the L2L is for everyone, world class racers rub shoulders with weekend warriors in a mass start blast across the water fighting for bragging rights and some of the fanciest trophies in the business.

There aren’t many events where you can have a crack at the best riders on the planet. The entry requirements are pretty simple, if you can kite, you are good to go. You do need to be confident in open water of course, after all, it’s quite a stretch to get from Rottnest to Leighton beach, but that’s about it.

The tricky thing about the entry is that it is limited to 140 riders each year and the race is hugely oversubscribed. Just getting a place is probably the hardest part about entering. Essentially you need a little bit of luck and some persistence. If you don’t get in on your first attempt, keep trying year after year until you get an entry into this race. It’s an experience you’ll never forget.

The beauty of the L2L isn’t just the race itself it’s everything leading up to it and what happens on the day too. Lots of riders build special boards, spend months, weeks or perhaps just days practising, friends develop rivalries and even if you aren’t gunning for the podium you are sizing up the competition around you to see who you can beat.

Come race day, it’s not just about the race either, Rottnest is one of Western Australia’s premier tourist destinations, and you get to travel over there with plenty of time to explore before the briefing for the race itself. Tim and the team have engineered this to give the racers the best chance to enjoy the island as much as possible.

Rottnest is truly stunning; I’d highly recommend it to anyone travelling to WA, even if you aren’t racing if you ever get a chance to make the trip over. 7,000 years ago you could walk from the mainland to Rottnest, rising sea levels then turned it into an island. Known as the “Island With a Thousand Stories” it’s an incredible place to visit, and there is a 100% chance you’ll get to meet a quokka.

These small marsupials are indigenous to the island, and the colony of some 10,000 is unique to Rottnest, you won't’ find the quokka anywhere else on the planet. If you imagine a cute looking rat crossed with a kangaroo, you get the picture. Just don’t be tempted to feed them or touch them, while they love to eat human food it actually makes them sick. If you want to be guaranteed a sighting, hang out at the bakery in the mornings or the pub at lunchtime and keep an eye to the ground.

On top of a great day out, all the competitors get a stunning rash vest, t-shirt and the event even provides flares too. Just be sure to hand those back at the end of the day as they use the flares as a way of counting the racers off the water. Every year they are always hunting for that one person who forgot to hand back the flares!

The race itself runs like clockwork, this is an incredible achievement in itself, in 9 years the L2L has run on the weekend planned, usually the first weekend in December. There can’t be many races on the planet that have that kind of guaranteed record. Aside from the conditions, the success of the race is a testament to the race crew and volunteers, as well as the riders who make it all work smoothly. Up to 70 volunteers help out on all aspects, from launching and landing kites to carrying kit off the beach and running the start, finish and rescue boats.

The course itself is simple enough, a straight blast from Rottnest Island to Leighton Beach, a distance of 20km. Depending on the wind direction it’s either a straight crosswind blast or has a slight downwind bias. The Fremantle Doctor blows all summer long in Perth, and this is the wind that has seen the event be so successful. Every year it has blown, and it usually reaches a solid 20-25 mph.

There have been two years when it’s been tricky, oddly enough both the years I’ve raced. The first time was in 2015 the wind switched off a couple of miles from the beach, it filled in eventually but meant the leaders were becalmed with foil kites filling with water. In 2017 the wind was super light, and the race started late to make the most of what breeze there was.

This year the forecast was one of the best we had ever seen for the race, there was even talk of it perhaps being too windy! With such a great forecast the course record was on the cards too. Over the years it’s been held by esteemed riders such as Alex Caizergues, Nico Parlier and current champion Olly Bridge. All the talk this year was around Guy Bridge, as arguably the most decorated rider in the fleet surely with a decent breeze he’d be able to take the record.

However, this is the Lighthouse to Leighton and nothing is guaranteed. While the race itself seems relatively straightforward, it is much more nuanced than that. The first hurdle is the mass start line. Actually, I’ve jumped ahead a bit there, the first hurdle is getting off the beach cleanly. With a narrow strip of sand barely 20 foot wide in places the launch area is tight, and the wind blows over a cliff and some dunes so it’s gusty and can be tricky. If the wind is on then, it makes it a lot easier, and this year everyone made it off the beach to the start area with ease.

The start line is a mission in itself. 140 racers are packed into a small area just off the beach, the start line is long, but it isn’t huge, and it’s certainly a squeeze as the numbers start to run down. Last year, talented rider Tom Bridge ended up in a tangle and blew his race, it was so bad he came back on a ferry! The trick is to find some space and keep your kite from tangling with anyone else. Which is a lot easier said than done.

Once the gun goes the riders all streak across the line towards Perth, arguably the toughest part of the race is now over, and it’s just a blast to the finish now. However, fitness plays a key role here. For the fast riders, it takes about 20 minutes, for the average weekend warrior perhaps 40 minutes, for the less experienced up to an hour! That’s a long time to be blasting along in one direction. To say it puts some pressure on the legs would be an understatement!

If your legs hold out you’ll be looking to minimise the crashes, each one takes its toll and adds time. While riding in a straight line sounds easy, there can be some swell running alongside serious chop. The windier it is, the tougher the water state becomes. The final obstacle is the weed, fine if you are in the twin tip class, but on a foil or race board, this can be a menace.

A race that sounds easy then, with minimal entry requirements, which is actually a lot harder than it seems. Anyone who has raced will testify to that. This year I was shooting pictures from the lead boat. Thanks to the broken ankle, racing was well and truly out for me.

I was on the lead boat again, which isn’t a bad place to be. The Rottnest Eco Express is a super fast large rib that usually takes adventure and thrill rides around Rottnest. It’s a custom built 12.5 Naiad RIB that can seat up to 42 passengers and has a top speed of 49 knots with three 300hp supercharged engines delivering 900hp!

I was lucky enough to watch Nico Parlier smash the course record from this vantage point a few years ago, it was rough and wild, but it was an incredible sight. This year it was Guy Bridge who would blow my mind. With a clean start, Guy pulled a fairly early lead from Mani Bisschops and Alty Frisby who were having a close tussle for second. You can see from the image at the midway point just how far ahead Guy had managed to get. He was absolutely flying.

The Rottnest Eco Express has cruising speed of between 28 to 30 knots, we were pushing 37 most of the way across just trying to stay in front! In choppy conditions, Guy was absolutely flying. He had a gnarly looking crash when he hit some weed, I watched as the kite went high and there was a huge splash, but in a split second he was back up and riding at full speed again. Guy later admitted to me that he had borderline knocked himself out in the crash and he felt like he didn’t know where he was.

From the boat, the crash was all over in a nanosecond, so kudos to Guy for pulling himself together again so quickly. After that one wipeout, it was a blast to the line for bragging rights over his brother Olly who won the event last year but missed out on taking the record from Nico Parlier which was set in 2016 at 19 minutes and 3 seconds. As Guy hit the finish line, we checked the watch to see he’d taken the record by some margin with a time of 18 minutes and 49 seconds, the first person ever to make the crossing in under 19 minutes!

While Guys achievement will always be the headline, it’s all the racers who make this event as unique as it is. As they all followed across the line and hit the beach the smiles were a mile wide. Everyone had had an incredible run, and the inter rider battles were the talk of the bar that evening. Let's just say the after party in the Fremantle Sailing Club was a celebratory affair.

After such an incredible day it seemed a shame not to carry on the proceedings, I even got to teach the old socks over your shoes routine to Ryan Crawford AKA the Sail Doctor. Except this time it was stripy black and blue socks over flip-flops that sneaked us past the bouncers at one of Fremantle’s premier night spots, but that’s a whole other story…

Fun and games, as they say, next year I’m hoping to be back having a crack at racing once again, my ankle should have healed, and I’ll be keen to see if I can have a windy crossing. Hopefully, I’ll see you there!

A huge thanks goes to Tim Turner and the entire Red Bull Lighthouse to Leighton crew who did such an incredible job of ensuring everyone had an incredible time!

By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!

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