11 in a row!!

Congratulations to GIN and WW pilot

Grant Middendorf

2017 New Zealand Champion!

Grant is also the Winner of the NZ Open - that means he bet all the international competitors, too!

Winner of the Sports Class - that means he bet everyone on supposingly higher performing gliders on his EN C glider GIN GTO2.

In most other countries that would have him win the Serial / next higher class at the same time, but after Reuben won the Open on the GIN Carrera EN B glider one year and took out all prizes except the woman's, NZ changed the rules to prevent this happening again, even though no one ever won any Nationals on an EN B before or since. It was probably just an exceptional pilot on an exceptional glider. Or luck :-)

Grant has won the NZ Nationals 6 times. The first win was in 2005, then 2007, 2011, 2013, 2015 and now 2017. (O, watch out for the odd numbers!!) A true NZ legend.

As for old Wings & Waves pilots who hang around like a bad smell:

Reuben won his first one in 1997 and then 2014 and 2016.

Eva won the women's 1995, 1997, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, with many top 10 over-all ranking, best was 4th. (That didn't work this year with a very low overall ranking.)

Jeff Ripley won 2009, 2009, 2010 and Evan Lamberton 2011.

This is the 11th year in a row, that our GIN pilot has won the NZ Nationals, which is unheard of. To be quite honest, with a bunch of keen pilots nipping on our heels and stepping up to the top class of competition gliders to compete against the sports class, we didn't expect this. The new 2liners, like the GIN Boomerang 11, the Enzo and Zeno perform better than traditional design gliders. Grant, Reuben, Jeff and Evan decided not to step up to the Boomerang 11 prior to the Nationals, mainly because they simple don't fly enough to get used to the rather different characteristics of such machines. Grant winning anyway, truely shows you that with gear which suits a pilot 100% at the time, you can do best.

We are extremely proud!!! Congratulations from all of us.

Thank you to Louis Tapper for the photo. kiwisparagliding.co.nz