Literally JUST getting off the plane from Europe I arrived back home to Brisbane and jumped in the car to drive 11 hours to Sydney for my first formula contest of the summer; the 2011 NSW Formula State Championships. All the guns were there, and this weekend I was doing a “full-Rick” (ie, using a completely brand new board, sail, mast, harness, fin, that I had never, ever used before) as I’d picked up a new 11.5 and 10.5 AC-1 ‘Handcrafted’ Series sail on the way home from Europe and had a new F167wide formula board sitting in the garage in the plastic for 2 weeks already before I got home. The wind was pretty light, and I managed to take 3 bullets from 3 starts winning one race by over 2 minutes on completely new gear and an old fin I found in the garage (happened to be a sweet one though!). Certainly great to come home to a win, and certainly great that my gear is going fast with absolutely no tuning.

Here are some shots we took the following weekend back in Brisbane as I had no cameras in Sydney. The photos were shot by the awesome David Kramer at Kawana in the surf in about 25 knots with no uphaul or chicken-straps on the new board; argghhh.

My final week at home in Brisbane for the summer I decided to head to a massive Rock/Metal music festival in Australia called Soundwave. Headlining were bands like Iron Maiden, Slayer, Primus, Slash, 30 Seconds to Mars, Queens of the Stone Age, Rob Zombie and about 1 billion others. It was a stonking 37 degrees all day with no shade anywhere and thousands of Brisbane’s metal fraternity arriving in their tattoos, piercings, rebellion and Jack Daniels to see what the day had to offer. My highlight was the deathpit for Slayer.

I’ve won my 5th Australian Formula Windsurfing Title!!! After a 4-day battle with some of the best windsurfers on the planet, competing at an event I helped organise, I have managed to put myself on the podium coming in 3rd at the 2011 Downunder Pro as well as being the first placed Australian and winning another National Title. Check out a few photos above from awesome photographers Rob Plim from New Zealand and Adam Craven.

The 2011 Downunder Pro – Formula Windsurfing Championships is about to kick-off tomorrow at beautiful Hawks Nest, Australia. The Nest is an incredible beach only 2 hours north of Sydney, with incredible spots to go surfing, SUP, windsurfing, fishing as well as playing golf, lawn-bowls and generally kicking back and enjoying the Australian summer. You can check out all the results and photos on the Official Website and see a few photos from my helicopter shoot yesterday above! Photos by Paul Santelmann in the chopper

Big Day Out is the largest and longest running music festival in Australia, playing in every capital city (including in New Zealand!) to the tune of 120,000 people per city. With the Downunder Pro Formula Windsurfing Championships looming next week, I thought I’d show some of my European windsurfing friends how we do festivals in Australia. Some of those friends included Jesper Vesterstrøm and James Briggs who are down here already for training. I also thought it’d be a good idea (at the time) to swing in to a friend of mine’s birthday party at the Gold Coast Turf Club; which means – getting suited up and hitting the horse races for the afternoon the day before Big Day Out.

On the weekend of New Years Day, amongst the festivals and other parties I managed to put together a photoshoot with a few of my friends including Jesper Vesterstrøm who is out in Australia training this summer. The man behind the lens was the legendary Adam Craven (who is also a fellow windsurfer!) who volunteered his time for the shoot. The location was a small bay in Sydney Harbour launching from Clontarf which allowed us to sail right up to the cliffs along the bushland forest areas of the Harbour; an amazing location. Here is a few of the pics from the shoot.

Sean has won his 4th Australian & Oceanic Formula Windsurfing Title at the FW Oceanic Championships at Hawks Nest, NSW. World #5 ranked Brazilian sailor Wilhelm Schurmann (BRA-999) won the event outright despite Sean nipping at his heels in every race and finally taking a bullet from the Brazilian in the final race of the event. On top of the stress of competing Sean had taken it upon himself to organise and run the media coverage for the event which meant super late nights and early mornings to get everything running smooth for the competitors (not the best preparation for an important regatta!). The location for the event was a town in beautiful Port Stephens where dolphins, sharks, turtles and even a friendly whale were spotted on on different parts of the course. This place had amazing flat water slalom areas, big swells on the course area and a fantastic point-break for surfing, SUP and swimming. For Sean’s efforts he took home the big Australian Title trophy made by VMG Blades and some new phones from the event sponsor Blackberry.

For more information on the event check out www.FW-Australia.com.

This summer Sean has taken on a coaching role, looking after the athletes from the Australian Sailing Team during the SailDownunder Sailing Series in Australia; three RS:X events including SailBrisbane, SailSydney and SailMelbourne, which is an ISAF World Cup Regatta. Sean will be looking after multiple Olympian Jessica Crisp, who earlier today won the SailSydney regatta in good form and will be looking to follow that up with a win at the SailMelbourne regatta next week.

Jessica talks to Sail-World about the event in an excerpt from the magazine article on SailSydney:

Triple Olympian Jessica Crisp (AUS-15) has taken over the RS:X Sailboard lead held by Yasuko Kosuge (JPN-9) since Day 1. Crisp cites coaching from sailboarder, Sean O’Brien (AUS-120), as the reason for her improved performance in higher winds.

Crisp, who has finished just outside the medals at the last two games, racked up three wins from three races to take a two point lead from the petite Japanese sailor who admitted yesterday she struggled in conditions over 15 knots, and although conditions did not go over, it was quite gusty on the Harbour.

‘I finally got my act together,’ Crisp laughed. ‘Everything went well; it couldn’t have gone better. I’m getting better in the higher end of the wind scale – it’s all about technique, rather than strength,’ she said.

Sail-World Article

They were advised to make sure they were out of town by 4pm that day otherwise the roads might have flooded with the tidal surge and could leave them trapped to wait out the cyclone…

• FW-Australia.com – Official Event Website
• FormulaWindsurfing.org – Event Coverage
• Storm-Riders.com.au – Extra Event Gallery