Who says you can´t teach an old dog new tricks?.............................

Boys n toys..............

Well, they´re here at last, the 2010 JP boards have arrived!!!!!!!! This is my quiver of boards for the coming season. This year I will be using the 98 litre Freestyle Pro and the 84 litre Twinser Wave Pro. I have already had one session on the 98l and was amazed! It planes alot earlier than my freestyle board from last year (partly due to the fact that last year I was using the slightly heavier construction), even with my small (17cm) fin. The main thing I noticed when sailing was that the volume distribution seems to have been shifted slightly aft, making the tail more buoyant than last year- brilliant for heavier guys like myself. My manouevres were nice and clean and more controlled than before, even after just 15 minutes on the board! The other difference is the new deck shape, contoured to fit your feet! The ride was amazingly comfortable, and landings from big shakas, which can sometimes be a touch on the heavy side(!?), were much lighter and less of an impact! All in all, first impressions are fantastic- I was expecting to be blown away by this board as my last year´s board was the best freestyle board I had ever set foot on and I knew the Pro model would be even better, but it has already surpassed my expectations! Can´t wait to get out there again!

Well, the blog has been fairly quiet but I haven´t! The summer trades are tailing off now but I´m still pretty busy with clinics, alot of beginners´courses at the lagoons in Cotillo too!
Last week was an intermediate (chophop and carve gybe) clinic with Stephen Keane from Dublin. The wind was looking flukey in the north so we (I) made the executive decision to head down to Sotavento for strong wind and flat water. When we arrived on the first day I was surprised to see perfect head-high rollers breaking all along the sandy beach with 25kts! Perfect for wavesailing (and ponches- see vid)......................

Mast tip ponch from Stephen Gibson on Vimeo.

.............but not so perfect for our carve gybe clinic! In the end, it worked perfectly as an introduction to wavesailing for Stephen, who quickly got to grips with the conditions (amazingly so as he had never sailed in waves before and the conditions were tricky to say the least), growing noticeably in confidence over the next few days.

To cap off a fantasic week he sailed out of his first ever planing carve gybe on the last day and did his first (pretty high) chophop! I´d say he´s still smiling now, back in rainy Ireland, haha!