Thursday 28 August 2014

PWA Tenerife.

   A bit delayed but I've been away on travels for the last month or so and haven't been able to sit down in front of the laptop. First stop on my travels was Tenerife as Lucy was due to compete in the PWA Ladies' fleet there. Having never been to El Cabezo before I was looking forward to this trip -2 full weeks of strong winds and port tack jumping, something I am pretty unfamiliar with but was very keen to practise. In the end I was very disappointed with what we got. I believe we were a little unlucky with the wind (we got 4 days underpowered on 5.6 and 3 days powered up on 5.0 out of 14), but the spot itself was nothing like I had imagined. Maybe I'm just spoilt having spent the last 20 years on Fuerte! Despite that, it was very interesting to get a behind-the-scenes perspective of my first PWA event in 15 years or so - the level is really high in those very average cross-on conditions, great to watch the guys busting out the moves, and it was also great to catch up with old friends and make lots of new ones. It was also interesting to certain competitors hotly disputing the judges' final decisions after heats, I'm sure that never happened back in the day ;) .

     Anyway, all in all a very poor windsurf trip for me, and Lucy's competition didn't go that great either, losing in the first round in what I would say were totally uncompetable conditions then drawing the rising star of women's wavesailing Sara-Quita in the double elimination, where she sailed very well but was still beaten fair and square by the freestyle world champ, who coincidentally was one of the nicest, most genuine people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

    Oh well. Here are a few crappy photos of mine and Lucy's last ever windsurf trip to Tenerife (mine definitely)...









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