New Patrik Boards and a Cool Video

Hi

The new Patrik boards are on the site and I have to say a tasty line-up.  Of interest to me are the following models:

The new F-Cross.  This replaces the old Freestyle Wave line.  The dimensions and sizes look very much the same.  The colours are new.  Who knows if anything has happened to the shapes.  As before, boards to make us happy!

The new F-Race.  This will be equivalent to boards like the Futura and Speedster.  Basically slalom shapes with more strap positions and slightly increased lengths.  Yes and Yes again!  Patrik has wisely opted for only three sizes of this model with widths of 70, 75 and 80cm.  Mast boxes are all deep Tuttle.  Nice!

Of course the new slalom shapes.  What can one say about this brand other than they look awesome as usual. 

If you are wondering about the “Ultimate” sail Karin is riding, it comes from Sailloft Hamburg - a prestigious maker of very light, very fast sails.  This race model of theirs looks the business – narrowish sleeve and not too many battens.  Awesome!

 
Finally I want to share a video with you.  I posted it to my commercial site for a group of people but I thought that you guys would appreciate it too.  The gentleman has taken a classic song from the Ausie group - Little River Band, and combined the music with some fantastic film footage of dolphins and whales.
  Here is the link to the post on my site.

http://philrecommends.info.philrecommends.net/?p=582

Enjoy 

Defi Wind 2015 - 1200 Speed Merchants Meet in 60knots of Wind

Hi

The Defi Wind event is over and the results were interesting.  Pierre Mortefon won very convincingly showing exactly how fast he is and also how well his equipment is working.  Antoine Albeau came in fourth.  To be fair, he crashed out in the last race trying to avoid another sailor and broke his mast.  Even so, no-one had a hope of touching Pierre.  

The scary thing is that Pierre’s sister was the first lady home ahead of Delphine Cousin, Lena Erdil and Karin Jaggi.  The Mortefon family must possess a windsurfing gene of some sort.

What I like about this race is that it is 40km long.  Where normal slalom racing requires competitors to nail the start and every gybe in a 4 minute heat, this race is all about maximizing speed over distance across varying water conditions.  Antoine, in addition to being one of the fastest racers,  is so skilled at nailing his starts, timing and positioning his gybes and choosing the right tack consistently that he is virtually unbeatable on the circuit but allow the other guys to stretch their legs in a flat-out blast and things even out a bit.

Antoine Questel came in third on Ga sails and Diony Guadagnino was fifth on AHD and Hot Sails Maui.  I always think of AHD slalom boards as being especially easy to sail and the fact that a wave guy can achieve such a stellar result would seem to bear this out.  Nicholas Warembourg came in second on Patrik/Loft and presumably using his own brand of very cool fins.

Pierre saying goodbye at the gybe mark

Pierre and Nicolas with Antoin Questel and (I think) Finian behind

Finian with Avanti sail, new NoveNove  Board (and a bit more girth)

Pierre and Nicolas at the mark.  

Nicolas and Antoine Questel at speed

Dunkie followed by Diony. Antoine, Nicolas and interestingly a dude on a Severne wave sail!  WTF?  Shows what soft kit can do in wild conditions

 Talk to you soon

Nice Video and First PWA Slalom Result

Hi

Just a short post.

Video

Here is a message I received from Heru Prasetyo.  I watched the vid and have to say, found it inspiring.  Please click on the link below and see what you think.  The guy featured is a kitesurfer but is also a windsurfer (and therefor a brother) who decided that, following a personal tradegy, he was going to explore things which interested him regardless of what anyone else thinks. Bravo to him and a nicely presented short film.      

Hi Phil,  My name is Heru Prasetyo and I work on the Digital Content team here at Factory Media. Over the last few months we have been lucky enough to curate submissions for the Prime & Fire Selects amateur short film competition.  Over the coming weeks we will be releasing and promoting the winning entries. This weeks follows David, a 77 year old kitesurfer who, after the unexpected and tragic loss of his wife, made the decision to live every moment to the fullest. His story is inspiring and motivational, perfect for getting into the working mood after returning form a long bank holiday.  You can see this weeks winner below, let us know what you think!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rS4bafAdK8

PWA

The first PWA slalom event was run recently in Ulsan Korea.  They were beset by calm days and rain but managed to get a full day's racing in.

  

Antoine won followed by Pierre Mortefon and then Josh Angulo.  The surprise for me was Marco Lang achieving a 9th place.  A fantastic result for Marco and further proof that the Fanatic/North stuff is working properly. 

  

The ladies racing was won by Sarah-Quita followed by Lena Erdil and Fulya Unlu (who I know nothing about).  Sarah-Quita is now on Pryde sails and really smoking.  The fact that the top 5 ladies positions include three Turkish sailors attests to the depth of good windsurfers from that country.

Nice going

Talk to you soon

BTW the next big event of interest to us is this year's Defi Wind.  This will happen from 14-17 May and should be really interesting.  Antoine and a few other PWA guys are competing this year. The big guys usually ignore this race but it has become so popular that they have decided to give it the recognition it deserves.  Roll on this weekend!     

Maui Sails Challenges and Subsequent Events

Hi

Many of you will be aware that Maui Sails underwent a huge re-structuring in January/February.  I was going to do some commentary at the time but figured that you would see all the details on the Maui Sails site so I didn't bother.

For those of you who may not follow these things, here is the short version of what happened:

• The Chinese sail loft suddenly changed their conditions from a monthly payment schedule, to a quarterly schedule meaning that they required an up-front payment for an entire quarter's sail production.  This placed an intolerable strain on the company's cash flow.  Salaries could not be paid and the sponsored sailors left.
• Personal differences reached boiling point as often happens in times of financial stress and Barry and Artur pulled out.  Phil, having earlier bought out Rick Whidden (ending up with a majority share) now purchased Barry's share in the business as well.
• All this leaves the company and its products as it was but now fully in the hands of Phil.  I say "as it was" but this is not strictly true.  It now lacks sponsored sailors and is without a sail designer.  Shaky ground I would have thought but you have to admire the courage, dedication and tenacity of the man.  Impressive!

What has now transpired is that the three former Maui sails partners - Barry, Rick and Artur have come together to form a brand new windsurfing sail company called S2Maui which will have its sail range on the market next year.  I understand that they will be using an ultra-high tech material on these sails (stronger, lighter, more UV resistant)  Nice.

I always look forward to seeing something new in our sport so I hope that we see something innovative.  Light, fast, strong and clever - that's what we need!