After a week in Italy without clean clothes (due to my missing bag) I’ve made it down to Alaçati, Turkey, for the next slalom leg of the PWA World Tour. After three days of no wind and blistering heat, Turkey lit up on the first 2 days with 5 rounds of slalom completed. I’ve had some gear troubles not having a big enough fin for some of the tight courses but it’s still early days in the event. You can follow the progress on Twitter as the internet connection at the beach is too slow to update my site. Photos by PWA/Carter and Rémi Villa.

We’ve just finished up on the desert moons of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, for the PWA World Cup. Despite blowing +35 knots the previous week we trained the wind failed to produce during the event and I was a little caught off guard having not brought my biggest sails and fins with me. None the less there was plenty of racing and action during the week and an opportunity to finally get out on the water with my new boards from RRD! (Photos by PWA/Carter).

Last week we had the first PWA World Cup event in Ulsan, Korea. This was my first Slalom World Tour event in about 3 years and it was great to see how much has changed on the circuit. All the usual parties, chaos and lost hotel room keys were in full effect. All photos are by PWA/Carter and Sean O’Brien.

The 2008 KA Sails Dash-For-Cash was run from Lake Cootharaba Sailing Club yesterday with the top slalom sailors from Queensland all fighting for the $500 first place cashfund. The event was organised by Peter from Caloundra Wind & Surf and with the 20 knot onshore winds at the Lake, a marathon slalom course (complete with a small upwind component) was set with buoys at each end of the lake. Sean won the race in a time of 19.30 mins; over 45 seconds ahead of his nearest rival. Sean used his 8.2m Vapor sail with a borrowed iSonic 111 and 42cm Deboichet SL2 fin to win the race.

Sean took 4 bullets over the 9 races to win the overall event. He used his iSonic 135 (courtesy of Markus Bouman) and Neil-Pryde RS:X 9.5m sail. Despite its 2 cams and small luff-pocket, the RS:X sail is quite quick off the wind …

Sean has returned home early from the Euro-Cup event in Silvaplana, Switzerland. After a crash on the startline of the first race, Sean injured his neck. Nothing too serious, but it prevented him from racing again for a few days, and Sean thought it best to return to Holland and spend some time recovering in preparation for the Formula Worlds in South Korea next week.

A little disappointing as their is a good international turnup to this event, with many of the world’s top formula sailors vying for the 20,000 euros prizemoney on offer.

The 2006 PWA World Tour came to Fuerteventura in July for the 2nd Slalom 42 Grand Slam event. Fuerteventura is one of the larger Canary Islands, a little out to sea off the north western coast of Africa. This was Sean’s first PWA World Tour event and there was no better place to do it than Fuerte! This is really one of the world’s windsurfing meccas; perfect sandy beaches and crystal clear flat water as well as the super windy conditions every day!

On the second day of racing, Sean badly sliced his foot open, making the rest of the week quite difficult to race. He finished all the races however, dropping back a few places to 28th by the end of the week.