Ok so the last update was a while ago, which can only mean one thing, I’ve been on a mission. Actually, it’s been a little more than that so apologies already if this is a lengthy one to catch up a little.

When you make plans for the next month/year/2 years/etc, they always seem to be some sort of progression from what the previous year has had in store. Well at least that is how it has worked for me, until this year. Don’t get me wrong, there was a plan but nothing at all like what happened. Anyway everything that happened over the first part of the year almost seems to be completely separate to the next ‘little’ project I found myself undertaking.

Having a massive interest in windsurfing kind of lead me to a chat with Sam Burnett about doing an EFPT event in the UK. Initial plans were made over a drink or two in Fuerteventura, these plans grew from one thing to the next and sure enough we found ourselves fully motivated to start up an events company and run an international competition in the UK. That said, the week passed and not much more was said of it. About two and a half months later the King of the Wind kicked off with 26 competitors and 7 females competing alongside in the Queen of the Wind. In between I’d lost about a kilo of hair, a few kilos of weight and my eyes had gone a little square. At the same time I’d had some awesome sessions on the new sail brand I signed up to (Sailloft Hamburg) and became the agent for them, complimenting Patrik Diethelm perfectly. Between that I also went to Witterings for the UKWA comp where I won the tow-in, to Weymouth for meetings with the council, to Hamburg to meet up with Team Sailloft, then Austria, down to Cornwall for the SWA Aussie Kiss event, to south France for the second stop of the EFPT, back down to Weymouth for the King of the Wind and now I’m finally at home after spending a few days ‘break’ surfing/windsurfing with some friends in Cornwall. Thank you van for just about surviving!

All in all it’s been pretty hectic but at the same time it’s awesome and I hope that 2013 will be a little more easier to deal with now everything is in place.

So with plenty of video to get through I’ve started to make a 2012 round up and will release it within a couple of weeks I imagine. In the meantime Josh Willmot is working on the last video from the King of the Wind, which I hear will be out in the next couple of days. Can’t wait to see that one!

There are plenty of images so here is a little gallery of all the happenings in the last couple of months including some cool shots on the new kit, enjoy and the next update will be very soon. I’ve got some plans for some move clips or photo sequences to discuss the higher end moves.

Lastly, a huge thanks to Sailloft and Patrik for all their support in the last months and I’m completely stoked to be riding on the best gear that is currently on the market and even more stoked to have achieved my highest international ranking as a result of the new gear – now officially 8th in Europe! Muzza style woop woop! Which, I was told, makes me the second person from the UK to ever break into the top 10 EFPT rankings since the tour started in 2003!

A short post but there is a reason why I’ve been pretty quiet lately, plenty of exciting news coming up in the following departments:

Sponsors

EFPT Centaur King of the Wind

SWA

…but for now a backloop on a lake…

After two weeks in Sigri, I’m more than happy to say that I really enjoyed the spot. It’s fairly quiet so it is a more chilled out location and we were a little unlucky with the wind, especially as we now leave and it suddenly goes full power. Anyway the wind was ok and I still managed a couple 4.7 sessions but mostly on 5.2. The freestyle spot itself is pretty sick, it’s quite a short run so you are forced to do a high frequency of moves, more than normal and because of that you end up having more sessions but for less time. Then any thought of partying seems to just slip out the window as bed becomes just a bit too inviting. That said the side was certainly not let down when the EFPT were in town. Despite a lot of guys having left before the last night party, it was amazing to see how such a small group managed to really, how was it put… by Davy Scheffers… ‘turn the bar upside down’. We had a lot of fun throughout the whole event with everyone and I really hope we get to return next year. It is certainly right up there on one of my top places to go and would recommend it to a lot of people. Perhaps that is why Andraz, Davy and Youp are all staying there to get some practice in. No doubt a pretty decent video will be out in the next weeks from them.

Anyway here are a few pictures below from action of myself throughout the competition. I was pretty stoked with my result, achieving my aim of making the top 10 has given me further confidence for the future and left me with a lot of ideas about what to practice. Actually it’s what I needed after my highly disappointing result in Fuerte where I pretty much got screwed over by only taking 4.2 and 4.7 with me… good move on my part… lesson learnt! Enjoy the snaps, mainly taken by Hanna Poschinger at efpt.net

Ok so having been in Greece for a week, I figured it was now time to update about PWA Fuerteventura. For those not so interested in all the chat, feel free to flick through the pictures in the gallery below, some nice shots from JC during the event.

So Fuerte was awesome… before the competition, full power, I was sailing every day like crazy, learning new moves and tuning up current moves. All this on 4.2 or 4.7 totally powered up and I felt confident to make my target of (at the very worst) top 20. Then the PWA Slalom came and went with crazy winds and it was time for some freestyle action. Typically the wind dropped and the biggest sail I had was 4.7. When you are drawn against a light weight kid from Curacao, the chances of going through suddenly drop. It was a pretty grey area when it came to the competition area, but all in all he sailed a decent heat, I sailed ok and he managed to just take it on the score sheets. Ok a bit gutted but there’s always the double. I waited to see the draw, only to find that I was against Armado from Bonaire and guess what, more marginal 4.7 weather… Much like Podersdorf my heat was the one to be cancelled and re-sailed because of the gusty winds. When we did re-sail the wind was still gusty but a tiny bit stronger, it did pick up to decent wind by the time the heat ended but it was too little too late, and again the heat area was a pretty grey area. Anyway I managed to sail probably my best heat I’ve ever sailed, with a Burner, Culo, Kono, Shaka, Air Flaka and Shuv-it spock to count, however, this wasn’t enough and despite the close sheets, Armado just took it. To be honest he was probably one of the toughest draws in the double for those conditions as he then went on to sail some crazy heat against Paul Zeper, with kabikuchis, skopus, culos, etc… but this time he was actually counted out the area on 3 moves and Zeper was fortunate to take it.

Despite the really great overall position I ended up with… I’m actually pretty pleased with what I managed to land in my heat and have a lot of motivation for future events.

Anyway, now in Greece preparing for the EFPT 3style Area Cup, the winds have been pretty marginal, only getting out on 5.3 a few times, however, if the forecast stays true then things should be a little better for the competition. Hopefully I can make top 16, maybe even top 10… Meanwhile here is an amusing little edit we made the last couple of days… and photos from the PWA below.

https://vimeo.com/47017395

Ok so some more pictures, words and video action now…

Having been here for almost two weeks we’ve scored epic conditions for the whole time… until day 1 of the competition! Literally as soon as the PWA Slalom was meant to kick off the light wind effect known as calima has set in. The forecast looks great but the it is just too hot for the wind to come through. How long it will stay for is fairly unknown, however, a few locals have been saying that Monday looks like breeze on. So in the mean time it’s surfing time over on the other side of the island as well as catching up on a little work and going out for a beer or two. However, that said, I’ve been avoiding the organised parties put on by the event, so far, as apparently competitors who pay a huge entrance fee, who spend a lot of money to be at the event and who are generally on tight budgets have to pay to attend the pre-event parties?! Anyway I won’t go into it but I get the feeling most riders feel the same.

So a personal update goes something along the lines of this – windsurfing, eating, sleeping, windsurfing, windsurfing, eating, sleeping, repeat… It’s really been a great trip and I’ve learnt a lot in just two weeks. With no wind yesterday we hit La Pared for a couple hours surfing, the waves were surprisingly good and it was nice to take a bit of a break. Now I’m pretty keen to see the wind return though. In the meantime Josh from Blacklab put me in front of the camera and told me to speak to Paul Zeper about the event and threw in some pre-event warm up clips. So check that out over on his vimeo channel – https://vimeo.com/46119442. I think the plan is to do something similar today so we will head down later and see what we can get. Any special requests just fire a message my way.

The gallery below includes a couple sequences which I thought were cool, all the shots were taken about 5 days ago by Markus Seidel, thanks very much to him.

In terms of other sailors, I think just about everyone is here now. Two days ago it was still windy and most of the guys got out for a sail in the competition area, actually it was really hard to sail there, you would come in full power and then go to duck the sail in no wind!? Dieter Van Der Eyken was sailing well, actually he seems to be on fire in all conditions. It’s hard to really pick any other stand outs really, I mean the standard is super high so everyone is sailing well but so far it seems a lot of people are crashing moves where you least expect it.

Anyway enjoy the photo gallery and more updates soon.

Photos – Oli Stauffacher

So I’ve been here two days and it’s been crazy getting back into sailing on 4.2 completely stacked. It’s been a long time since I really had sessions like this and one thing I know for sure, I’ve missed it!! The last 48 hours have been a fast learning curve for me. I decided to really just go all out and try and learn all the latest moves that the top guys are landing, by default my other moves, just the single moves, have gone a little … wild! Both days we sailed at Matas Blancas in the morning and then I sailed at centre 1 in the afternoon. The first day Steven was out as well as Loick Spicher and a few others, and from just that one session it is obvious that EVERYONE has been training like a group of wild beasts over the winter. The moves are insane! Big double forwards, massive pushloops, air skopus, double/triple combos, one handed, no handed, just about everything you can think of… So it is all fairly inspiring to watch and then try and copy, albeit pretty savage on the body. As many of you will know, last year I couldn’t compete because I crashed hard on a pushloop just a couple days before the competition, well this first two days has cemented a bit of fear back in to my mind about ending up back at the hospital… I had a real bad one today where I was fairly unsure as to whether I had cracked a rib or two, I think I must have been sailing at about 35knots and then came to a dead stop on my boom clamp as I planted my body full speed into it! Although I have no planes to slow down on the progression, I will do my best to stay well clear of the hospital. Oh and gawwwd-damn-it those Patrik boards are working, as well as being super popular out here!

So to cut a long story short, the plan is to update every few days with pictures and perhaps even do something similar to Ben Proffitts Pozo Training Diaries if I can get round to getting the video camera out and filming, also I think a few more people need to turn up… Unfortunately I’m not as well situated to film during lunch and after my sessions but we shall see. If not then it will just be round ups similar to this.

So putting myself aside, as obviously I’m sailing like a complete hero and deserve to be number one in the world…… there are a few others who have been impressing. No one more so than Youp Schmit who I have yet to see sail but have heard that he is sailing like some crazed animal! I managed to get a whole load of pictures off Oli Stauffacher and they certainly back up the claims. Just check out the height he is getting on his pushloops! Obviously Steven Van Broeckhoven is on fire, I’ve heard of countless perfect double forwards, I saw him pushloop over a guy, well at least that was my perspective of it… and in general you can see he means serious business this year. Aside from that there are plenty others stepping it up, but I’ll leave a lot of the actual moves people are training for you all to see during the competition.

Anyway that’s enough chat for now, check out the pictures below, feel free to rate them and enjoy this beastly update.

Finally, a massive thanks to Oli Stauffacher who took all the pictures and for letting me post them, some he wanted to hold back but allowed the permission for you all to enjoy! So any feedback would be much appreciated by him no doubt, leave a comment, etc… I’m sure you know how it works!