Friday, 4 July 2014

Surfdock Clinic 2014

       Again, I have been absent for a while but this time was not due to either injury or inactivity. Quite the opposite, I have been so busy it's been impossible to get time to update the blog. The reason being clinic season has kicked off and first up were the boys from Surfdock for their annual wave clinic. They left on Tuesday and it was such a blur of wind and waves it's impossible for me to write a blow-by-blow account now. Suffice to say we got seven days sailing out of seven, straight from the airport to Punta Blanca on arrival day, then we sailed a pleasant mix of places - Glass Beach, Waikiki, Sotavento and Punta for the rest of the week.

        Everyone had an absolute ball. We had sailing every day, meals out and quiet nights in at their luxury villa after long days at the beach. We were generally on the move at 9am and were getting back home from the beach around 9pm. Pretty sure they're all feeling the after-effects right now back in Ireland! The most satisfying part for me, apart from the fact that they all enjoyed themselves, was the progression I saw in their sailing from day 1 to the last day when we returned to Punta for the last session. Everyone was much more comfortable and adept in dealing with the conditions and their chosen manoeuvres. Basically the group was as follows; Cormac and Andreas - forwards and back loops, Andrew - jumping technique and Vulcans, Billy, Stephen and Keith - intro to waves, jumping, gybing and shortboard tacking. As I said, the manoeuvre training was a great success with Billy, Stephen and Keith gybing happily away while Cormac and Andreas dazzled us with some impressive, clean forwards. No back loops but super, super close! Cormac will have to wait another year for his fishburger ;) .

         Anyway, I could harp on and on but I think that's the gist of the clinic right there - great fun and great sailing with a great group of guys. Hope I see you all next year, I loved it! I'll leave you with a few pics from the week...

                                                       Gybe training in Waikiki





 
                              Jumping, looping, gybing, general wavesailing, Punta Blanca










 
                                                 Intro to waves / gybing, Glass Beach





                                            
                                                            Group love / bonding

                                    
 
So that's it for another year boys, thanks for a fantastic week and a massive thank you to Colin Harris of Surfdock Watersports in Dublin for organising the whole thing at his end (no easy task I'd imagine) and Keith for trying to get the lads out of bed in the mornings (mainly unsuccessfully), see you all next year for more of the same...
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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.............