Friday 21 May 2010

Ash Cloud Sessions.



Well, the wind has been good to us over the past week, even if the dreaded ash cloud has been busy keeping everyone away from our shores (it´s certainly been quieter on the water, which is not bad news for the locals!). A few days of good strong northeasterlies saw some good days at Punta with some epic evening sessions to be had at Cotillo with the falling tide. Young Willis was ripping there last week, landing goiters back on the wave (at last) and pulling off effortless takas on the clean head-high waves. My takas at Punta are getting more consistent now I´m pleased to report- it´s taken a while but I´m pretty much there.







For the last few days the wind turned north so we had some nice sessions at Glass in small waves. I think I mentioned in a previous post the versatility of the modern freestyle boards and to prove it I enlisted Gibson senior, who is here on his hols, to shoot some pics of me sailing my JP 98l Freestyle in the waves at Glass yesterday. These boards really are great fun to sail in almost any conditions, and are a very handy tool indeed for those small wave days when you just want to get out there and do a bit of everything- I really can´t recommend them enough!


The wind has finally dropped off a bit now so it´s time for some much needed R n R with the parents....................




Sunday 2 May 2010

Better late than never.

Well, at last the wind has arrived! One of the worst Aprils I can remember has been partially saved by a week of wind. Strong N-NE means Punta, Cotillo and Glass have all been working great. I spent 3 days with Dave, Barry and Paul fron the emerald isle, who were lucky enough to arrive at the same time as the wind (and just after the dispersal of the dreaded volcanic ash!).
We got some great sessions in, two at Punta as an intro to wavesailing, one at Flag and a full day down south to tweak those carve gybes. It was great to see the boys progress as the week went on, both in technique and confidence in the big stuff at Punta. Conditions there were fairly challenging with 20+ kts and 3m waves, but the lads got to grips with it and were all comfortably flying with the rest of us by the end of the last day.

The wind is still blowing as I write this so I´m off to Punta to (hopefully) finally crack the taka. I´ve been getting much closer to getting them consistently and yesterday was my best day yet, sailing out of 6 clean ones so I´ve got high hopes for today (just cursed it right there, I reckon). Maybe I can get someone to hold of the camera for a bit, hint hint. I´ll leave you with a few pics I took of Machel and Jaume from yesterday while I was having a much-need time-out...........





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