Rising Star!

Not too long ago, about 18 months or so, I had the pleasure of teaching a wee youngster by the name of Alex Mitchell for a week (mainly forwards as I recall). The post is still on my blog in the archive. Not long after, Alex returned, staying in my house with myself and Caroline and I helped push him on towards much more advanced manouevres (flaka, ponch, spock 540 etc). Well, this year I met up with Alex in July down in Sotavento and sailed with him inbetween classes, and was very impressed with his progress since we had last sailed together. He was down there for a full month training and had wind pretty much every day. Anyway, the end result is that he went back to the UK and kicked ass in the freestyle nationals! Well done, Alex. I wish him every success for the future- you´ll never meet a more grounded, friendly young lad and he deserves to be hugely successful.
Check him out here http://www.boardseekermag.com/features/windsurfers/alex-mitchell-144.html

New Beginnings...

As you may or may not have noticed by the new background on the blog, I am glad to announce that I have now joined the Fanatic/ North/Ion team! I unveiled the new kit (and christened it) during the PuraVidaBoardriders group clinic which finished yesterday and was a huge success. I am absolutely delighted to be a part of the Fanatic set-up and am looking forward very much to the coming year, after having had the most amazing week with my new kit and some of the best students ever. I will be writng more about the clinic (and my new kit) when I have sifted through the million photos we took during last week... for now, check out the new toys, mmmm.

September Clinic!

Yeah, there´s just over a week to go til the rescheduled windsurf clinic (bloody ash cloud- remember that?) and there are still a couple of places left. It´s gonna be great fun- windsurfing all day then BBQs, nights out, pool comps and tons more going on. If you need any more info check out the details here
http://www.puravidaboardriders.co.uk/homenew/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=118:fuerteventura-windsurf-clinic-21st-april-2010&catid=1:latest-news .

Kit For Sale.

Neil Pryde Combat Wave 2010:

5.6m - 250 euros

5.om - 280 euros

4.5m - 280 euros

Neil Pryde The Fly 2009:

4.5m - 180 euros

Neil Pryde X-Combat RDM mast:

400 - 220 euros

370 - 220 euros

Oisin, the wind machine.

Yeah, it´s that time again, my good friend Oisin Van Gelderen came to stay for his annual dose of Fuerte magic last week and, despite an iffy forecast, we managed to sail every day of his stay, every day bar one at his fave spot Punta! It seems that whenever the big guy upstairs spots the name Van Gelderen on the Ryanair passenger list he sends a bit more wind our way.

I always look forward to his visit, it´s pretty much the highlight of my windsurfing year as we motivate each other on the water and devote the entire week to nothing except windsurfing- joy! This year was no exception and Oisin was ripping as usual (from dawn til dusk), making the most of every minute of daylight and consuming outrageous amounts of bocadillos and Red Bull in the process. A fantastic week of pure windsurfing hedonism, looking forward to next year´s visit already!

One-Handed Shaka.

PWA Freestyle.

As usual I headed down south to watch the freestyle world cup in Sotavento this week. I went down on Thursday, caught up with a few friends, and caught the first round of competition and a few of the guys warming up for their heats. Like always the windsurfing was super-impressive, even though the wind was a bit on the light side- I had actually been down the week before and sailed with some of the guys and seen what they are capable of in strong winds! Nevertheless the action was tiptop, and it was also noticeable that the number of spectators seemed to be up from previous years, so maybe the organisers will think twice about complaining of a lack of funding and cancelling the womens´event next year...........................
Anyway, here´s some of the action from that day caught on my shaky camcorder with my friend Stefan trying to put me off as much as possible. I apologise for the quality but you get the gist, hope you enjoy it.

PWA Freestyle Sotavento Day 1 from Stephen Gibson on Vimeo.

All work and no play......................

........ makes Jack a dull boy. Yeah, despite being real busy this whole summer I´ve still managed to find some time in between training sessions to bust out a couple of moves of my own. Check out the pics below snapped while Pablo and Carlos were having a wee breather on the beach.

Be Happy...........

Next up were Pablo and Carlos. Tired of blasting back and forth in their native Mallorca they basically wanted to learn anything that would open the door to the next level..........

We spent three days together and I put the boys through hell, haha, we sailed for 5 hours a session and both guys never stopped smiling for one second! They are two of the happiest, easy-going guys I have ever had the pleasure of sailing with- we spent a full session in Sotavento learning vulcans, and they both emerged after some pretty impressive crashes with big grins on their faces. the same at Punta on our last day when we did a forward loop clinic, smiles all round as they got to grips with a real serious manoeuvre! Fantastic!

Well, the good news is they are both well on their way now to the next level of sailing- forwards will be no problem now when they get some decent conditions back in Mallorca in autumn (brrrr, freezin, though) and they have taken their first steps towards freestyle moves with the vulcan. Well done guys. Wish I had a photo of Pablo´s forward loop from Saturday but hey..........

One year on...

Last week I had the pleasure of spending four days with Pat O´Brien from Cork who I taught to windsurf from scratch pretty much 1 year ago today. Pat has been in touch with myself from time to time and I was aware that he was improving very, very quickly, despite sailing only weekends and whatever freetime he could wangle. The fact is that Pat has come along amazingly in only one year, he taught himself to waterstart and is now starting to get going on a 104 ltr board, excellent stuff!

Well, he came back to me wanting to iron out some stance issues and make headway towards that Holy Grail of shortboard sailing, the carve gybe. We had some pretty challenging conditions while he was here (20-40 kts in Sotavento) but Pat dealt with it admirably and was blasting along down there with the best of them. His stance issues are gone now (see pic) and I´m pleased to report that he sailed out of a great carve gybe on his last day at Cotillo (nasty little shore break aswell), so he´s a happy man and, therefore, so am I.

It´s fantastic to see someone improve so much in such a short space of time- I´m full of admiration, it just shows what you can achieve with a little time and alot of determination. I´m absolutely certain that this time next year we´ll be looping together at Punta! Well done Pat.

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/3f4ff2ac

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/3f4ff2ac

Blast From The Past!

This week I got an unexpected visit from a good friend of mine, Scotty McDowall from Troon. We sailed together alot when I lived back in the UK- I´d check the forecast and drive the 2 1/2 hours up to the west coast of Scotland to sail (and party)with Scotty and his mates. Great folk, always making me feel welcome up there and showing me where to sail (and teaching me to jump properly, Scott). Anyway, I saw Scotty´s excellent video of his stay in SA http://www.boardseekermag.com/features/windsurfers/scott-mcdowall-122.html , and was well chuffed when he emailed a couple of weeks later telling me he´d booked to come over with the family. I missed half his stay as I was back in the UK but we still managed to sail together on the last couple of days at Glass. I hadn´t seen Scotty for 15 years + and it was magic to get back on the water with him and see that he´s still ripping as much as ever (and still jumping smoother than me). Conditions were very average- pretty flat and flukey wind but we had a blast, just like old times but without the 5/3 winter suits! My friend Bob sent me a couple of shots of the second day, none of Scott though. Oh well, he´s famous enough anyway................

Forward loop part 2- the second coming!

My friend Thomas from Belgium has just paid a return visit to our little island, his main aim this time being to crack forward loops on starboard. You may remember he came over in April and was a total star, nailing forwards on his more comfortable port tack in record time, eventually sailing away from some big, stalled ones. Awesome.
Well, we got some great wind but, unfortunately, at the start of the week it was all northerlies so we sailed Glass and Sotavento with wind from the left. On these days we worked on carving 360s(and one-handed 360s!), heli tacks and spin loops off chop, all of which he typically learnt with ease (although I´m sure he´ll have scars on his shins forever now from the 500 360s on the first day at Glass!).
For the last two days the wind turned northeast and we headed over to Punta for the much-awaited forward sessions. Despite being fairly doubtful as to his chance of success due to never having even jumped on starboard before, we built up to it and eventually did two hours on the last day of full-on forward looping, resulting in Thomas waterstarting out of four decent forwards and sailing away dry from a fantastic one right towards the end of the day! Once again, incredible progress in such a short space of time and proof that commitment is the key to learning any manoeuvre-we sailed for an average of four hours every day and Thomas never wilted at any time, always listening and giving 100%. It was great to sit on the beach at Punta on the last day and watch Thomas cruise out, pop a forward then carve a planing 360 on the face of a wave then head out back to helicopter tack, smiles all round......... hopefully I´ll have some pics and maybe even some video to put up soon but the forward loop, especially the last, perfect one will have to remain as a memory as we weren´t filming at all that day. Good times.
I´ll leave you now with a short vid that Thomas put together of his second day in April, remember two days earlier this guy had never tried a forward in his life, enjoy...........

Final preparations..........

Just got back from a friend´s wedding on the mainland, still recovering from the excesses of a week´s partying! Still, managed to get a nice little sesh in at Glass this afternoon- 25kts, logo high sets, it certainly helped to wash away the post-hol blues!

The day before I left we got some pretty good sailing at Punta and it was evident that the boys are gearing themselves up for the upcoming Get High Or Die Sequel. Everyone was going big and trying new stunts, good to watch. I sailed rubbish so took to the rocks with my camera and got some good pics of Willis punishing himself with repeated double attempts, check out the sequence below.....

Hats off to that man! We are keeping an eye on the forecast now and the competition is imminent, hopefully in the next couple of weeks so watch this space.................

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

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...........

Forwards, forwards...............

Just had a fantastic few days with the two Thomases from Belgium, who came over with the intention of mastering that old devil, the forward loop! Despite being probably the worst April I can remember on the island for wind, we scored three good days at Punta with SW wind (port tack, which proved ideal for the Thomases as that´s what they mainly sail at home). The boys had a good level of sailing already and were incredibly motivated to learn forwards. Their motivation and commitment meant that they both cracked it in record time, despite having never even attempted one before. Within an hour of the start of their first sessions, they had pulled it off and waterstarted away from their first ever forwards, opening a whole new avenue of pleasure to their windsurfing! I had one extra session with Thomas 1 (the other one went kitesurfing, grrrrrr), and he was pulling them high and clean by the end of day 3. As a coup de grace at the end of the day, he nailed an ankle-dry, mast-high stalled forward right in front of me, awesome. I reckon he´s still grinning now.

Well done to both the boys, proof that it can be mastered in no time at all with the right attitude! I´ll leave you with a clip of Thomas 1 on his first run on day 2...........

Epic Sessions

I love this time of year over here! In the past week I have had some amazing sailing. La Caleta (shared with Bill, on a clinic) a great down-the-line sesh and super lucky to get out at just the right time for the wind and waves- I think Bill will remember that one for quite some time. Port-tack and logo high with perfect wind for 5.2, wicked. Then on Sunday I watched the Fuerte Wave Classic at Bristol, some great waveriding going down, check out their pics on the web www.fuertewaveclassic.com/2010/ . At 4pm, with the wind still NNW I decided to have a sail myself and went over to Lobos where I scored one of the best starboard tack riding sessions I´ve had in years- and only 4 other people out! Today was Flag, perfect head to logo sets for jumping and riding on the reef, loads of stunts from some very talented local boys, another incredible day to rememeber. I love this place! This weekend looks like Punta will be the place with strong NE and medium swell, but I´ll miss it as I´m back in the UK for my birthday bash. Oh well, you´re only 21 once..............................

The Storm Before The Calm..............

Well, the storm has passed completely now, and we are left with clear blue skies and total calm again, time for a wee breather. I reckon the northeasterlies will be along pretty soon to signal the start of spring (probably the best season here for wind and waves) so I´m going to rest this aching old body now (at the beach, haha) in preparation! In the meantime, check out some pics I got from the last day of SW wind at Punta.......