Saturday 17 April 2010

Forwards, forwards...............




Just had a fantastic few days with the two Thomases from Belgium, who came over with the intention of mastering that old devil, the forward loop! Despite being probably the worst April I can remember on the island for wind, we scored three good days at Punta with SW wind (port tack, which proved ideal for the Thomases as that´s what they mainly sail at home). The boys had a good level of sailing already and were incredibly motivated to learn forwards. Their motivation and commitment meant that they both cracked it in record time, despite having never even attempted one before. Within an hour of the start of their first sessions, they had pulled it off and waterstarted away from their first ever forwards, opening a whole new avenue of pleasure to their windsurfing! I had one extra session with Thomas 1 (the other one went kitesurfing, grrrrrr), and he was pulling them high and clean by the end of day 3. As a coup de grace at the end of the day, he nailed an ankle-dry, mast-high stalled forward right in front of me, awesome. I reckon he´s still grinning now.
Well done to both the boys, proof that it can be mastered in no time at all with the right attitude! I´ll leave you with a clip of Thomas 1 on his first run on day 2...........




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.............