Dirk Hanel ::: Kiteboarding

Three days of extreme and very different weather where the second stop of the KTE tour in Nordwijk in the Netherlands. After being in Nordwijk one day in advance to test and try some new products i had already expierienced the crazyness of the NorthSea. When i arrived it was sunny and the wind was [...]

The first Tour stop of the KiteTourEurope is over. Podersdorf in Austria delivered every condition possible to do races in strong 25 knots of offshore winds and very super light 6 to 8 knots light wind conditions!
The first day with powered up 11 sq Rebel kites it was a very tight fight for the first [...]

I am just back from Thailand from the first Stop of COurse Racing on the 2010 Pkra World Tour. During the winter everybody worked insane on their boards and equipment so it was really interessting to see what everyone had up the pipeline.
as for the results for me it went ok with an 8th place [...]

As most of you know this winter is hitting Europe quite hard, we had a new idea and built a full version of a plexiglas snowboard. We laminated two layers of plexiglas resist sheets together with some fiber glas rods and glued real metal edges into the sidewalls for better grip.
Check out how much fun [...]

Podersdorf was the place to be for the open Austrian Racing Championships from 25th of September untill the 27th. After a not so good windforcast it looked like averything would have to happen on day 1. Two Races determined who would be in the final heat for the racing. as the wind started to drop [...]

For the last Stop of the PKRA Course Racing World Tour we the riders went to Paros , Greece.
It was a perfect location for the last show down of the year as the water and wind quality in Paros was great. In the little channel between Anitparos and Paros the battle was on once again [...]

Another crzy trip from this year! I could not leave Kalchreuth before 22.00 pm on friday night and had a drive through the night all the way to ST Moritz where i arrived at 3.00 in the morning. slept with my nose under the roof of my car on the boardbags for three hours and then [...]

I returned from a crazy trip to San Francisco with an 8th place in the World Championships in Course Racing from Crissy Fields.  There was a super strong fleet with some very good locals that have been dialed in at their home turf and knew every bit of current and windshifts that you could possibly [...]

 Best PKRA Racing result from this year so far in St. Peter-Ording that was more then thrilling. i ended up on 3rd position  with only 0.2 point behind second. for me that was a great event as my family with Milo and Malia where also there cheering fro their dad on the beach with the crowd!  [...]

Now the second main Kitespeed event has taken place in Fuerteventura. In the end Dirk Hanel could place third at the 10000 EUR event. It was Sebastian Cattelan who was hot and could win 3 out of the 4 heats. For a long time is was a battle between Dirk and Christophe Prin-Guenon for second place. Until the third heat both where with 5 points on second place in the overall ranking. Dirk was in first position for almost the whole third heat and just a view minutes before the end Christophe could go a few tens of a second faster.