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London
Boat Show only 6 months away!!!
 The
dates for the 2005 Show are 6th-16th
January. It is being held again at
Excel in the Docklands.
And it has been confirmed that
the UK Indoor Windsurfing Championships
will be getting a BIGGER pool!
The pool will be 90m long and will
be built on the floor rather than
on scaffolding. This will stop any
wind ‘disappearing’ under
the pool and create a cleaner
wind flow in the huge tent. This
will hopefully make life a little
easier for the sailors.
The competition format will remain
similar to last year but qualification
will ensure that the public only get to see the top 16 performers in each discipline
(jump, slalom and freestyle).
One point to the organizers: just
check what the pool is laid on. No
Christmas Eve, pool collapsing disasters
this year please!
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IFCA
Freewave World Championships August
31st – September 4th Guincho,
Portugal
The
International Funboard Class Association
is very pleased to return to Guincho,
Portugal for the World Freewave Championships
2004.
The new formula of Freewave will
have its first big test in Guincho.
(Although here in the UK we have
been running Freewave events since
2002.) Basically, if there are waves
they run a wave event and if not
then a freestyle contest is held.
This means the event is more likely
to happen as it can get a result
in a wider range of weather conditions.
This is all important to the organizers
and the sponsors who won’t
accept a ‘non-event’ with
no result.
 Sailors
must also only use production kit.
Top UK sailors expected to do well
include: Boardseeker Team riders Ben
Proffitt and Phil
Horrocks.
For more info on this event go
to:
www.overpower.net/ifca2004/home.asp |
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Nobles
Demo
The wind gods have been good
to the UK windsurfing community these
last few weeks and this good luck
continued over the first weekend
in July at Rutland Water. Fantastic
wind on the Saturday saw gusts of
up to 25 knots and great sailing
for everyone. In fact it was so great
that over 250 people ventured out
onto the water!
Sunday had slightly less wind but still enough for everybody to have fun.
Glen from Nobles
had a huge grin on his face
all weekend as hundreds of
sailors from across the Midlands
gathered at Whitwell to try
out the latest kit including
some 2005 equipment.
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Glen from Nobles
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On offer were Tushingham, Gaastra,
Neilpryde, North and Arrows sails
AND Starboard, Tabou, JP, F2, Fanatic,
Mistral and BIC boards.
NEW 2005 kit included the entire
Tabou range, the new Mistral Beast
and Syncro, Fanatic Freewave 05,
F2 Guerilla Wave and Style range
plus
the new JP Radical Wave.
The new Gaastra sails were also
on display.
The barbecue was well organised
on the Saturday night with an endless
supply of burgers whist everyone
chilled out in the evening sunshine.
All in all, the perfect demo weekend!!
For information and prices on all
the kit shown at the Demo weekend,
contact the guys at Nobles: wsurf@nobleboards.co.uk or
Tel. 01509 881111
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There's something
about Lucy
 Name:
Lucy Robson
Age: 23yrs
Home town: Brighton
Lucy is no ordinary girl. I met her in Greece this summer and was impressed
with her planing gybes, solid tacks and how she learnt to heli tack in
strong winds in less than a week...
 More
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New Shaper at
AHD
Pascal Gerber is the
new AHD shaper. After six years working
with Hughes de Turkheim of Tiga Boards
and also for Hobie Cat, Pascal has been
signed to shape for AHD.
“I’m really happy to be working
with AHD now. I think we did a good job
for the 2005 range, especially with Bruno
André who is a guy in the shadows
but a real living book for AHD development
and shapes. I’m also very happy to
work with versatile champions like Antoine
Albeau and the very young Nicolas Akgzcyian
and Antoine Questel. I’m eager to
meet with Kauli (Seadi) too. We have found
an ideal work environment in the development
unit we built in Tunisia. We can shape
the boards and then make the first tests
directly in the water as the factory is
200m from sea.” Nice!
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A new board is born - the hybrid!
Starboard hybrid board at the Olympic
Trails at Lake Garda this May
You
may already have heard the term ‘hybrid’.
If you haven’t, you soon will be
as it is about to change the future of
windsurfing!
A hybrid is a board that combines the
light wind attributes of a traditional
longboard with the high wind qualities
of a modern planning board. The result
is a board that looks a bit like a stretched
formula board with a daggerboard.
Manufacturers have been looking into
this concept for quite a while in a quest
to develop one board that can offer high
wind race winning performance combined
with a light wind performance suitable
even for beginners.
Perhaps more importantly however, the
decision has just been made that the new
Olympic board for 2008 is going to be Hybrid.
This replaces the current and long standing
Mistral One Design and goes in place of
the perhaps anticipated replacement Formula
Windsurfing.
At long last, the possibility of having one
board that we can use to teach
beginners on, blast around at the weekend
with and also use to win Olympic regattas
on, may not be too far away!
To find out more about these boards and
how they have been developed, read our
'A
new board is born' special feature.
Patrick
Diethelm’s
board at the Trials
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The Wetsuit Warehouse
opening soon!
One of the UK’s
biggest windsurfing stockists, Boardwise,
are launching The Wetsuit Warehouse website
this August to enable customers to get
the best deals on a variety of wetsuit
brands. They stock O’Neill, Neilpryde,
Sola, Swarm, Billabong and Spartan so
plenty to choose from. BUT if you need
a wetsuit this minute, then contact the
shop in Cannock! cannock@boardwise.co.uk Tel.01543
505084
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