The Shaka is a combination of a Shove-it and a Flaka – it is not one of the newest moves but is still one of the nicest to watch but also one of the most difficult to learn.  It was invented by Ricardo Campello back in 2002, it was and still is used in the freestyle arena today.  However, as with a lot of the freestyle moves the Shaka has made it in to the wave sailing arena in the form of a backside 360.

• The most important requirement for a good Shaka, especially without a piece of chop or small wave is a lot of speed.
• Then to start the rotation, carve hard and fast to windward by putting the weight is on your heels. Make sure you sheet in hard with your backhand by pulling the boom in and upwards (this is the Shuv It part).
• As you carve up in to wind turn your back hip into the sail and push your back foot down, this will allow you to pop the board (this is where a small wave or piece of chop will help). Your front heel should stay down to keep the board turning in the right direction to windward.
• Once in the air you can push downwards on your back arm to backwind the sail to give you some lift and help float you around the rotation.  It’s very important that you keep turning your head in the direction of the rotation, also try to think about turning your shoulders and body in this direction as well.
• Hold this position in the air as you rotate.
• As you come down you should land with the front of the board first providing you held that same position and kept your front arm straight.
• This part is much like the end of a Flaka providing you got the fist steps right! The end of rotation will happen naturally and you will just spin round!

Andy ‘Bubble’ Chambers K540 Multiple British Freestyle Champion with over 10 years coaching experience.  A regular on the World Tour and a well travelled windsurfer; Bubble has the knowledge and experience to teach all aspects of windsurfing from beginner to the most advanced freestyle moves on the planet.  Follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/bubblek540

The stats

• Price: £42.50
• US Box: 14, 16, 18, 20cm
• Powerbox: 16, 18, 20cm

A clone taking the K4 freestyle fin for a spin

About K4 Freestyle Fins

You might be wondering how relevant this is to you, particularly if you aren’t yet pulling off double spocks, shaka takas and whatever else. So before you click elsewhere, let me just say that if you own any type of freestyle board and that includes freestyle/waves, then you should read on.

For those of you who have never tried a proper freestyle fin in your board, you definitely should and here’s why…

Most Freestyle boards are supplied with standard fins that are really just too big for freestyle. They are suited to getting the board planing early, carving performance and straight-line performance. If you own a board with the word ‘freestyle’ in the name, my guess is that you at least have some hope of having a dabble at the odd freestyle move. And if you do, then you are going to benefit from a dedicated freestyle fin. The biggest factor you will notice is that when the board starts to slide, it does so with a lot more ease and without ‘biting’ to a stop. Whether you are trying out your very first Vulcans or competing on the PWA tour, this is one of the most useful assets you can have in a freestyle set-up and the reason you absolutely need to put a freestyle fin in your board if you are starting to attempt sliding manoeuvres.

There are a few drawbacks however and most noticeably it’s the straight-line performance. The fin is a lot shorter and ultimately it therefore has less lift giving the board a feeling of being ‘under finned’ in a straight line. This is where the K4 fin starts to have an advantage. With its extra twist, it seems to offer a bit more grip through the water and tolerance to spin out compared to standard carbon and glass alternatives. The other thing it offers is durability. Lets face it, freestylers are generally posers; and to be a poser means you have to do things in shallow water. Sliding backwards in shallow water is a disaster for fins; traditional laminated fins have a real tendency to split open when they take a knock to the tip, but the advantage of the K4 construction is that they don’t. Sure they are softer and wear down more easily, but they don’t split and are easily sharpened back up with some sandpaper. In fact, at this point, it’s worth setting a few things straight with regard to the construction of K4 fins. Whilst many refer to them as plastic fins, this is perhaps a little unfair, because the construction is somewhat more sophisticated than the term ‘plastic’ would infer. They are in fact manufactured from a plastic/ glass composite, which combines the cost and weight savings of plastic with the strength and durability of glass fibre.

The ‘Bubble’ K4 freestyle fin

Our test Clones used these fins and were really impressed with them. However, it’s kind of pointless us going into the merits of the top-end performance because it they are good enough to win the UK title and feature in the top 10 of the PWA in the hands of Andy ‘Bubble’ Chambers, then they clearly work pretty well! So we thought it would be more interesting to ask Andy, who helped develop these fins, to give us some more info about what top riders are looking for from a freestyle fin:

So Andy, what attributes are you looking for in a freestyle fin?

Durability, weight, grip and speed.

What has changed over the past five years with regard to what you need in a fin?

Well, before we needed fins that got planing early, but also were short enough to be able to slide and rotate easily. Usually this meant having a super wide and thick fin, which meant it was really slow.  Now with the new boards and sails, which plane much faster, we can have much faster thinner less draggy fins.  Nowadays we need as much speed as possible for the air moves.

The K4 freestyle fin in action

Why is the flex important in a freestyle fin?  

A bit of flex is good as it keeps control when in choppy or overpowered sailing. Too much flex and the fins can become sticky and grippy, too stiff and you have no control.

Is the weight difference noticeable?

Obviously the lighter the fin the lighter the tail of the board feels when sailing and doing moves.  You notice it massively when sailing a Quad wave board for instance. The tail feels really heavy with the four fins, so by putting in lighter fins you will make it feel lighter under foot.

What sizes fins do you use for what size of sails?

I have been using the 18cm for everything so far.  Mainly in my bigger board 100ltrs with all sizes of sail 3.8-5.7.  We are now trying out new shapes to see if we can get the 16cm to work better for heavy sailors, choppy water and bigger sails as it loses a bit too much grip at the moment.

How much input have you had into these fins?  

As much as possible really! Thorpy knows exactly what he is doing with regards to the scientific bits.  I test and give him feedback and we talk about adjusting the shape or foil thickness in different areas to cope with different conditions, riders etc.  We give the fins out to a few other key secret (non sponsored) riders to get honest opinions on them as well.

If you are trying to learn freestyle, no matter what level you are and don’t have a dedicated freestyle fin in your board, then you are definitely making things hard for yourself. What K4 offer here is top performing dedicated fin that is durable and also extremely economically priced. Now you know what to ask Santa for!

Check out more about the K4 fns on their website here. 

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

November 2012

Full Name: Lizzie Smith

What are your best features?

I think I’ll let you decide for yourselves, but my eyebrows get some attention!

Lizzie Smith, November’s Boardseeker Babe!

3/5 Certainly getting some of our attention!

Where are you from?

Kent in the UK, but I live in Dahab, Egypt; just slightly warmer, windy and super flat freestyle heaven!

5/5 Sounds like a good move.

What is work?

I work as an instructor for Club Vass in Dahab, which involves teaching, sailing, a fair share of partying and fancy dress… what more

Lizzie Smith in action

could you want?

4/5 Well that is a good question…

What watersports do you do?

Windsurfing, surfing, SUPing, wakeboarding, diving, free diving and anything else I am given the opportunity to do!

5/5 Impressive! Where can we sign up for lessons?

What is your most memorable achievement in watersports?

Every time I land a new move it’s pretty memorable but I guess my first Vulcan was a pretty exciting moment, after a lot of hard work and being told I wasn’t even ready to start trying it, it felt awesome! First board slapping forward loop is pretty high up there too!

5/5 This girl’s got style!

Lizzie Smith in Dahab

Lizzie Smith

What should a guy do to impress you?

Be a great windsurfer but not take himself to seriously and make it about having fun!

4/5

What makes a windsurfer a good boyfriend?

It means they’re fit and can share my passion for windsurfing

3/5

Lizzie Smith, feeling feline.

What qualities would your perfect man have?

A nice smile to go with a great sense of humour, a love of windsurfing and partying!

5/5Now that we can manage.

What do you like about being in a male dominated sport?

All the males… plus it pushes me harder to keep up with the lads, going faster and bigger. I don’t like to be beaten and they, nor I, will let being a girl be an

excuse!

4/5 Girl power!

What’s the wildest thing you have ever done?

Killing a snake and eating its still beating heart… Windsurfing wise; sailing 3/4 mast high waves in Esperance as my first ever wave experience, pretty daunting but an amazing adrenaline rush!

2/5 Eating a snakes heart?!?! Are we reading correctly? That’s not wild, that’s damn crazy!

Lizzie Smith, cruising.

What do you prefer and why? a)freestyle sessions: slow to start, then lots of spinning and contorting your body into crazy positions.

b)speed sessions: super fast, high adrenaline but it’s over before you know it
c)wave sessions: a nice smooth ride, where you’re in control and can try something new if you’re feeling adventurous

I’m a freestyle girl most of the time, but I love it all and have the energy for a session of each if the wind can keep blowing

5/5

PHOTO SCORE: 4/5

Total score: 82%

Want to head to Dahab too? Check out the Dahab travel guide here on Boardseeker.

Lizzie Smith