How these guys manage close to 40 knot 500m in these conditions is beyond me!!!



Results and images here: www.fuerteventura-worldcup.org/

GO SLOWIE!

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Comptetition is fierce !!

mineral1 said...

Interesting to see that all are wearing buoyancy jackets, or life vests regardless of water depth
Wonder what the brand and supplier is?

????????????? They look like weight jackets to me under the sponsors bibs.

looks like chris was without one. I guess the excess baggage on 10kg of lead on a round the world ticket would have been a bit much.

porka said...

How these guys manage close to 40 knot 500m in these conditions is beyond me!!!

Big sail, small board, lots of strength and maybe an overgrip...

edit: Oh yeah.. I forgot to mention, lots of skill.

yoyo said...

windsurfjournal.perfect-ride.com/fue08-09.mp4

and

windsurfjournal.perfect-ride.com/fue08-11.mp4

For some cool video of Sotovento action. Last one has some nice footage of Antoine skipping over the chop like it is not even there.

sick_em_rex said...

How come Finian never smiles? In ALL the video I have ever seen of the guy he is never smiling, EXCEPT for when he broke the record. All other times it's Mr Grumpy. I thought Irish people were meant to be a happy lot? Has losing the record affected him that much! Whereas Antoine is Mr Smiley and so is Bjorn and anyone else for that matter.

It's cause he's not in the Mandurah Mob and he's yet to discover the dark pleasure of sailing with a weedy

Bender said...

The big fella would smile constantly if he got to see Elmo peform one of his famous dismounts in the middle of gybing, Blasting,water starting, walking, talking, typing

I'll have to be careful about not complaining to Slowie about a lumpy track at Man or Pt Walter when he gets back.

Clearly, fins need to work in zero to double shock loads

Suicide Alley?

40kt 500's in that

Actually YoYo, I have been wondering about this and will give this a go in situations when I need to sail off broad into the chop. Due to my accident I am a bit nervous about going for it through the rough stuff whilst hooked in I understand that you need to keep as much downward pressure on the mast base to maintain control, and I think you see this in the vid by Valerie hanging a bit more off the boom I think, although only slightly, I dont know what her normal speed sailing style is.

I see that slowie has scored another 9th place,taking him to 12th overall and onto the first results page.
Sure looks like fun..or fear..or something starting with F...

Jacques Van Der Hout rides Carbon Art and he is 11th.

Try this one out - www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&smnu=sessions&uid=2814

yeah it was interesing...

Jaques was riding the 44 the whole time. It was quite windy. He was the dutch champion back in the early '90s so is no slouch. He also imports JP and NP in the netherlands. He got a couple of speed boards from JP but did not bring them to Fuerte. He was going really fast. But suffered a bit. He did one massive crash and broke his mast with his nose . AA also broke a couple of masts doing big wipeouts. There was so much broken stuff it was insane. I broke some battens (4) before the start of the event getting dumped in the shorebreak. Lets just say that didnt help. They werent totally broken so I kept sailing. I fixed them all for the 5th round and gee- I started doing a lot better (4th). Got smashed in the 6th round in 35kts+ wind with the 6.6m... was quite unwell at that point (again) so didnt have the energy (+lazy?) to rig the 5.8m. Should have considered it earlier when FM and AA are both on 6.2 and the other guys who did well were on 5.8s. By the last round my board weighed in at 9kg due to the hole in it that I didnt notice. The SP40 was a bit too small for the 6.6m in that chop so I had to use the heavy one. I thought it was the wet sand all over it. Should be dried out by Karpathos (4 plane flights will suck all the water out). Anyway, finishing with a 9th in the last round was OK to get me up a few euro in the final result.

Overall pretty happy given the conditions... Weight seemed to be the king again. The top guys were all wearing plenty of lead. I had to opt for wet sand, which did not cut it. 2kg sand is no match for 12kg of lead

Just rememember the up an down theory. May the force be with u champ. U have it in u! GOOD LUCK!

yes there is a rule, but I havent see it being enforced.ever- even at the canal (apparently AA was wearing 2 weight jackets- he canhold it cos his arms are thicker than my legs) Too much on the organisers plates. Some of their equipment got drowned in the high tides on the last days. The waves were crashing righyt next to the containers- 2km from the event tent. a few guys managed to secure all the rigs that were left there when competitors went out to lunch. A big chain of about 20 rigs tied together with bits of downhaul rope, all washing and bobbing round in the soup. We only had 3 containers for everyones rigs (60people). It was total carniage.