Friday 16 May 2014

Flat water cruising..

After a few good days of waves at Glass it went flat but remained windy so I had a day on my freestyle kit, filming some old school freestyle moves for the DVD. Some of those tricks I haven't tried in about 10 years but I wanted to stick them on the DVD as they are great fun (and pretty easy) to learn compared to the new school freestyle stuff. I had great fun cruising around and busting out willy skippers, push tacks and backwind gybes and I made a little edit of some of the stuff I don't need for my video. Check it out...

Sunday 11 May 2014

Ponch (video)

I knew I wouldn't be able to resist! All that ponch footage lying around from my session at Glass filming for my instructional DVD, it seemed such a shame to waste it. I'd said to Lucy I wanted to get two decent ones on camera for my video but it ended up being so perfect for ponches (and air flakas and forwards) that I just kept going and, after landing a couple of nice one-handers, eventually started trying them no-handed. CRASH!!!!!! Great fun though, and great to share a session like that with Will Ward and Oisin Van Gelderen, spurring each other on like the good ol' days...enjoy.

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Summer's here...

It certainly does feel like summer has truly arrived with the first true strong northerlies and great conditions at Glass for the last few days. The waves were good for the first couple of days, although not particularly big, but they have dwindled to nothing now so I'm looking forward to the wind turning NE tomorrow and heading back to Punta for some starboard. On the downside, crowding was an issue which is a bad sign this early in the season and it also seems that Glass Beach has become an en vogue k***surfing spot- I counted 38 windsurfers and 10 kites out on Friday while I was videoing Lucy. When it gets that busy I just grab my freestyle board and go jumping on the point and let the masses fight with each other (see previous post). Here are a few pics from the wave session before it got mega-crowded...




Saturday 3 May 2014

Poncharelli.

No, I'm not about to write a post about the cheeky Mexican traffic cop from the 70s series C.H.I.P.S, it was jus a lame attempt at a title regarding the ponch session I had at Glass yesterday. Awesomwe fun. I had my good friend Oisin over for the first time in way too long and we had a wavesailing session in the morning then an hour of jumping- ponches and air flakas mainly, when it got too busy on the point. I'm still busy collecting video footage for my instructional DVD so was lucky enough to get some on camera which I may make into a short vid in the near future and stick on here. It was great fun blasting out to the point and smacking the perfect ramps. I got some really nice one-handers so decided to try them no-handed- took a couple of attempts to get the courage to get both hands off mid-ponch but when I did I was surprised to land very close to the boom! I didn't claim any yesterday but I got one when I took off my back hand then my front hand but subconsciously grabbed the boom again with the back hand so it was never truly one-handed. I reckon it's doable though. God bless my titanium hip....In the meantime, I took some frame grabs from the video footage and three's a couple of nice pics of Oisin ponching

, check them 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.............