Here is the most important link for any donations – www.justgiving.com/DrummondK787

Here is a video below of a similar challenge that fellow Starboard teamriders John Palmer and Sam Ross took part in just over 3 years ago. Here they shared 100 loops between the two of them – best of luck from all at Boardseeker (and Boards) Mr Drummond.

So, how does a top class sailor score regular World class conditions without touring the world? Boardseeker finds out from the man himself.

STORNAWAY, SCOTLAND – APRIL 25: Former British Wind Surfing Champion Timo Mullen abandonned a trip to Hawaii after only three days to meet up with current World Wind surfing Champion Ross Williams and British Champion Jamie Hancock at Bragar beach on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides after weather forecasters forcasted epic wind surfing condtions, on April 25, 2013 in the Isle of Lewis, Stornaway, Scotland. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

On the road, I’d say 70% of my travel is windsurf related and the rest is for work, I do approx 40,000 miles per year! My van’s a year old this month and it’s done 42,000 miles for sure. With regards air travel in a year I would estimate one South Africa trip, one Maui trip and then back and forth to Ireland around six times.

My  whole thought process to my windsurfing is, if you sail in the UK you can get better conditions than every where else in the world, if you leave it to the last minute. The reason being is that it’s guaranteed when you go so close to a good forecast. Well, almost guaranteed! I’ve probably been skunked about 5% of the time. But most of the times this has happened I’ve gone knowing that it’s not looking perfect and that’s there a 50/50 chance of getting the conditions, but sometimes the rewards are worth that gamble!

The last big road trip was over to Ireland before the Red Bull Storm Chase, and nope that one didn’t pay off! We got totally skunked! I knew it was probably going to happen, but I couldn’t bear not taking the chance, we got massive swell, nearly double mast high but the wind dropped!

I’ve never ever, not once thought ‘I can’t be arsed with this trip’, I love it. Absolutely love it.

A lot of people think I always go with a photographer, but that’s just not true. What they don’t see is that 80% of the time I go it’s just me. It doesn’t bother me going on my own, there’ll always be a surfer or someone I know at the place and I’d never go out on my own.  Usually my dad will join me, he’s been a Lifeboat man for 25 years so I’m in safe hands.  I’d always make sure that someone knows that I’m at that spot and that if I’m not in at a certain time that something’s gone wrong. I sailed just at Sandbanks the other day in 3.3 weather, and even thought it’s the safest and easiest beach to sail in the UK I still told my wife that if I wasn’t back by 9pm to come down and look for me, or to call the coastguard!   I look at everything as a calculated risk!

When I’m planning a trip I mostly use Windguru, I think it’s still the best for last minute forecasts. It’s also quite good for getting a gage for is it going to be good in five days, so I kind of use that as a starting point; that just puts the idea in my head. Then I will literally leave it until how ever many hours it is to drive to the spot and I’ll make the decision. I don’t constantly look at all, I’ll look five days ahead, then the day or so before I’ll really start to concentrate on it. I’ll also be planning my week, as if I’m going. I always plan rest time into my trips, stopping every four hours and making sure I get enough sleep to be well rested is key.

The biggest thing to organise is work, I have a full time job so that of course comes into it, but fortunately a lot of the stuff I do seems to by coincidence  happen when I’m not that busy at work! Well, I suppose it’s not just coincidence, I am fairly flexible with work and I do try and arrange things as best I can, but I do miss some good days.

Another big thing is that my wife is ridiculously cool, she knows that windsurfing is what I love to do and that I’m a much nicer person when I’ve been windsurfing. Also, when it is not windy I am pretty on it with getting my brownie points.

It’s all very calculated, I really don’t think there’s any madness to it at all. I think the mad people are the ones that sit in one place saying ‘there’s been no wind for three months’! It’s not a big deal, speak to Ben Severne and the WA guys and they drive 12 to 16 hours every week to go windsurf and nobody bats an eyelid. If they said ‘Oh, we’re going to Gnaraloo this weekend’ nobody would be surprised, they just do it.

I’ll give you an example, I finish work at 4pm on a Friday, at 12.30pm the following day I can be windsurfing mast high, cross off Thurso or Isle of Lewis, whilst on the south coast it’s clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine.

Then I can be back for work on Monday morning and I would have windsurfed in world class conditions, not just good for the UK, I’m talking real world class. Yes, I would have driven a lot of miles, but that would have cost me £220 in fuel. My mates would have spent that over the same weekend on alcohol and taking their kids to Peppa Pig World! I guess maybe I should have been doing that, but I see people drinking that much in a weekend easily and that’s now one thing I’ve probably taken out of my life. I don’t really drink now as I just see it as a total waste of money.

I try to go to Hawaii once a year and last year was probably one of the best years, it was windy every day for three weeks. I was just itching to go back and I knew it probably wasn’t going to be that good again, but I had air miles to use up, enough to get a return first class flight! I already knew it was probably going to be hit or miss, but I had to use them up and it was the only time I could get time away, plus it didn’t look that good in the UK.

So I got there, we had really good conditions for three days and then as I thought it unfortunately just went flat and windless and was predicted to stay this was for the last six days of my trip. I looked at the UK forecast and the north of Scotland had the best forecast I had probably ever seen. Jamie Hancock and Ross Williams were already going up there and I’d said just skype me if it’s on, I’m probably going to come with you. It cost me £50 to change my flight so I flew home, drove back down to Poole to pick up my wetsuit and say Hi to my wife and kids for 10 minutes then got in the car and drove to Scotland and we sailed perfect conditions for four days, absolutely amazing. Basically the five days I would have been sat in Maui with no wind, instead I sailed everyday probably in better waves, and more waves, than I would have done even if Hawaii had been going off. The madness of theory was that being in Maui for those six days would have cost me £700, it’s so expensive there, so by coming home and going to Lewis instead cost me £300, so I basically saved money, or that’s what I tell the wife!

Well there are two recent bits of news that are putting Cloudbreak well and truly on the map. The first is JP teamed up with Philip Koester and Scott McKercher to return to this heavy wave once again. Having been camped out there for three days now they’ve scored incredible surf and some perfect winds to charge on their windsurf kit. The updates from the crew keep on coming, here is a short gallery but check out the links below to follow it all from the riders themselves:

Jason Polakow

Philip Koester

The second piece of news is that the Volcom Fiji Pro is about to kick off down there, with all the heavy hitters arriving in town the line has already started to fill up according to JP but an exceptional swell is forecast so you can be sure we will be glued to our screens as the livestream is rolled out. You can follow the entire surfing event on www.volcomfijipro.com.

Here is the event teaser.

Check out the pictures and Oda’s full report on her website – odajohanne.com

Getting prepared for their first clinic in Austria

“Hi guys, just a quick hello from WindSurfCoaching touring around in the mega van, we are on our last days in Austria where we have been here for three weeks already. The first two weeks for the world cup, that was unreal and I’m sure you seen all the footage, we hosted a clinic at the end of the world cup and the weather has been really good to us, sunny and windy for most of the time, got to love this place, so many cool chilled friendly people. To be fair the clinic wasn’t as busy as we thought it was going to be, bearing in mind that if it’s windy here it’s like a completely different world, there are a massive amount of windsurfers, from real old people riding retro kit to the youths that are spinning like mad, it’s really nice to see so many people still loving the sport the we love so much. At the same time it was very frustrating because we know if half of them came along to the lessons they would really get so much out of the weekend! That said, the guys who came really enjoyed their time, learnt a lot and are all happy and are going to come back to spread the windsurf coaching love for next year. Big thanks for everyone who looked after us and made us feel so welcome.

We are off to Italy, Lake Garda next, another clinic and the forecast looks ok but we are big karma fans and the wind gods have been so good to us with Tarifa and now Austria 100% wind we hope to get something similar in Italy, you never know with their thermal winds.

We have a few places left so get on last minute flight or jump in your van and join us by emailing colin@windsurfcoaching.com.

We also are going to southern Italy before finally ending up in ClubVass for the summer so stay tuned and keep an eye out for the UK dates coming very very soon…

Cheers Colin and Marco”

Check out their poster for the up and coming stop in Garda, you’d be a fool to miss out on such top quality coaching.

Karin Jaggi in control

Day 4

The decision to hold an earlier skippers’ meeting on day four of the Ulsan PWA World Cup was duly rewarded as Jinha beach was transformed into a port tack slalom sailors playground, which allowed an epic – but grueling – eight hours of racing to be completed. The usual thermal winds – which so often grace South Korea’s number one windsurfing beach – were replaced with a frontal cross shore wind from the left. By the end of the day, two eliminations for both the men and women were completed, whilst the first round of the men’s race four was also sailed. Today’s action saw four separate winners’, firstly the two reigning world champions Antoine Albeau (RRD / NeilPryde) and Valerie Arrighetti (Tabou / Gaastra / Mystic) both claimed their first race victories of the year, before Arnon Dagan (RRD / NeilPryde) claimed his first elimination victory in four years. Unfortunately for Arrighetti, Karin Jaggi (Patrik / Severne) soon reasserted her authority over the event with another bullet. The conditions today truly showed exactly why South Korea is one of the most challenging stops on the tour… more

Jimmy Diaz

Day 5 was a long day for the crew and competitors as they remained on their toes as the wind built then dropped several times throughout the day. probably worse than a no wind forecast for those at the event as they really have to be ready for action all day long. However with tomorrow promising good wind, the final day of competition could well prove to be fruitful for those lying in the lower positions. Read on for the official PWA press.

The calm on day 5

DAY 5

A day of teasing winds – despite an unfavourable forecast – on the fifth day of the Ulsan PWA World Cup saw the sailors experience a long day on hold, but ultimately the wind never quite materialized enough to allow the competition to resume. However, the glorious sunshine returned allowing the competitors and crowds to relax on the beach. The sailors were eventually released at 4:45pm and they will now prepare themselves to battle it out on the last day of racing tomorrow – which should see an action packed day of fully charged slalom… more

The final day promises more of this

The official PWA event preview has been released, read all about what is in store below as we head into the first stage of the PWA Slalom Tour.

Event Preview: Prepare for adrenaline-fueled slalom as the PWA returns to South Korea