RUBELLI Oceanic & Australian
Formula Windsurfing Championships
meet (Friday Jan 25th)

The next meet on the calender for the windwanderers will be something a little different. We are having a FRIDAY meet and joining in at the 2008 FW Australia and Oceanics competition. Friday is the last day of the competition for the oceanics so we are sure to get to witness some of the best sailors in the world ripping.

The event is at Sutton's Beach, Redcliffe. It is not everyday that we get events of this calibre in our back yard so the day looks to be one not to miss. The website for the event is http://www.fw-australia.com/ . check it out for more details.

What's on.

1. the WindWanderers social bbq (sponsored by the club).

also

2. the FE+ class that everyone can enter which will have you lined up alongside the pros but sailing a shorter distance. seperate prizes etc on offer. see the signon team on the day.
3. Hive Swimwear fashion parades and beach stall
4. surfconnect demo gear.

Sutton's is a great venue with plenty to offer all sailors. sandy beaches, landscaped rigging areas and lots of facilities. Come along, have a sail, enter a race or spectate and get to see the worlds best put on an amazing display on the water.

all in all we intend another fun filled and relaxing club outing.

cheers
Justin B.

Gotta love those snady beaches!

(I have temporarily changed my avatar to a photo of Dr Harry Snady in tribute to this most excellent venue.)

gotta stop drinking coffee. i type faster than i think.


ahhhh. that's better i replaced snady with sandy.

Hey Justin,

I this something us beginners should bring a board along for a sail (not race)?

Hey Daneli,

suttons can be bumpy when the wind gets into it. so it will really depend on wind strength. anyhting over 8 knots and i'd say you will struggle due to swell size. If the conditions are good i'll definately help you on the water and pick up from the last meet.

i'd say don't leave home without the gear. when i sail suttons i always take 2 boards. my formula and my wave. it's that type of place.

the meet is going to be the usual social thing, bbq, windsurf etc. those that want to race will be able to join in the formula experience +. those that don't can do some freesailing along side the pros.

look forward to seeing you there. i might even beg to take your kit for a spin.

cheers
justin.

The kids gear that you had at the last meet...does that belong to Windwanderers? Will u bring it on Friday?

Hi SC,

yes the starboard kids rig belongs to the windwanderers. the team at starboard are sponsors of the club and helped us with getting more kids on board by making a rig available to us.

the rig is now a permanent fixture of the gear library so it is available to all members. actually for next season i am looking into a board as well.

after we used the rig at the women's meet one of the families borrowed it from the library. i actually think they are in redcliffe.

if you would like it for a while i'll organise something. if you do decide to grab it let me know. i would prefer to be involved in the first session so i can provide appropriate tuition.

for eg, start position, go position, steering etc.

drop me a line.

cheers
justin.

Hi guys, luckily the winds will be a little calmer on Friday than we had today.. 25-30 knots all day with gusts over 35 knots at times!

Friday should be a nice easy 15 knots. Redcliffe is suitable for beginners definitely, but maybe "first time" on the board might be a little tricky as there is a little bit of chop even with the light winds and the beach gets deep very quickly.

Hoping to see a lot of the WW guys down on Friday anyhow. A great opportunity to see some of the world's best professional windsurfers in action on the course.

Checkout www.fw-australia.com for some pics of today's action. Cheers.

Regarding the pictures Sean, I think there was a bit of overkill on the HIVE promotion.
It's only fair that you take just as many photos of RUBELLI leather lounges tomorrow.
Either that or just as many pics of hot, barely clad, single, male windsurfers.

Don't worry, there'll be as much male skin out if the sun "actually" comes to play this week ;)

Haha, I just realised it does look like a swimwear catalogue rather than a windsurfing event. The reason for that is that there's actually a heap more photos still to come (including some shots of the guys crazy enough to go sailing in the arvo) however I only had access to the photos from our event photographer at my disposal when I first posted the galleries (he was only there during the parades due to other work commitments, hence only photos of the beach proceedings and not sailing).

I just put a few more photos up that I got sent (note the time I am posting this) but I will have to wait until I am emailed the rest of the photos before I can post them. It should look a little more balanced when they're all uploaded... :)

Now that the fun stuff today is over, we'll only be focused on racing now. Forget the tents, tunes and other distractions, its serious racing time tomorrow!

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surfinchick said...

Regarding the pictures Sean, I think there was a bit of overkill on the HIVE promotion.
It's only fair that you take just as many photos of RUBELLI leather lounges tomorrow.
Either that or just as many pics of hot, barely clad, single, male windsurfers.

spoil-sport...!

sorry surfinchick,

i exercised my power to vote and gave you one thumbs down for that post.

i thought the photos were very balanced.

sean any idea if the webcam will be running

see you all firday?

I am working on the day off work on Friday to come and meet you all and hopefully get out for a sail.

What time does the meet kick off?

The webcam and a few other things I wanted to do with the event have simply not happened due to the small manpower we have at our disposal... ie, I ran out of time to get things like that setup.

It's been a little hard to have computers setup at the beach 24/7 with the strong winds (and a few rain spots on Tuesday) we've had in the past few days.

A lot of the things we've done with this event we are hoping to put towards doing on a grander scale at next year's Nationals in Sydney. So far I think the event has been a big success... everyone really enjoyed the racing today (more about that on the other post).

Hi Justin,

Is there any time planned to meet up at Suttons tomorrow?

We have the skipper's meeting (race briefing) at 11am and racing from 12pm. Typically we are finishing racing by 3:30pm ... so if you are there between 12-3pm you'll see some action at least...

cheers Sean,

good to see the event is still pumping. i spoke to some of the competitiors tonight and they have had a ball.

see everyone at the beach tomorrow. i am aiming to get there about 11am.

was a great meet at redcliffe, even though it was a work day we had about 10 guys and girls come along to join in. excellent turn out i reckon.

watching the starts was excellent, the pack was always split between port and starboard. both heading straight at each other at full speed.

steve allen really showed why he is the top man when it comes to formula, impressive stuff.

thanks Sean and crew for working so hard to get the event in qld. you all did a fantastic job. the location was perfect and from a spectators point of view it all ran vey smoothly.

congrats.

Thanks Justin,

The event ran pretty smoothly (more smoothly than I expected) and speaking to everyone on the beach who competed - everyone had a great time.

I worked pretty hard to get all the press releases out each day and photos up on the website (eek!) but as a result I got emails streaming in all week from people all over the world asking about what fins all the guys were using and giving me kudos about the event - that was great!

I think formula sailing is still really alive in Australia and hopefully it has fired up the QLD guys to do some more racing up here...

Thanks for bringing the WW crew down. I had a chat to a few people and they thought it was pretty cool to see the likes of Steve Allen and Jesper Vesterstrom full tilt on port dodging the starboard guys out of the startline!

Cheers~!

I'm sure there would have been more of us there if it wasn't a work day.

no worries notwal. i understand the logistics

we'll try and do more of this type of thing. it's was a really fun day.

Looked like fun Sean made me want to jump on the big gear and have ago.
Shame it was during the week oh well.
ta vando

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vando said...

Looked like fun Sean made me want to jump on the big gear...

I'll hold you to that mate!!