Sean O'Brien, Pro Windsurfer – seanobrien.com.au™

Last week, just before winning my 5th Australian Title, I signed a deal with the biggest windsurfing board manufacturer on the planet, Starboard, to ride on their International ‘Dream Team’ in 2011 (which you can read all about here). To get the news out, I needed to get some cool photos of me with my new boards together quickly. So I called my good friend and favourite photographer, Jacob Lambert, to fire off some stills. We got together late one night in the run down back streets of New Farm in my town of Brisbane, and shot this great urban shoot amongst the streetlights and dark alleys. Enjoy some of the photos…

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 two videos I shot for Point-7 over the weekend in South Italy. The first is the commercial for the new Point-7 booms and the second is a quick behind-the-scenes compilation of how we had the studio set up to do both the video and shoot the product photos for the booms with our photographer Tommy.

Super early this morning we launched the new 2011 website for Point-7 showcasing the new sails and products for this coming summer. By “early”, I mean 4am, as the P7 crew have been putting in some insanely late nights in the Torbole office this week getting everything ready for the website. In the last photo you can see a shot of our new office at the Point-7 Outlet store on Lake Garda, where you’ll find me during the day if we’re not windsuring! Check out www.point-7.com

Sometimes I wonder how we manage to get around to the places we do with the equipment we have; it is just ridiculous. The photos above are the bags of just 3 people (26 bags in total weighing over 800kg) for a one week trip to a windsurfing event. I regularly hear stories of my friends arriving at airports with 20 bags for one person and somehow manage to check them on to the plane! One day the airlines will stop taking our gear I think, then this sport will be over. It’s basically already happening in Australia. Until then, enjoy the pics!

There are many different schools of thought on the SEAT vs WAIST harness debate in slalom racing. Although generally there are more guys using waist harnesses these days, a lot of the top guys still use a seat. Below are a few of the names on the tour and what they are wearing.

A quick update before I fly out to Europe next week on what I’ve been up to and my plans for the summer season.

Sean’s new website for 2010 launches! A new layout and colour scheme focuses on keeping up to date news using Twitter and now features a * LIVE EVENT COVERAGE * page with latest photos, blow-by-blow updates through Twitter all on this site.

Sean’s all new website for 2009 launched today! Stay tuned for features on many CSS galleries once more. The new website features an all new layout with a lot more information, news, pictures and now a HD video channel through Vimeo.com. The site is once again built on WordPress and designed by Sean himself.

For extra contact details you can find all Sean’s social network profiles on the top bar as well as links to his other projects: www.CarbonSugar.com and www.Design.AUS120.com.

Be sure to check out the site and post a comment!

On March 11th 2009, a Category 5 cyclone (TC Hamish) was forecasted to hit the east coast of Australia around Hervey Bay at 1am. A group of us windsurfers, including Sean O’Brien and Julien Ventalon (shown in the video) drove north from Brisbane to Harvey Bay on that Monday morning to windsurf in the strong winds and tidal surge before the cyclone hit.

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…