It’s that time of the year again when the BRidge in Vienna is working a lot and just before Russia we had some pretty sick sessions there, when I got back two days ago the first thing I did was check the forecast – the bridge is on… So after a bit of a mission to get there and back I managed to score an awesome hour and half session (damn that BR fin is working good for me right now) and it was a nice surprise when Walter from Windkrafsports turned up with the camera. Check out the images below and more over at – http://www.windkraftsport.com/photogallery.php?album_id=1084 – thanks for the shots 🙂
Last week I got back from a great event in Russia at the Aqualeto Hotel in Yeysk. For me it was the first time I’d ever been to Russia and I really had no idea what to expect when we arrived, like everyone else I just assumed we would be met by a guy in a Russian fluffy hat with a bottle vodka, although Vladimir did his best to greet us like this he was dressed in his boardies with bottles of water when he met us at the airport. Actually this couldn’t have been better as it was just way too hot! After a three hour bus transfer we arrived at the hotel where we were met with a fully prepared camera crew and all the hotel staff and organisers. Over the next 24 hours the rest of the competitors and EFPT crew arrived and we were set for competition. There are a whole stack of images from the event so I will now try to update all the highlights in images/galleries/videos.
The first highlight had to be the climbing, the hotel was fully kitted out with plenty of light wind activities, including a really nice outdoor climbing wall. So with our wait for wind we all had the chance to compete in the DIFFERENT European Free-Climbing Championships… (a.k.a a race up the wall against all the other EFPT competitors). In the end I found that I should consider a free-climbing carrier as I shot up into first place and won myself a pair of very cool DIFFERENT Sunglasses.
The second highlight was the tow-in, I quite enjoy it, it is something to do when the wind is light and it gets more and more fun as I start to land some of the harder moves. Whilst in Russia we had a lot of practice at it, from the normal flat water to being towed at a boat wake for an extra boost. To wrap it all up we then had an official competition for €1000 prize money. After the first round I was stoked to sit on the podium and in the money with the move in the video below. With Steven crashing out on his first run I was already fairly convinced I wouldn’t stay there and thought about what to do next… The top 3 all landed triple funnels so it would either have to be a better one of those or something else that I had never tried as well. After some thought at what would be easier to try I decided that out of a triple funnel, an air funnel into burner and a spock culo, that the spock culo was something different and worth a try, to be honest I’d never tried any of them and the spock culo was the move I could land the most in wind. After a fairly good try (from what I’m told) although it felt pretty uneventful, I scored the highest on technical difficulty but without the landing I equalled that of my first move and Fabrizi managed to get ahead of me by half a point so I ended up 5th. Still pretty happy with that and it leaves me wanting more.
Without realising it Fabrizi was now two up on me after he also beat me in the Poker competition on the second night where we were awarded free cocktails and medals that we couldn’t quite get around our heads, thanks for the photo Rafa… (apparently the gay spanish footballer look I was going for worked a little too well)…
With Fabrizi already two up on me I decided I had to do something about this when it came to the competition as we were head to head in our first heat. I think we’ve sailed against each other once or twice before and he had also beaten me, however, I’d practised one or two moves in the lead up to the competition and managed to land a competition heat that I was happy with. Advancing to the next round I was pretty motivated until I saw Dieter on the ladder… I knew my chances were slim but this was even more so when the wind died in our first attempt at the heat and nobody could really get planning after about 2/3 minutes. Obviously a re-sail was needed as nobody could actually do moves, again the wind was light and gusty and there was a lot of luck as to where you were when the gusts came down. So again we had to re-sail but this time after completing the full heat, but I felt like I’d not had a fair chance at all and it was the right decision. We sailed again, this time I had some time to change to a bigger sail and this time it felt like a fair heat, Dieter still won but I think that switch shaka he did in front of me kind of said it all, good work. So in the end we sailed two full heats against each other.
In the double I got pretty unlucky again, I just couldn’t find the gusts on one tack and despite pumping across the whole heat area I couldn’t get planning enough to do anything better then a sliding upwind 360, the worst flaka attempt of my life because I physically didn’t have enough speed to pop the board out the water. Anyway that heat counted for some reason and I lost out bad because I was in that point of the ladder where you lose once and you drop 4 places! Gutted! From then on the wind got worse and worse but the double was completed, just, and Steven won with some impressive moves in really no wind at all. I think EFPT Head Judge Tom Hartmann did a great job at getting the double finished and really had some hard decisions to make when it came down to the final heats, in the end everyone was impressed we finished it and for sure the judges didn’t have an easy time either, there were some really really close heats!
Watching the rest of the double
Found a gust
Team Sailloft – One in, One out
I really enjoyed Russia and will for sure go back next year, hopefully I can flip my tow-in result with the windsurfing result and get the 5th I wanted! We also had a lot of fun at the opening and closing ceremony as well as some pretty amusing evenings with all the competitors, I think everyone enjoyed the whole atmosphere, relaxed, fun and professional, especially when we had the press conference, was really good to do something like that. I was also pretty stoked when the hotel manager came in to my room and asked me to sign a poster so that it would become the Adam Sims room.
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The Opening Ceremony
Fire show
Some fresh lenses
Happy to be in Russia…
Having a lot of fun with a ginger bear, Phil Solty and Rafa – Great times
Closing party just kicking off
Signing
With the hotel Manager and his wife 🙂
Team UK ❤ 4eva!! #friendsssss
EDIT: Almost forgot to add this in, the song of the trip… well for Fabrizi anyway, great singing dude 🙂 #inspired
Just thought I’d share a move clip that obviously can’t make the cut of the video but I figured a few people would like to see some of the conditions we had in Tarifa. It was a mixed bag, generally really nice days but we had about 4 days of cloud and rain but the wind still blew. This is shot in the lagoon, a really sweet freestyle spot that lit up in poniente winds. Aside from that I also wanted to throw up a couple cool video clips I’d seen recently, just to share the incredible shots that they captured.
First up the Culo… Low light, rain and one hell of a water droplet…
I saw this pretty epic video clip just this evening and figured it was worth a share. Truly stunning shots!
This clip is one that I’ve watched A LOT in the two months since it came out and thought it was about time to share it to those unlucky enough to have missed out.
Ok and a song… yep maybe a small copy from my friend and part-time flat buddy Max Matissek and his blog, but this is cool in a sense that I always found it hard to truly appreciate songs where I can’t make out even at least a little bit of the lyrics, but this band somehow buck that trend, it might take a couple of plays to really get it (for the UK folk) but when you do it’s awesome. One for the long drive playlist, these guys have helped me cover 1,000’s of K’s in my van as I cross Europe on my adventures.
Back to that rainy lagoon windsurf, here is a snap mid-move and a ‘hair’ shot, the weather really did put up a weak fight against how much fun our session was that day. As for the overall video, it’s getting there, it’s not packed full of the latest crazy moves but more a sense of lifestyle. It’s a pretty fun edit so far I think…
Hey and if you missed it check out the proto we were working on in Tarifa for BR Fins, complete with it’s on multi-purpose fin case… CLICK HERE
Ha Tarifa! To sum it up – Windsurfing, Surfing, SUPing, Windsurfing, Windsurfing, Hospital, CT Scan, X-rays, Windsurfing, Hospital, X-Rays, Horses, Pony Ride, double forward to face, damn f***ing ponch, driving, driving, party, fancy dress, beer, sunsets, sunrise, warm, cold, warm, 40 hours drive, Portugal, Sagres, windsurfing, windsurfing, not necessarily in that order.
So I’m back in Austria now for a few days before heading up to Hamburg to catch up about the new Sailloft sails and discuss the plans for next years range. After that it’s UK bound for some time and to hit the road around some of the UK’s finest freestyle, wave and freeride locations with all the Patrik/Sailloft demo gear. So if you want to try any of it then get in touch and I’ll try to swing by a spot near you.
As for Tarifa, it was a really cool place to go to, I’d had it on my list for years now and it certainly met all expectations, it’s kind of a Cape Town in miniature and yet at the same time it has a very English feel to the landscape/water at this time of the year. I’m currently writing a feature with a friend of mine BR (from BR Fins) who travelled with me about heading there and a whole lot more so won’t give too much away as it should be a pretty cool one with video, plenty of pics and some text to go along with it. Perhaps a 2 part feature, we shall see.
I imagine most people are interested in me doing the classic hospital trips, well I do certainly have video footage but am working on a personal video about that soon. However, Boards kindly posted a bit of news about it not so long ago, you can see that here (boards.mpora.com/news/another-man-down) and all I can say is that I’m still getting weird feelings from my head and it is over a week later, I was told (yesterday) that it can take up to 2 weeks to for any swelling to go down and sport should be taken easy in that time, good job I hit the water on day 3 then and no wonder I keep hearing random ringing in both my ears still! Any advice on head injuries/concussion welcome, either in the comments section below or message me. Anyway that’s not all of it… I also ended up in hospital a second time after crashing a ponch. I wanted to train the ponch as it is how I busted my left foot almost two years ago now. So for most of the trip it was going ok then I figured I should see what I can add on to the end of the move, came in full power, didn’t turn off the wind enough and halfway through the move my footstrap came out (completely forgot to tighten it, new board and a couple weeks in, stupid error!). This resulted in the board stopping the move and my body continuing through it. The pain was savage and I was convinced I had broken it, however it turns out that it’s not broken but instead I’ve either torn or very much over stretched all the ligaments that connect the joints in the middle of the foot. Kind of hard to explain but there are quite a few of them there (you have 103 in total in the foot) and they are responsible for any twisting motion across the middle of the foot. I’m walking on it but pretty slowly and now focus hard on physio, to make sure it’s ready as soon as possible.
The picture below shows two very good reasons why I’m completely stoked right now – 1x new sponsor (more about NEFF here) and 1x trophy is in the house. A huge thank you to all the support and everyone that voted for me. Time to celebrate a little this weekend then Tarifa is calling, a new place for me and one I’m really looking forwards to.
There really are a bunch of different techniques to learn the move but I’m pretty sure what I’m about to explain is slightly away from the norm (well the ‘Going higher, further and sliding’ bit anyway). To me it makes a lot of sense and I think it helps give some pretty decent style points when it comes to doing the move. It’s also the right method for learning how to do backside 360’s (wave shakas). However, if you are at the real beginning then you will first need to learn the rotation, read on…
So hopefully one or two people tuned in a couple days ago for the forward loop technique, if not, take a look at my last post and follow the link. I’ve now completed the Kono and once again I hope there is something in there of use. I would focus mainly on ducking the sail because you need to be able to do this everytime anyway, so that is the first ‘move’ to master. Also it will help when it comes to the culo and other moves I start uploading.
adamsims.com 