Saturday 28 May 2011

Rest n Recuperation.

It´s been fairly windless since my last post (there were a couple of half-decent days), which is good news for my ongoing shoulder injury. The past week has been glorious weather, calm and hot, and there has been a great swell, quite unusual for this time of year. I´ve been out on the SUP every day this week in some fanatastic conditions at Majanicho and Rocky Point. The wind is supposed to pick up now so I think it´s time to hang up the SUP for summer. On the last day of no wind, I tried to do some video by balancing the camera on the dashboard while I was out and hoping it caught some of the rides- the results were not too bad, although the quality is poor as we were quite far out and I had to zoom on maximum and guess where I´d be. It was probably the worst day of the week, pretty choppy and a bit of wind, and I felt a bit out of control but here´s the footage...

.....wicked fun. Looks like I should be getting some windsurfing again soon, pray the shoulder holds out...

Friday 20 May 2011

Vulcanville!
















Two weeks ago (yeah, two weeks before I got the chance to sit down and write it up on my computer, what a slacker) I spent a few days with Ville from sunny Finland! He can only sail there for 6 months of the year, due to the ice and lack of sunlight, so he came over to our warmer climes to try and crack the vulcan and open the door to more freestyle moves. He has struggled with the manouevre for quite a while now so the challenge was to re-program him, get rid of his old (bad)habits, and send him on his way to vulcan-success!


As usual, the wind didn´t want to play along with our finely-laid plans and we ended up having only one real good vulcan-training session from the four days we had together (very atypical for the time of year, especially down in Sotavento). However, we made great progress in that one day and he gave it 110% all day so that, by twilight, his technique had changed drastically and he was starting to slide instead of the magnificent head-plants he was wooing us with earlier.
He got better and better as the day went on until fatigue stopped play, and we headed home safe in the knowledge that he would be sailing out of his first vulcan the very next day........
.....unless, of course we arrived at Centre 2 and there were head-high waves rolling in along the entire length of the beach, which is (obviously) precisely what happened. Yep, conditions were totally un-ideal for vulcans, but, fortunately, they proved perfect for an introduction to wavesailing- perfect for learning to bottom turn and cutback, something which Ville admits he was leaving for the distant future. In the end, despite the disappointment of not finishing our vulcan project, he had a great sail as we blasted along waves together, and probably learnt as much on this day as any other. He was grinning like a cheshire cat when we finally trudged back to the centre to give his gear back after a four-hour waveathon!

He has since reported (from tropical Finland) that he is now right on the verge of sailing away from his first vulcan!

I managed to get a couple of stunts in myself on the last day, before my shoulder pain made sailing impossible again. I´m now planning to take a total break until my next classes in June to give the arm a chance to recover properly, instead of sailing around injured and under- achieving big-time. Hopefully, a few weeks of rest (and SUP) will sort it out and I may still be able to salvage something from this year freesailing-wise. Here are a couple of pics from the Sunday, taken by the lovely Kati...



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