European champions, mission accomplished

Hoylake, Wirral, UK




Last week buggypilots from all over Europe made the travel down to one of Englands finest beaches to race for the title of Europe´s best.







In the weeks leading up to the event Adrian Lavelle, Alison Summersfield & Matthew Job moved mountains to get everything sorted, T-shirts had to be printed, first Aid teams for on the beach, arrangements had to be made with the local sailing club for the use of their clubhouse (situated right on the promenade) and tons of other things that come with organising an international event like this.





Most pilots arrived during the weekend of 3 & 4 Sept. as registration was on Monday as well as the official weighing and approval of the buggies. Monday evening the opening ceremony was held and at Peter lynn we are proud to have sponsored the party. Teusday was the first race day but like we’ve reported earlier it was raining heavily all day so races were cancelled. Wednesday started out with some light showers and after lunch the beach had dried out to an acceptable level and soon enough the first official race was on.







Our french team pilot Stephen Schapman displayed some extraordinary skill and litterally dominated both races on wednesday.





1st place – Stephen Schapman (FR) PL team
2nd place – Arjen v/d Tol (NL) PL team


Thursday again started with a wet beach so again we all had to wait till the afternoon to get the races going. Again Stephen took charge with Arjen and Bastian breathing down his neck. In the afternoon conditions were great and all pilots were having a lot of fun, some of them even posing for the camera as they came screaming by.







After all races were done the pilots were pretty knackered and anxiously awaiting the days rankings, after the jury did the counting and considered all the penalty points and pilots objections the day ranking was as follows


1st place – Stephen Schapman (FR) PL team
3rd place - Bastian Bischof (DE) PL team







Friday the weather was great, the sun even came through every now and then, the winds were lighter than on the previous days so this meant the riders had to bring the big kites out to play with.





In the first race of the day the wind even dropped to a level where people came into the pits to switch kites up to 12 and 13 square meters and a lot of riders were struggling as just before the race finished the wind dropped off completely.







Then the last race was called and it started out fantastic for the Peter Lynn team with Jeroen Potters leading the pack right before Bastian, then Arjen & Stephen.


Unfortunately the last race came to a sudden end as one of the Scottish pilots had an accident and had to be airlifted off the track. (it looked quite serious but in the evening the pilot was up and attended the ceremony, all the best to you Alan)





A reminder to all that kitebuggying at this level IS an extreme sport and shouldn´t be taken lightly. Because it took a while to get the injured pilot off the beach the decision was made to call it a day and give the pilots the chance to clean up their buggies and kites and pack up for the trip home.
Around 20:00 everyone gathered at the official prizegiving ceremony and the winners were announced.


1st place – Stephen Schapman
2nd place – Arjen v/d Tol
4th place – Bastian Bischof
7th place – Jeroen Potters
10th place –  Nick Stimpel





At Peter Lynn we would like to congratulate all the pilots with their accomplishments. And we would like to thank everyone in the organisation for their efforts to run the event as smoothly as possible; the racemasters, everyone in the jury, all the marshalls, the people from the PKA and the good people of the Hoylake sailing club. Keep up the good work!




You can find more pictures on our facebook page, click here



On Wednesday the BBC came down to do an item about the EC, to see the special click here






For all French kiters, PL Teamrider Denis Sanchez Has written a day to day recap of the event which you can find on his website


Good winds.
Your Peter Lynn team