The first round of the North Island F3B Series was held in Hawkes Bay this weekend. We had only 12 entries this time as we were missing a few of the regulars due to their other commitments. However, we had enough competitors to make for a great weekend of F3B. Unfortunately Kevin Botherway missed rounds 1 and 2 as he was traveling back from an overseas holiday, but made the effort to fly rounds 3 and 4.

Saturday revealed a hot sunny day with calm to light breezy conditions.

However, the wind built strong enough by mid-afternoon to warrant putting 1.25 line on our winches. We got through 2 rounds on Saturday along with a new NZ distance record being set. In round 2 David Larsen stumbled across 4 minutes of fantastic air, ripped out 31 laps and smashed the previous NZ record of 27 laps. As Larsen was racking up the laps so quickly, the question of course convergence was raised so David James and Ted Bealing rechecked the course alignment and accuracy with the aid of some measuring equipment and declared the course to be square and accurate. Larsen was then congratulated by his fellow competitors and the record claim form was filled in.

At the completion of the day's flying a few of us headed to the 'Steakout' restaurant in Napier to sample the fine cuts of prime NZ meat. The eye fillet was superb and a good time was had by all - even by Sven and Coral Zaalberg's new 6 week young baby Zac, although he did sleep for most of the evening.

A sea fog rolled in to the Bay area on Saturday evening and was still very thick on Sunday morning which delayed the start of round 3. As soon as the fog had lifted and the cloud base was high enough to allow safe launching, we started the day's competition, beginning with the speed task, in very calm conditions. It stayed this way for quite a while which made for consistent conditions for all speed freaks. There were no startling speed times, however, a very well flown sub 19 by Chris Kaiser made the scoresheet.

The leader board was very tight at the top with Kaiser leading most of the weekend, until round 4 where he lost a few points. This allowed Larsen to sneak into the lead and once again getting lucky with some air in speed, posted a 17.87 which secured the win. There were a few close battles on the scoreboard throughout the weekend and the talk around the pits was often about who was leading who. The weekend reinforced the ever-rising skill level of F3B competition in NZ. A fine example of this being high-flyer Rhys James, who is flying remarkably well and getting some good performance from his 'Vindafrenzy'. It was encouraging to see Rhys confidently weave-towing and out-climbing Cobras and Carachos in a shared thermal!

Rod Hale (representing Wellington) also flew extremely well all weekend and nailed his opposition by taking the 1000 points in some distance slots. This task appears to be Rod's strong suit. Watch out for him throughout the series!