With the year 2012 being a big success for the European Freestyle Pro Tour the whole team went into the well deserved ‘winter break’ just after the last event in the UK. We were using the rather quiet months to discuss future plans for the tour, making necessary adjustments, exchange with our supporting brands and media partners and last but not least we seized them to plan and organize new events.

Like last year we are going to start off the season with the Chiemsee European Tow-In Championship in Podersdorf, alongside the huge PWA event. We are expecting a large number of spectators, floodlit tow-in action and an exciting battle for this years title! Steven Van Broeckhoven, reigning European tow-in champion will have to defend his status against riders like Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard), Maarten Van Ochten (JP/Neilpryde), Frenchie Julien Mas (Sailloft) and local hero Max Matissek (Fanatic). We do know that all the riders did their homework over the winter season and do not underestimate the value of some tow-in training. We are looking forward to see the show!

The first exciting news considering freestyle contests came from Premantura, Croatia which already gained popularity due to the famous ‘Hallowind’ event, which took place many years before it got quiet around this spot in Southern Europe. This year new keen organizers stepped in. The event ‘Catch Me If You Can’ will be held from the 30th of October through the second of November with 10.000€ prize money for grasp. We are still in ongoing negotiations about a potential bigger tow-in event there on top of the ‘normal’ freestyle contest and will keep you updated.

Just after signing the contracts for Croatia, one of the EFPT’s top ten riders in 2012, Vladimir Yakovlev (JP/Neilpryde) from Russia contacted the press office. He declared his interest in running an event in Eysk, Russia at the Sea of Azov. Sponsored by the AQUALETO hotel, we could shortly after sign the contracts for the second 10.000€ prize money event this year! Yeah! The Aqualeto Cup will take place from the 20th until the 25th of May in Eysk and the pre-registration list is growing day by day. We’ll see big names like Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Neilpryde), Philip Soltysiak (Starboard), Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard), Yegor Popretinsky (JP/Neilpryde), Mattia Fabrizi (North/Fanatic) and top freestyler from the UK Adam Sims (Sailloft) battling it out amongst many other riders. Furthermore the organizers will make the riders feel like rockstars, granting free transfer, free accommodation and free food throughout the whole competition.

Beyond those confirmed events we are still negotiating with organizers in Greece, France and the UK and are still hoping to run our final event there. The King of the Wind in 2012 left everybody involved impressed and we are hoping for more in 2013!

I am looking forward to give you more insights and more details in the next EFPT monthly!

Stay tuned!

Hanna

EFPT Press Officer

Firstly, the current proposed calendar can be seen in the picture below.

According to that there is €30,000 up for grabs this year across six events, the last time the tour saw this kind of calibre was in 2009, so are we seeing a bit of a bounce back? We decided to chat with the EFPT themselves, which revealed some interesting facts and could well see a tour reach 40 even €50,000 this year.

BS: So far the EFPT has six stops on its calendar and this has been growing over the past weeks, would you say we are seeing a re-emergence of freestyle windsurfing and what do you think it could be down to?

EFPT: We think that due to the better way of presenting the sport via video productions, photos and over social media, helps promote the exciting action better. It builds fans and followers from all over the world, not just Europe. On top of that the moves are getting much more aerial and as a result the public find it more thrilling to watch, especially in a time where all other sports are progressing with more radical moves and ways of documenting it, there really is no reason why it should go back when you compare it to the trends in other sports like snowboarding, mountain-biking, parkour, etc…

BS: We found this one of 2012 European Freestyle Pro Tour Champion, Davy Scheffers training!!!

BS: With the EFPT tour in its 10th year is there anything new or additional that we can expect in 2013?

EFPT: Certainly, we’ve been chatting to some potential new places like Portugal and even Russia which are both looking to host an event this year. As well as this, some old favourites could return, including Milos Beach and Lake Garda.  Actually Lake Garda never made it on to the EFPT Calendar before but is famous for building up the heart of freestyle windsurfing with it’s King of the Lake event and we are excited to be heading there with some of the worlds finest talents of modern day freestyle. So we may well see the addition of a couple more stops.

BS: Will we see Lake Garda local boy Mattia Pedrani ruling on the tour next year, check out his latest clip and tell us what you think in the comments below…

BS: We noticed the first event is tow-in only. Cheimsee seemed so impressed by it last year they have asked for the championships again, will we see any further development on this?

EFPT: Yes certainly, tow-in has been growing in popularity and there is a lot of talk out there about it and where it could possibly take place. The EFPT is discussing plans about the future of this side of the sport on a daily basis. For this year we won’t see too much action on those discussions however, we could well be finding ourselves with a tow-in event at Brouwersdam and an up-scaled one in the UK. We plan to set a standard (in terms of organisation and prize money) for the tour and hope to try to implicate it this year, if not then 2014 will see the official tow-in tour kick off.

BS: Last years European Tow-In Championships produced by Hauft.at

For fans of watersports then this video will quench your thirst, it includes some nice action from Kai Lenny as well as the XXL surfing awards and mark our words, there is some serious eating it in there!

Lastly, this cool one with a nice sound from the wakeboarding scene.

Good news, we are all still here. Even better news, Boardseeker brings you a healthy update this morning. Check out the action that went on around the world in the last few days before the apparent end of days.

Jason Polakow and Robby Swift report in with this edit from their recent trip to Chile. Outstanding action.

Up next is one for spanish listeners or just fans of top level windsurfing. Having featured in our afternoon news section yesterday, Gollito now stars in another movie which shows off the champions that have come out of Venezula.

Something esle of high quality is this sweet looking website from the Austrian slalom sailor Marco Lang, keep up to speed with the Marco as he progresses on the 2013 PWA tour – www.marco-lang.com.

More from the five times World Freestyle Champion, Gollito Estredo. Team QSW recently hooked up with Nik Baker to interview the freestyle champion himself, if you’ve ever wanted to find out what goes on inside the head of Gollito then this is one of the best chances.

Finally for those interested in the European Freestyle Pro Tour, it looks like the calendar for next year is beginning to appear on their website. So far just a couple of events but rumour has it that there is quite the potential for 2013. Check it all out here – www.efpt.net. Whilst you are there be sure to take a look at the nominees for the European Freestyle Pro Tour Rider of the Year and get your votes in. For the UK we have Adam Sims and Andy ‘Bubble’ Chamber nominated, a fair chance for a Brit to hit some pretty decent headlines. Obviously there are also a few others in contention…

Until this afternoon.

The EFPT’s final event this year took place on UK shores, at Weymouth, the Olympic sailing site. Boardseeker finds out more from Hanna Poschinger.

EFPT Weymouth

Photos: Jay Haysey/GlobalShots.

After seeing the South of France with every possible weather scenario ranging from howling winds to calm sunny days the EFPT team and many of the riders travelled onwards to the first ever EFPT tour stop in the United Kingdom: Weymouth.

Seen by many people as an ex-olympic site, the event company XPLG (Xtreme Playground), with the leading managers Sam Burnett and EFPT rider Adam Sims (Sailloft), decided to make it a venue for the 2012 finale of the European tour. In only two months they pulled in a high value main sponsor, Centaur Executive Coaches, who saw the potential in supporting such an event in the popular windsurfing scene of the United Kingdom. Starting from scratch only 60 days before the competition took place, the organisers worked like maniacs not to only make it happen, but to provide a great event for the riders, partners and the spectators.

Because the EFPT team has been working very closely together with the organizers of the event, we’d like to give you some insights into just exactly what went on behind the scenes. After driving for approximately 1,000 miles from Six Fours les Plages in France to Weymouth in the south of England, spending the night in ‘interesting’ travel lodges, having more fuel station food and Red Bull than you can shake a stick at, the experience of severe hail showers on the highway (not good!) and the enjoyment of driving the last 200 miles with only 50mph because the car broke down, we safely arrived at our destination – the OTC right in front of the big National Sailing Academy within Weymouth. Being welcomed by strong winds everybody was craving for a windsurfing session. We still decided: first the work, then afterwards the fun bit, not quite considering that it was (almost) winter and the sun would set at 5 pm. Anyway with a small but motivated group of helpers we started to set up the 12 x 6 meters marquee without any instructions which probably wasn’t the best idea ever considering that we used all the wrong poles for the roof, screwing in dozens of tiny screws…which we had to unscrew again (of course) to exchange for the right poles. As the day got later and darker the hope for a windsurf session was gone and only the drive for food made us continue on. It was good to see that even competitors got involved and helped us setting up this massive tent in order to provide a wind protected chill-out area for everyone throughout the following days.

On the registration day we saw a big number of competitors entering, with a high number of Brits. Adam Sims (Sailloft), Nic Hibdige (Starboard), Ben Lee, Jack Sawbridge (North/RRD), Charlie Wilson (North/Fanatic), Nick Bentley, Jamie Howard (RRD/RRD), Phil Richards (F2), Josh Sparks (North/Fanatic), Will Rogers (Starboard), Andy Bubble Chambers (JP/Neilpryde) and Jamie Drummond (Starboard) all paid the entrance fee in order to compete against some of the best European freestylers such as: Davy Scheffers, Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard), Andraz Zan (F2/F2) and Adrian Beholz (Sailloft).

Different to the other tour stops we saw this year, there was also be a girls fleet sent out in Weymouth. The organizers called for female freestyle windsurfers to compete in the ‘Queen of the Wind’ event sponsored by Femi Pleasure. The Polish brand provided not only prize money and nice clothes for the top three, but also goodie bags for every entrant. Seven girls registered to fight for the crown.

If we would have to make an equation after the last two tour stops it would be: strong winds = cold temperatures. The first day of competition delivered enough wind to run almost the whole single elimination with the postponement of the losers and the winners final to the following day. The hot tub just in front of the Official Test Center (OTC) was heavily used by the riders. Fast in, warm up, fast out was the motto as people were lining up to get at least their feet and hands into the steaming water. It all looked pretty life saving to me. Good job to the organizers for providing it!

The single elimination saw Davy Scheffers taking victory with Van der Eyken in second and Adam Gavriel and Andy Chambers in third and fourth. Right after the final the wind dropped and sailors were released.

Monday was the day that was awaited with high expectations. First of all the wind was back and we could send the riders through the whole double elimination with Rick Jendrusch (F2) definitely being the man of the moment. He sailed amazing heats, taking out Jeremy Plüss from Switzerland, Adrian Beholz from Germany and even Andy ‘Bubble’ Chambers, to end up in fourth position overall. The top three positions stayed the same with Davy in first, Dieter in second and Adam Gavriel from Israel in third place.

In the evening the schedule included a night tow in show at Weymouth town beach! Every year fireworks light up the skies during the traditional Guy Fawkes night celebrations. With many thousand spectators expected, this evening promised to be a big happening for the 13 experienced tow in riders. Red Bull were of huge support for the show and provided the jetski, the music truck (DJ Chubsy) and plenty of free cans, they guaranteed the right atmosphere at the beach, especially with the likes of Colin ‘Whippy’ Dixon taking over the towns PA system. Also with the funfair and the bright lights in the background the scene was amazing and all the riders were hyped up for their two runs ahead. The two powerful spotlights were switched on and the competitors provided a great show with Max Matissek (Fanatic) from Austria winning the discipline, Andy Chambers in second and Julien Mas in third place.

It wouldn’t be an English event if there wouldn’t also be the right parties to go with it. Jay Haysey and Adam Chubbock from Globalshots made sure that Saturday (Royal Rave) and Monday (Globaland) were unforgettable nights. With a lot of UV paint, glow sticks , funky glasses and Adam ‘Chubsy’ Chubbock as the guy behind the turntables, we had a great celebration after the tow in show.

The prize giving was held the day afterwards in the Spinnaker room of the National Sailing Academy. Honoring the top three of the event and also the top three overall in the 2012 EFPT ranking, Davy Scheffers (1st), Dieter Van der Eyken (2nd) and Adrian Beholz (3rd). Davy who won the tour for the first time fulfilled one of his dreams and stated:

‘What I reached today shows me that you can get everything you dream of as long as you keep going for it and work hard.’

It was a great event and a great show at all the tour stops this year. We would like to say thank you to everyone who participated, organized, helped in any way or followed us in this season. We are hoping to provide an even bigger and brighter tour for you next year with a lot of wind, action and fun!

Let the good times roll and stay tuned!

Hanna

Boardseeker catches up with the EFPT’s Hanna Poschinger to find out more about the latest events; first up the EFE in the South of France.

EFPT monthly September/ October

Photos: Raffi Cherbedjian

With many thousand miles travelled by car, plane, bus and train the last weeks have been the busiest for the EFPT team in the whole year. We’ve seen the last two tour stops in Six Fours les Plages, France and the big finale in Weymouth, UK. First things first, we’d like to give you a better insight on the first of these two events, the European Funboard Expression which took place from the 27th through to the 31st October in the South of France.

The European Funboard Expression event, organised by Steve Palier as well as Fred and Natach Bosson has become an institution in the past three years and already staged the European Freestyle Pro Kids Tour. For their fourth edition the team wanted to take it a step further and bring the best professional freestyle windsurfers of Europe to their venue. Working 24/7 throughout the whole year the organisers managed exactly that. The event set up was well worthy of the international competition that they expected and featured freestyle windsurfing, a tow-in contest as well as a social programme that ranged from community dinners to a movie night with a video contest and a RRD fashion show.

36 riders out of 12 nations registered on day one. Some to fight for the crown and the top positions this year, some to experience their first international competition. Amongst the world class sailors getting involved were Davy Scheffers from Holland, Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard) from Belgium, Adrian Beholz (Sailloft/Fanatic) from Germany, Tonky Frans from Bonaire and Mattia Fabrizi (North/Fanatic) from Italy, just to name a few. Best seeded UK freestyler was Adam Sims (Sailloft) who came to defend his current top 10 overall position. He brought along 17 year old Nic Hibdige (Starboard) and Ben Lee, both from the UK who had their EFPT debut in France.

Immediately after the registration was completed, race director Tom Hartmann sent the fleet out on the water as the storm front was coming, just as ordered, and delivered conditions for 4.7m sails and smaller. A whole single elimination and parts of the double were run on the first day always followed by the camera of the B2B team, who provided the live stream on dailymotion.com. Over 5000 people were following the competition at home via the internet. This made the whole event extremely accessible and interactive. Steve Palier who was the responsible person on site even found the time to do the live commentary and managed to organise interviews in between. He really did a great job and deserves some special acknowledgement for his commitment. As many followers have been national, Steve kept entertaining the French audience in his mother tongue, whilst Adam Sims from the UK helped out in between and after his heats to give the international followers updates on what was going on on the water.

Day two always had a big storm on the cards. With wind speeds of up to 60 knots forecast the council refused authorisation to start the competition and we had to postpone the first possible start from 9.00 am to lunch time, when the wind dropped a tiny bit. The riders had to rig their 4.0′s and smaller. Whilst people were still out in their short wetsuits the day before, they now had to unpack their winter ones as the strong winds delivered super cold conditions with a windchill of only a few celsius above zero. The judges were equipped with snowboard jackets and pants, as well as thick sleeping bags and snow goggles due to the strong onshore conditions, which even made the water surface take off at some points. They had a really hard job here and proved themselves in these tough conditions. Some riders were clearly struggling in the nuclear wind and the choppy water, whilst others still showed high class freestyle. As we made our way through the double elimination the performance of some riders should be highlighted: Davy Scheffers sailed through four heats taking out Rick Jendrusch (F2), Anthony Ruenes, Mattia Fabrizi (North/Fanatic) and Adrian Beholz (Sailloft/Fanatic) to be then stopped by Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard). Dieter was clearly powered up on his small sail and ready to take victory defeating Tonky Frans, who is currently ranked top five in the world, twice! The result for the top five after the finished double were as follows:

1st Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard)
2nd Tonky Frans
3rd Davy Scheffers
4th Adrian Beholz (Sailloft)
5th Mattia Fabrizi (North/Fanatic)

Dieter Van Der Eyken (Belgium) – 1st place:

‘I am really very happy to see that I can beat some top guys like Tonky, especially by defeating him twice, it’s just incredible! I already knew le Brusc as I have sailed here a few times and this is one of my favorite spots in the Mediterranean, it’s perfect to train in freestyle. But I was not expecting such strong winds, it has been a long time since I used such small sail. I was on 3.6 overpowered! The organisation was top and especially the live webcast, which is great for the image of the EFPT. The EFE is much more than a competition, it a great appointment and a great showcase for the sport!’

The top UK sailor was Adam Sims (Sailloft) who finished in joint 13th place. Ben Lee and Nic Hibdige (Starboard) made it to a joint 25th place in their first international competition. Well done!

The following days of the EFE in Six Fours delivered nice weather, but unfortunately no wind. Perfectly prepared for that case we had two strong boats to do a tow in qualification that was open to every registered sailor. Due to the mild weather the beach was full with people as 21 riders fought for the 10 places in the final on the next day. As expected the members of team France, Julien Mas and local boy Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic) made a great impression here, clearly showing that they trained this discipline. In the final though, two rookies made it to the podium and dispatched Julien Mas to the third place. Romain Pinocheau (F2) French freestyle talent convinced with a perfect double funnell and took second, Antoine Albert from New Caledonia even managed to land a switch kono on his first run and almost nailed a skopu on his second try. This was rewarded by the judges with a first place.

For the last day of the event, the new single elimination had already been seeded and the riders of the first heat were prepared to hit the water around 9.00 am. Again le Brusc had a super strong forecast this time with wind coming from the other side, delivering fully offshore conditions. The whole coastline between Marseille and Nice saw a red flag this morning, so did we. The coastguard gave us no authorization to start due to dangerous conditions and recommended to cancel the competition. Like that the freestyle contest came to a sudden end and the ranking stayed the same.

The EFE/EFPT in France convinced with an amazing organisation, great but also challenging conditions for sailing, a superb social programme and a media coverage which was quite unique for the European tour, due to the every day live stream. We are looking forward to next season and to see this tour stop grow even bigger. At this point we would like to thank all the riders who were providing the show, to the whole EFE team and everybody who followed us throughout these exciting days.

Stay tuned for the full write up and some insights about the finale of the EFPT, the Centaur King of the Wind in the UK!

Thanks for following,

Hanna

The EFPT join Boardseeker for another edition of their monthly round up. This time they share tales from the EFPT competition in Greece, information about the amateur video contest in France and big news from the UK!

EFPT monthly July/August

Whilst July was a fairly quiet month for the European Freestyle pro Tour in which we fully focused on the promotion and organisation of our scheduled events, August has been a busy one, all in the name of the EFPT ’3 Style Area Cup’ taking place in beautiful Sigri on the island of Lesvos, Greece.

Greece

We took the office to the Sigri Surf Center, owned by Austrian Marcel Simon and his wife Martina, a week before the event to make sure everything would be sorted in time. Marcel who brought the EFPT to his spot for the first time impressed us with a great organisation on site including a decent judge tower, the Red Bull truck with a sound system and microphone for announcements, plus free drinks for the riders and crew. Red Bull buoys were provided for the heat area and every day there was a social programme including community meals for the participants, where the EFPT crew had the chance to discuss new ways in and the future for freestyle windsurfing with the riders.

After rather untypical low wind conditions in the first few days of August the wind started to fill in, just just as we had ordered, on the first day of the 3 Style Area Cup. Whilst the 20 riders were on sails between 4.5 and 5.3 to show their best moves in the glassy flat water of the freestyle corner at the Sigri Surf Center, the EFPT judges had some busy days taking the fleet through two single and one full double elimination. Unfortunately race officer Tom Hartmann had to cancel the second double elimination as the wind dropped on the third day of competition and didn’t deliver sufficient conditions.

Outstanding in his performance was Davy Scheffers from Holland who circled his way through all of his heats without losing a single one. He took victory in front of young Youp Schmit (JP/Neilpryde) from Bonaire and German freestyle weapon Adrian Beholz (Fanatic).

Best sailor from the UK has been current UK freestyle champion Adam Sims who had a great comeback after a disappointing first single elimination. He made his way through four heats in the double, even taking out strong sailing Tilo Eber (JP/Neilpryde) to finish 7th overall.

You can watch all the daily event videos on: https://vimeo.com/sigrisurf

Even though the event in Sigri was a big success, the organisers for the potential EFPT event in Alacati, Turkey couldn’t confirm their event early enough and therefore had to step back from it this year.

Marcel Simon, the owner of the Sigri Surf Center and the organiser of the 3 Style Area Cup already mentioned his interest for an event in 2013 and declared his hopes that the tour will grow again with more stops in the Agean Sea! We fully share this wish and are looking forward to the 3 Style Area Cup Part 2 in 2013!

France

Whilst it has been a busy summer for everyone, Steve Palier and Fred Bosson from France have been working hard to finalise everything for their EFPT event in Six Fours les Plages at the end of October 2012.

They also launched an amateur video contest for which everyone is invited to produce a ’100% freestyle’ clip. Prizes range from a brand new 2012 4.7 Loftsails Wavescape to an ION wetsuit, MB fins, Contour camera kit to a North Sail Silver Boom (140/190).

INFO: http://efe-sixfours.com
WHAT: produce a video with the title ’100%freestyle’
WHO: everyone who wants to take part
WHEN: from now on until 1st of October
SEND TO: videocontest@efe-sixfours.com
WINNER: will be nominated during the EFE/EFPT event in October, winning video will be promoted through popular windsurf relevant channels (efpt.net, continentseven.com, windsurfjournal.com)

Find out more about the video contest, the judging and the rules here

Get involved!

Big News

Best news last: the EFPT has a confirmed tour stop in the United Kingdom this year! After negotiations to run an event in West Wittering where we had problems to come to a conclusion, two young organisers stepped in with their brand new event company called ‘Xtreme Playground’ (XPLG) and suggested the final EFPT tour stop of 2012 to be staged in Weymouth! Weymouth which became popular world wide through the Olympic sailing competitions delivers amazing conditions throughout the whole year with a high chance of wind, a good infrastructure and the OTC run by the very motivated and dedicated Tris Best. With the UK company CENTAUR Travel, a public travel company based in London, being the main supporter of the event and a very passionate organisation team, this events promises to be a huge success.

We are going to tell you more about the CENTAUR ‘King of the Wind’ event in the next EFPT monthly. For now the dates for your diary are the 3rd-6th of November and the location is Weymouth!

Thank you for following!

Hanna
EFPT Tour Manager and Press Officer