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Just got back from a power hour on the water at Camber and it was one of the best sessions I have had at home in a looong time. It was so quiet down there, maybe 5 windsurfers and 5 kites. Some good stunt rumps, pushing shoulder high every now and again. Fully powered on my 5.3 RRD superstyle and my RRD 88TT and busting out just about all the moves I can do and more…it was awesome!! Definitely a good confidence booster for this weekend:

http://ukwindsurfing.com/news/2010/0907_national-freestyle-championships-1112-september-2010/

It’s rare to get surprise sessions like that but when you do they are some of the best. The forecast for the past few days was for rain all day today but the sun was out from the word go, then the gentle breeze that was forecast got a kick from the sea breeze and I checked the weather update once and saw 18 knots, so went for it. After Monday’s disappointment of a drive around most of kent for the afternoon but no wind, I feel I deserved it.

Only bad note, a huge rain cloud killed the wind an hour in…probably a good thing though as it left me feeling fully buzzed!! Also the way that cloud rolled in, set an amazing backdrop, maybe I’ll take the video camera next time!

As per usual the National Windsurfing Festival was on top form this weekend. Loads of people competing, 300+ is what I heard. I had a good event myself, 8th overall in the racing which I’m pretty happy about as I have never done a proper weekend series of races before. It was actually really good fun as well and pretty exciting. The boards and sails that have been designed for slalom racing are really really fast and its very close racing at such high speeds.

It was great to see everyone who you don’t get to see much and to just be able to sail on the water with sooo many people.

It was good to see so many spectators as well, I swear more come along each year. This year the beach was lined from top to bottom with them all at the night windsurf and then still a huge amount of people during the day.

A freestyle comp was put together during the event and we were lucky to get about 20 knots of wind again. I managed to bust out a few of my latest moves and in the end it came down to a four man final; me, Ben Profitt, Al Bentley and Oscar Carmichael. It was a close one between me and Ben and he just got it with a solid backloop a planning forward and a very slick switch chachoo in the less than perfect conditions. A couple of pics above of myself styling it up…going for an air chachoo on the way in… :s !!

A bit of wind about this week so I’m off to practice for the freestyle nationals at Poole next week!!!

So I just put my video up last night and its already gone a bit mental, almost 5000 hits in 12 hours… and that’s been over night…

Take a look. Basically it’s a whole load of footage caught from before this Summers PWA event that I entered in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. First PWA event for me and I’m keen to do more (sponsorship anyone?! ha, well out of windsurfing industry stuff only, got the gear covered, cheeeeky)! Anyway check the link below!

http://video.mpora.com/watch/5mO9MKfbX/

Finally home now from my summer travels and what a journey home it was. I was out in Greece for a few days with my family and girlfriend and it took us from 7am to 2am the next day to get home from Vass. Basically we did it the public transport way, taking the bus from Vass to Lefkada, then Lefkada to Athens, then Athens to the Airport, then the Plane and finally home. Anyway I got home and found myself waking up at 6.30 due to jetlag, then it was straight down to Worthing.

So back for a whole 48 hours before I head out to Greece for a few days then home on Friday to go to the Worthing freestyle competition! It will be interesting to see who turns up… after that its the legendary night windsurf event, probably the biggest UK event on the calendar in terms of participation and spectators, although I’m sure the SWA are near-about that mark at their Aussie Kiss event each year!!

As said in a previous post my video is going to be up soon, although had a few words with a friend of mine and looks like I’m going to hold back for an extra week or so and see if I can get some shots in Greece. More on that soon…

As it is, I’m heading down to Camber Sands tomorrow for a sneaky UK windsurf with a few of my friends. Really looking forward to getting out there with them and just enjoying it and having fun, then it’s on to a house party and a 3am departure for Gatwick airport…sleeps over-rated!

As promised in my previous post here are some pics of the paper I managed to make it into:

So yesterday the owner of the Villa we are staying in organised for the local Turkish newspaper to Interview me for a small feature. It was quite amusing with the language barrier but they wanted my thoughts on what windsurfing in Datca was like and if it is a good place to hold events, etc… I’ll post a copy up once it has gone to print, maybe someone can translate it for me and see if they got everything I said right?!

Aside from that I managed to get a little windsurf in at the Datca Municipal Windsurf centre, it was actually good fun, the kit was a little dated, I was on a 105l (Unamed) Wave board with a 25cm Wave fin and a 6.5 Ezzy. Anyway I landed a few forward loops, spocks, shuv-its, nothing too special but was good fun  despite that.

Also a little pre warning for anyone interested, my next little vid project with BlackLab Films is in the editing phase and should be up in about a week. In the meantime BlackLab films have released a short video of UK wave sailor Sarah Bibby, which I have seen on her Facebook but will hopefully be online shortly.

So if you haven’t picked up a copy already I made it onto the double page spread of the contents page of Boards mag, not quite the cover but the next best thing so super happy with that. Go buy yourself a copy!!! Thanks to Josh Wilmott for taking the photo that windy evening, we were hoping to get more pics but we had been filming for an hour or so and then changed to photos and on the thrid run I stacked it, putting my foot down on the bottom at about 20knots and sliced my toe open really deep on a oyster shell. Still have the scar, it went all the way through my new booties as well it was that sharp. Still can’t complain when that was the first of the three pics 🙂

In other news, out here in Turkey at the mo having a two week break with my girlfriend and her family, nice to have a non-windsurfing holiday for the first time in two and a half years other than the week skiing I do every year. This is giving me some time to work on my next video, having got all the clips from Fuerte together. A bit of help from my mate Josh and we should have something I reckon.

After this trip its home for two days and then Greece for just under a week with my family. I’m taking kit and the camera so hopefully stop at Vass and get some action as well, then it’s back for the UK comps, Worthing Freestyle, Night windsurf, Poole Windfest…etc…

What an amazing day of action here,the level always seems to be going up at each event and this certainly didn’t fail to meet expectations. I will leave the surprises to the likes of the boardseeker vids that will be up shortly!

As for my expectations I definately exceeded them,coming 25th overall has been a great acheivment for me at my first event, my aim this year was to get some experience from the events and I really have learnt a huge amount about competition freestyle sailing and I know what I need to do to help me next time and also what to learn!

I will update this again soon with more details as I’m doing it via my phone but i’m happy about my result and now looking forward to a little bit of rest back home in the uk! I’ve got a small amount of footage from out here so will try to put together a vid of the trip over the couple of weeks!

So being my first event I’m really enjoying it actually, not as nervous as I thought I might be and I’ve managed to get through a couple heats which is good. I’m getting some good experience from it all.

So the Double took place and I won my first heat against Sanllehy, getting a culo a shuv-it vulcan and a whole load of other moves and only falling once. Then I had Edvan, I knew I had to up my game a bit but I should have just sailed a safe heat as getting the full quota of moves can get you a long way. I did get probably my biggest shaka of the competition so far though.

The second single started and I got a lucky draw against Antxon who was out due to injury, this meant I only had to sail, so I went out and just went for all the biggest moves I can do to see if I can get them in the event area and under pressure.

Tomorrow brings my heat against Leo Ray I belive which is not going to be easy at all as he is currently lying in 6th place overall!!!

Anyway it’s all good experience and now I’m off for Pizzzaaaa!!!