RRD have just released the latest incarnation of their freestyle kite.
It features faster turning, more control when unhooked and more neutrality in kite loops and other power moves.
Now in stock, check out the new RRD Obsession Mark 4
Surfers Paddle for Charity – Organised by X-Train -2XS and the Shore Surf Club.
Sunday 24th July saw 56 entrants to the Wittering Charity Paddle Race.
Entrants had to paddle against 20 knots of wind from East To West Wittering. The course is just over a mile from East To West Wittering which would normally take (on average) around 20 to 45 mins. However, the windy conditions made it much harder and it took the last competitor just under 2 hours to compete (the fastest time was 24 minutes 39). Even though the conditions were hard, nearly everyone fought on through and there were smiling, happy faces all over the beach at the finish line.
From West Wittering Windsurf Club, it was great to see Oliver Chipperfield and the McKirghans. Emile Kott managed to just squeeze in front of the boss (Simon Bassett) and James Randall managed to beat the old man by a convincing five minutes!
Event Results
The event, which is in its 7th year, brings the surfing community together to raise money for local charities. This year, the charity was The Sussex Snowdrop Trust.
The event raised just over £1000 for the charity and money is still coming in. Everyone involved enjoyed a BBQ at West Wittering Windsurf Club where there was a prize giving at the end of the day.
A lot of people put in a great deal of time to make the event happen, including the Shore Surf Club Team, the WWWC team, Puma Safety, West Wittering Estate Lifeguard.
Thankyou very much to event sponsors 2XS, X-train, The Shore Surf Club, Wittering Surf, Crouchers Country Hotel, The Beach House, Indoboard and Boardshop.co.uk.
The 2012 dates and times will be announced soon on www.2xs.co.uk and www.shoresurfclub.co.uk.
Justin Goodwin has made this fantastic video of some of the summer action that we have seen at West Wittering.
Francisco Goya headed over to West Wittering Windsurf Club on Saturday 9th July. With the help of Rick from Zero Gravity, he brought a selection of 2011 and 2012 Goya boards and sails for demo.
Francisco and Rick arrived in the early morning and were greeted by warm sunshine and a blissful, summer, 20 knot breeze. It was low tide at West Wittering and the ‘trench’ just inside Chichester Harbour mouth provided some of the best possible demo conditions – 5.3 weather, warm water and hot sunshine!
Francisco Goya has an incredible amount of infectious enthusiasm for the sport and was getting everyone on the water on the new gear, running from sail to sail to make sure that not a single piece of gear went out without him tweaking it to perfection whilst explaining exactly what and why he was doing it.
Francisco headed down to the water to coach the kids from the water’s edge and later mentioned that he couldn’t believe how good the sailing was at West Wittering and how perfect it was for everyone to get out on the water together.
The conditions in West Wittering on days like this are always easy and fun for all – flat water in the lagoons and trench and small waves breaking onto the sandbars for jumping.
The day before, actually made Emile and Rossco’s day when they went sailing with Francisco on 4.2s in nice little waves just in front of West Wittering Windsurf Club (unfortunately everyone was having far too much fun to grab a camera!)
Everyone made the most of the Goya demo gear, which included the Goya 2011 Custom Quads, Goya Ones, Goya FXR freeride boards and 2011 and 2012 Eclipse, Guru and Banzai Sails. 2XS have been selling Goya boards for a while now and will be shortly adding the Goya Sail quiver to the website.
The West Wittering Windsurf Club barbecue was fired up for lunch and Francisco, who is normally nearly vegan, was taken in by the smell of Waitrose finest…
It was a truly great day and one of the best demos we have ever seen. The 60 year age range present gave testament to this and more importantly than anything else, everyone had fun!
Mention has to be made of the West Wittering club member Nick De Candole. In his rush to get out on the water with his hero, not only did he forget to lock his van but also to actually turn the engine off… Nice of him to keep the carpark warm for us all…
Windsurfing legend Francisco Goya is heading to West Wittering on Saturday 9th July from 10am – 1pm
This will coincide with a free demo of Goya Boards and Sails run in conjunction with West Wittering Windsurf Club. All you need to pay for is parking at the beach.
WWWC will be firing up and providing a free barbecue from 12.30pm and it is the perfect chance to meet a windsurfing great and try some new gear!
Please let us know if you are coming down so we can buy enough sausages. Email sales@2xs.co.uk or call 01243 512552
Once again the annual paddle race from East to West Wittering is taking place on Sunday 24th July 2011.
The event has become more and more popular each year and is loads of fun as well as a good chance to raise money for a good cause.
The race starts from Shore Road, East Wittering and heads west along the low-tide shallow waters to West Wittering where the event finishes just outside West Wittering Windsurf Club.
There are separate divisions for SUP, kayak and surf and will be prizes for the winners in each division and age category.
To enter, please download an entry form and a sponsorship form.
The entry fee for all divisions and categories is £10 and this includes a barbecue provided at the end at West Wittering Windsurf Club.
To see the photos and results from last year’s event, have a look at this.
If you want any further information, please get in touch with West Wittering Windsurf Club on 01243 513077 or info@x-train.co.uk
You just can’t beat a trip to the islands – it is mecca. This year, however, we weren’t blessed with the same wind and waves as previous years but it still delivered in a big way.
Our good friend Frank McKirgan, who decided to celebrate his 50th birthday in style in Maui was surrounded by a list of 80s windsurfing throwbacks including myself, Nick, DOC, Mikey, Julian, Grant, Andy, Patrick and all the families.
It was good to see old-school action: even Eric Beale (40 knot world speed sailing record holder) turned up to pay homage.
All the ladies got on the water too – Sandra, Therese, Rhonda, Jane (it must be warm!), Rachel and all the kids were ripping (Oscar, Holly, James, Dan, Ellie, Samuel, Isobel, Georgia, Daisy, Jess and Jake). This year, Alex was tanking out in the waves – he made some big progress in Hawaiian waters.
2012 seems to be a year for fine-tuning windsurfing gear rather than lots of new ideas. Four batten wave sails are the latest craze. The idea of reducing weight is good and wave-riding performance in constant winds works well in Maui. In the past in the UK, they haven’t really been accepted due to our frontal winds with big fluctuations in wind speed. Previous four batten sails tend to go very back-handed in overpowered conditions. Time will only tell how well these new sails will work.
Maybe four battens and four fins is a matching thing…. Not sure if I sign up to that myself! On the quad fin front, Simmer with Kai
I watched Levi Silver testing a 5 fin board in single fin mode and he was ripping the guts out of every wave he rode. Is this the signal that we are heading back into single fin territory again? Matt Pritchard was on a Tabou 2012 prototype that had 5 fin boxes which he rode mainly as a single fin.
John Skye had just left with the new RRD contests. Mark Angulo seemed to be riding tri-fin boards as were plenty of Naish riders. I spoke to Francisco Goya at his HQ and he was telling me that his line of quads had been very popular. I tried the 79 Goya Quad while I was there and it worked really well in all conditions for me.
I met up with Dave Ezzy while I was in Maui at his loft in Haiku and on the beach at Camp one. He has been working on the 2012 Ezzy Panther Ltd, which I had heard about and was eager to test while I was there.
Having had such poor winds in the UK over the winter I had hardly used my Ezzy Panther 3s so it seemed a bit weird to test both sails in the same trip. The Ezzy wave panther 3 is very light – a tip Dave gave was not to over-downhaul the rig. I now ignore the high wind setting mark on the sail – I have to say it feels real good when you under-downhaul the sail.
Dave dropped down to the beach with a 4.5m and 5m Ezzy Panther Ltd Prototype – I came off the water with Ezzy Panther 3s and tried them back-to-back. I had one of the sails in the new bling colours – the new colours are awesome – each sail will be different with a type of tie-dye on the mid sail panel.
As you would expect from Ezzy, nothing has been compromised for the colour in strength performance or durability. The real performance improvement is weight. They are lighter than the Ezzy Panther 3, not by much, but they weigh the same as most brands’ 4 batten wave sails. Dave has reduced the material on each batten pocket and he has added some extra shape on batten 2.
It doesn’t seem much but boy does that sail tank up wind and still feel super-light in your hands. Uber controllable in the gusts and has that great Ezzy feel. It is not a massive update from the Panther 3 feel but if you know, you know why you will order the new 2012 Ezzy Panther Ltd.
Kevin Pritchard came with Dave on one trip to the beach. He is Ezzy’s new team rider – a top guy and a man of few words (with a lot to say on the water!) He was off to compete on the American Windsurf Tour and PWA events using the new Ezzy sails – should see some good stuff from this guy!
Dan Macaulay called me to do a downwind run from Ho’okipa to (in my case) camp one and them to Spreks .We had decent, windy day and it sseemed that a 5.2 was the right choice.
When I actually got to the water, I ended up over-powered on a 4.7. My self, Dan, Timo and 6 others all charged downwind on what seemed a full on windsurf from Lanes past Mamas, Pi’ia bay and down to Sprecks. It was a tiny day for Ho’okipa but as I launched to head downwind, I managed to get a beating in the shorebreak!
SUP is a big thing on Maui. Downwinders from Maliko Gulch (the take-off point for jet-skis to Jaws) are really popular. I went with Frank Frobes from SUPsonic who took me downwind on a custom 7Kg F16 SIC bullet (on loan from Mark Rapahorst and costing $4000!)
The idea of the downwinder is to use the wind and swell to drive you downwind. Once you learn the paddle technique, you can ride swells and get super long rides (500m+). Mind you, I am not sure that I would attempt this run on a big day – we hit some pretty decent size waves in Pai’ia bay.
I had some great early morning sessions at Kanaha, on the South of the Island and on the reef at Camp One. I used the new Al Merrick 9’1 and had an epic session on it at Kanaha. I also tried the new Laird 10’6 Pearson Arrow.
Frank invited me to a SUP session (which I couldn’t make) at la Perouse Bay. Check out the photos on SUPGlobal.
OTHER MAUI PHOTOS
If you like the idea of taking 5 mega pixel photos and HD video of yourself while you are playing on the water, then you should check out GoPro Cameras.
What do you need?
This varies slightly depending on what you want to use it for. When you are making a video or taking photos, it always makes it more interesting to have a number of different angles. This can be achieved by getting different GoPro Camera mounts.
For all sports, you need a camera and a waterproof housing. A sensible way to start is with a GoPro Helmet Hero HD Camera and Housing. Along with an SD card to record your footage, this give you everything that you need to get started. The Helmet Hero package gives you everything that you need to mount that camera to a helmet or flat surface as well as the camera itself, a waterproof housing and a rechargeable lithium battery.
Surfing and SUP
If you want to use your GoPro for surfing and SUP then it’s worth checking out the GoPro Surfboard Mount accessory kit. As well as a decent sized sticky pad, this kit includes an FCS style plug mount that any board shaper or repairer can fit for you to the deck of your board.
Windsurfing
If you want to use your GoPro for windsurfing then a GoPro mast mount and GoPro boom mount can get some great angles. A GoPro board mount is also worth thinking about.
Kitesurfing
Thinking about using your GoPro camera for kitesurfing? The Kite Hero Kitesurfing mount attaches to your kite lines so that you can film and photograph yourself.
