Monday 30 May 2011

UKWA Freestyle Round 2 - Minnis Bay

So a bit of a 'home spot' for me. Well haven't actually sailed there before but it's as close as it will get I imagine. Just an hours drive!

It was a great weekend and thanks to Pip/Nick Pardoe for putting us up on the Saturday night with an awesome BBQ with the 'Whitstable massive'.

The conditions for the event were really good, 4.5/4.9 weather and on low tide in the afternoon brought really flat water. In the morning it was quite choppy but allowed for some bigger moves. Big shakas, air flakas, forwards, etc...

Overall I managed 2nd to Bubble, with John Palmer 3rd and (UK RRD team rider) Will Rogers taking 4th, I'm pretty pleased with this result, however the judging format certainly favoured Bubbles experience and diverstiy of moves, using the old overall impression format. We did run a super session heat with the best move format, similar to that of the PWA except it was literally the best move to count. This I managed to win with quite a high matador in fin deep water as well as a culo and kono in the same depth... So yeh a good event and I'm off to practice my moves the other way now... pics below...




Photos: Julia Slack/Will Rogers
It really was a good event and a lot of fun. I really would encourage anybody who can make it to come along to the next ones.

Friday 27 May 2011

UK comp...

So heading back to the UK for the second round of the UKWA Freestyle tour, looks like we are going to get wind!

Had a really good week here out at the RRD Meeting, with some wind for the bigger kit and a bit of wind on the first day to try out the new twintip....more on that soon... also managed to do a bit of tow-in yesterday and the day before, was a lot of fun and as always, good practice!


There was an awesome fashion show last night, all the distributors went down to the beach and just sat on the sand whilst all the new clothing walked by on this flame lit cat walk right on the edge of the beach.

An awesome socks in sandals look from the Czech dealer....

More snaps of the week soon...

Saturday 21 May 2011

RRD International meeting

Riiight so currently sitting on the plane about to leave gatwick for Italy where the rrd international meeting is kicking off this week! Looks as though it should be a great week testing and trying out lots of the new gear!

If you haven't checked yet, then the trailer for an upcoming blacklab video featuring myself and max Rowe is linked below! Worth a look!

Friday 20 May 2011

The BlackLab project

Check the trailer for my recent trip to Egypt with Max Rowe that has just been posted by BlackLab. Josh Willmot has done a sick job of editing it and I can't wait to see the final video which will be released early June.

CLICK HERE


and a still....

Update...

So I know I've been fairly quiet the last couple of weeks but I've had my reasons... anyway back to the blogging full poweeerrrr!

A quick update then, I came 25th in Austria which was ok but I wasn't entirely happy with. The last heat I sailed, which happened to be the last one of the day when they got into the double, was practically night time...this pic from JC shows what it was like less than 5 minutes after my heat finished, ok he has a flash on the camera but it's still pretty dark.

Photo: JC

It was a fun trip to Austria and good to go with a group of UK guys, especially Bubble who had been 50 times before and knew the place better than the organisers... shame he forgot his gloves for the last day...

Photo: JC

So after Austria was the Wales event. I managed to come 7th in the pros which I was actually really happy about as I got a pushie in each of my heats, something I had been practicing in Cape Town a bit. Aside from that I haven't really done much wave sailing so it was nice to get that sort of result.

Photo: globalshots.co.uk

Photo: globalshots.co.uk

Since Wales I've had a couple of nice sessions back near home and have been practicing the power moves in the choppiest conditions i can find!

Anyway more in my Boards column and more on here soon...