Friday 18 September 2009

Who says you can´t teach an old dog new tricks?.............................

Monday 14 September 2009

Boys n toys..............

Well, they´re here at last, the 2010 JP boards have arrived!!!!!!!! This is my quiver of boards for the coming season. This year I will be using the 98 litre Freestyle Pro and the 84 litre Twinser Wave Pro. I have already had one session on the 98l and was amazed! It planes alot earlier than my freestyle board from last year (partly due to the fact that last year I was using the slightly heavier construction), even with my small (17cm) fin. The main thing I noticed when sailing was that the volume distribution seems to have been shifted slightly aft, making the tail more buoyant than last year- brilliant for heavier guys like myself. My manouevres were nice and clean and more controlled than before, even after just 15 minutes on the board! The other difference is the new deck shape, contoured to fit your feet! The ride was amazingly comfortable, and landings from big shakas, which can sometimes be a touch on the heavy side(!?), were much lighter and less of an impact! All in all, first impressions are fantastic- I was expecting to be blown away by this board as my last year´s board was the best freestyle board I had ever set foot on and I knew the Pro model would be even better, but it has already surpassed my expectations! Can´t wait to get out there again!





Wednesday 9 September 2009

Well, the blog has been fairly quiet but I haven´t! The summer trades are tailing off now but I´m still pretty busy with clinics, alot of beginners´courses at the lagoons in Cotillo too!
Last week was an intermediate (chophop and carve gybe) clinic with Stephen Keane from Dublin. The wind was looking flukey in the north so we (I) made the executive decision to head down to Sotavento for strong wind and flat water. When we arrived on the first day I was surprised to see perfect head-high rollers breaking all along the sandy beach with 25kts! Perfect for wavesailing (and ponches- see vid)......................




Mast tip ponch from Stephen Gibson on Vimeo.


.............but not so perfect for our carve gybe clinic! In the end, it worked perfectly as an introduction to wavesailing for Stephen, who quickly got to grips with the conditions (amazingly so as he had never sailed in waves before and the conditions were tricky to say the least), growing noticeably in confidence over the next few days.


To cap off a fantasic week he sailed out of his first ever planing carve gybe on the last day and did his first (pretty high) chophop! I´d say he´s still smiling now, back in rainy Ireland, haha!




Welcome to the site!
Aswell as regular features and news updates from Fuerte, I am going to be using this site to promote my windsurfing clinics.
After 15 years on the island,having competed in the PWA freestyle world cup and now representing Fanatic Boards and North Sails, I have decided to give something back to the sport which has given me so much over the years.
My aim is to provide clinics "tailor-made"for each individual, with a strong emphasis on practical in-the-water instruction, backed up by on-the-beach tuition and video analysis. The consistent conditions here in Fuerte make learning so much easier and, perhaps equally important, more fun than the typically inconsistent, cold UK - why not come over for a week and improve your windsurfing by a year!!!

I can help with any manoeuvres from carve-gybe through to advanced jumping and freestyle, just email me with your wish list and we'll take it from there! Over the next few months, I am going to be video-chronicling manoeuvres which you can check out on the right in my tricktionary sections. This will give you some idea of the things we can work on, or, if you can't make it over here, you may find them useful to help understand and break down a manoeuvre you would like to learn (hopefully, the slow-mo will help in this respect!).Just click on the trick and scroll down..........
Anyway, keep checking it out as I have loads more in my bag of tricks and will be updating as and when I get the footage.
If you're interested, e-mail me on gibboinfuerte@yahoo.co.uk
See ya in Fuerte?
Stephen.............