Saturday 14th January 2011

Below you'll find a selection of photo's from Saturday morning session at Vazon. It was a classic weekend made all the better by the lack of surfers in the water. Unfortunately we didn't get any shots of the Sunday session but if you think these look good? - Sunday was even better!
Thanks to Pierre Bisson for all the photos www.gsyphoto.com

The motley crew....
Marshan..looking seriously happy
Phil....nice sails

Yours truly

Oly...style master

Harty...back in action

Heavy!

The President....sliding it off the top

Jas.....mind that foot!!!

Chris.....re-entry

Whoops!...

Weekend to remember!!!

It was a weekend to remember in more ways than one.
Firstly, due to the sad loss of our fellow windsurfing friend Jamie Whalley on 11th Jan we decided to have a get together at Vazon and have a sail in remembrance of the good old times that we spent down the beach with Jamie. As if by some sort of act of God it also coincided with a pumping westerly swell and perfect cross off conditions.
This gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my new 87 lt Naish Tri-fin wave board. The board is a good size for those marginal days when the waves are good and the wind is a little fickle. The board tapers quite narrow into the tail and thus turns really smooth even in single fin configuration. Great for snappy off the tops and re-entries. As the session progressed my confidence was growing all the time until I eventually took it too far on a big one and went over the falls with my kit. Hanging onto the boom as I got rinsed I popped up from the white water to discover that the rail had been crushed probably by the mast as I was getting dragged over the falls.
Gutted, this was the second time that I had done my kit some damage in less than a couple of days as I had bust my mast a couple of days earlier and holed my wave sail.
As you can see from the photos she's in the repair shop with my mate and master craftsman Steve Mellors who is hopefully going to perform some moments of magic and bring her back to life.
I've posted a couple of photos of the board looking in a sorry state but fingers crossed she'll be looking like new ready for the next cross-off session :-)

Ouch.....!

Very sad news

Tragically a friend and windsurfing buddy, Jamie Whalley was killed in an Avalanche in Val d'isere on Tuesday morning. He was a great guy and well known and liked by all who knew him. This Saturday at 10am some Guernsey windsurfers will be meeting at Vazon bay to have a windsurfing session in memory of him. Condolences go to his family during this very hard time. He was a great guy, always happy and smiling and good fun to be with! He will be missed.

Please take a look at Matt and Phil's blogs for further tributes-

vivelabreeze.blogspot.com

funautical.blogspot.com

First Session of 2011!!

Location-Vazon beach
Sail size-Naish 5.3 Force
Board-Naish 87ltr tri-fin wave board
Conditions-cross-off, 2 foot!!!

Doesn't sound very exciting but it doesn't take much to get the boys fired especially when you take into account the severe drought that we've experienced over the last 2 months!!
It had been blowing pretty hard for most of the morning but the swell forecast for the day wasn't great so I wasn't expecting much when I arrived at Vaz at 1.30pm. My old friend Harty had already been in and was just getting out when I arrived down the beach. To say it was small was an understatement but there were signs of a small swell and it was definitely windy and Dr Stark was going in for a quick half hour and I'd thought I'd join him and keep him company.
As the tide dropped the wind got stronger and the swell was improving all the time. The new board was going a treat. I had it in the tri-fin set up and she was feeling sweet. It is sooo loose but then again when you see the size of the fins you can understand why. As time went on a few more of the boys turned up. Phil, Matt, Stu and Dave had all come down to make the most of the cross-off wind and small waves that were now rolling in. Even though the swell was small the crew were whacking out some fine aerials just in the shallows. We all came in around 4.30pm and were fully stoked with the afternoons session. The forecast for the remainder of the week is looking good so fingers,toes and eyes crossed for some more fun later in the week!
On a final note Phil (North) Warry has now got a blog up and running-check it out at http://funautical.blogspot.com - Nice!

Pembroke session

Well, we've been stuck in this northerly airstream for a couple of weeks now and it's all looking pretty grim outside. The seasonally cold weather doesn't normally arrive until the start of New Year so to have it in November has been a right old kick in the knackers. I even thought about getting the kite and board out the other day and trying some snow kiting before the thaw started to knock any of these ideas on the head. I think that the next time we get a big dump of snow we'll definitely have to try out some snow kiting antics! Yesterday the wind backed to the south west and myself and a few of the guys managed a Vaz windsurf but even that was pretty dire. It didn't stop raining and the wind was really fickle which made for a crap session. The only good session we had was last night down the Rockmount pub with Charlie and the windsurf crew which turned out to be a right old piss up!!
The forecast is showing northerlies for the rest of this week but no snow which is a bonus so if the wind picks up then it could be worth trying some kiting if it's not too cold.
Below you'll find some photos of myself and Dan Armsden giving it what for at Pembroke a couple of weeks a go which were kindly taken by our resident photographer-Steve Smith-cheers mate!

Vaz has been rocking lately!

Well the last couple of weeks have been pretty good here on Guernsey. We've had a series of deep depressions tracking through giving us some great wave sailing action at Vazon and Perell. For the moment it's gone a little quiet as a high pressure system moves in but the wind will be switching to a more northerly direction at the weekend and hopefully giving us some workable conditions at Pembroke/Lancresse. The only downside to this however is it will be probably f$#!"ing freezing! Lets hope that this is just a short blip and the wind will return to our favoured and more tropical direction in the Sou-west. Here are a few photos taken by Steve Smith of Starky (Hotsails) and Briggsy (Point7) getting to grips on the last wave session at Vaz...

CI Champion!

Last weekend saw four of Guernsey's hardcore wave sailors travel to their sister Island of Jersey to compete in an inter-island wave competition organised by Justin Horton and crew of the Jersey Association of Windsurfing.

We caught the last ferry on Friday evening and arrived in Jersey around 19.30 and checked into our hotel shortly after. We spent that evening in the bar accompanied by a couple of Jersey sailors, chilling out discussing the weather and each others sailing ability and generally talking up a good sail as you tend to do after a few sherberts!

The next day we were up reasonably early and after a good fry up were on the road to St Ouens bay to be greeted by the Jersey boys and a fresh westerly wind. The swell was pretty small and the wind was bang onshore at Le Rocco so we decided to head up to Big Verns where the wind would be more favourable.

The format was a 40minute expression session with your best 5 jumps and wave rides scoring to the overall points. Everyone was on the water around 11.30 and the competition was on. The 5.3 was the sail of choice and as soon as the flag was up we were hit by a massive rain squall. The wind settled down after 5 mins but conditions were tricky due to the onshore wind which meant we were able to jump on both tacks and also get some ok back side wave riding.

We all came in after the heat, de-rigged and headed to the Splash for some well deserved food and drink.

As there were two trophies up for grabs it was decided to run another expression session in the afternoon on the rising tide.

Kick off this time was 14.30 and the 4.7 was the sail which everyone seemed to be opting for this time as the wind was building and the swell was getting bigger. The wind had also gone around a bit more to the NW which gave us a bit more direction sailing out but this also meant starboard tack jumping which was not our favourite. Never less the prevailing conditions gave us some great jumping and I managed to get some good forwards and back loops but the waves were getting heavy and starting to hit logo high. Everyone was finding the sailing difficult and the shore dump was particularly gnarly. Getting caught inside made it hard to get out again and I got pummelled a couple of times. Matt Le P was caught on the inside and trashed his "indestructible" Hot Sails 4.7!! ... luckily it was the end of the heat.

Everyone had a great session and were all feeling pretty shagged out after the long day.

We packed up the van drove back to the hotel, showered, re-couped some energy and headed off to the yacht club for the prize giving.

The overall results showed an undisputed win for the Guerns with myself taking 1st place, Matt Le P taking 2nd and Matt Stark taking 3rd. Richard Klein earned himself a very creditable 9th overall which was good seeing that he rarely is seen down in the surf at Vaz.

Thanks must go to the Jersey guys and girls for hosting and judging the event and we look forward to catching up again when they come to Guernsey in May for some Island Games training with the donkeys.