The 2012 Asian Windsurfing Championships (and Singapore Open) are about to kick off on Thursday here in warm and sunny Singapore. Get the live reports from me with all the inside action by clicking the picture above!
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.
The 2011 Formula Windsurfing World Championships are about to kick off tomorrow here in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Get the live reports from me with all the inside action by clicking the picture above!
About 6 months ago I got some emails from some sailors in Mauritius asking about formula sails and fins. With +10,000 islands surrounding Australia, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to quickly throw Mauritius in to Google Maps and just check exactly where it was………. They had heard about me from my blog (www.CarbonSugar.com) where I’ve written a lot about training for Formula Windsurfing so it was good to see I am still generating hits on that site when I’ve had no time to write anything on there in the past year!
The dialogue continued for a few months and eventually the guys over there asked if I would be interested in coming to Mauritius to coach their elite Formula Windsurfing team. Coming up in August is the Indian Ocean Island Games; a mini-Olympics for the nearby islands of Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion and Madagascar involving many sports – with the two sailing disciplines this time being Lasers and Formula Windsurfing.
Just got back from the first Formula Grand-Prix World Tour event of the season in Riccione, Italy. We had ultra-light winds all week with only 4 races being held. I’ve had a busy season already just arriving back from South Korea the week before from the PWA Slalom World Tour event so this was the first opportunity to get out on my new sails and boards in an international event.
Here are some comments about the event from an article on Point-7.com:
“Because of the financial climate in Europe last year we actually had ZERO pro Formula events the whole of last season. So it was kind of surreal being down at Riccione and feeling like none of us had done any solid event training in so long. Normally you get a chance to see what everyone has been working on over the season with their gear tuning and know what you have to do to prepare but this time almost none of us had actually raced each other in over 15 months. I hadn’t had a chance to roll out the new sails and actually had a bunch of new fins and a brand new board that I’d never even got wet yet (not the best preparation!).
The winds were super light, and growing up sailing on the ocean with stronger winds I’m not so excited to sail in 6-7 knots all week. I think we have some good speed with the new sails and was exciting to see that at times I could muscle it with the Top 5 guys off the startline. I felt very rusty with tactics without having had any racing in so long so I wasn’t too happy with the 18th place overall I finished with. It was a good chance to see what needs to be done before the next event which is the World Championships in Puerto Rico however.
This time we’ll be prepared and the winds should be much stronger! Luckily on the event side of things, everything was fantastic! Great Italian hospitality and all meals provided at the beach with great entertainment each and every night; couldn’t have asked for more!”
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
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.
Here are some photos from the FW Brasilian Championships which just finished this afternoon here in Fortaleza. The Grand-Prix World Tour event starts on Tuesday at the same location and as always, you can watch the live coverage from me right here on AUS120.com at this link.
I’ve just arrived in Fortaleza, in the northern part of Brasil in time for the Formula Windsurfing Grand-Prix World Tour event starting next Tuesday. I’ve re-started the live-event page so everyone can get the full coverage while I compete at the GP and also the Brasilian FW Nationals which are taking place on Fri-Sun at the same venue. Check out the live-feed below:
Sean OBrien: Really good! I love it! So easy to ride and great...
Rafa: How´s the new 167 wide beast going? I can´t wait t...
Sean OBrien: Coming to Singapore again next week for some Formu...
matt2000: you should have checked out the windsurfing scene...
Sean OBrien: If it was the music video for Hypnotize we'd be dr...
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