WINDSURFING PERTH DECEMBER

December 2010, Perth, Western Australia - a group of windsurfers headed off on a 1,000km+ road trip up the coast of Western Australia looking for wind and waves, all filmed from a helicopter!

Nice........

Will to Win Neil Pryde

The History

40 years in the making - the story of how Neil Pryde Limited, founded in Hong Kong in 1970 by a New Zealander, went from making sails to blitzing fields in watersports and beyond... From Fanling to fantastic, this is a journey of design, innovation and determination in the sky and on water, snow and road.

for more info: http://willtowin.neilpryde.com/

MauiSails Spot Guide

Get your bearings on windsurfing's Hawaiian mecca with a little help from MauiSails
If you're not lucky enough to be in windsurfing's prized fraternity of Hawaiian exiles, then Maui's north shore is something of a fantasy land, littered with the names of distant breaks one only dreams of riding.??

In an effort to bring a small slice of that Hawaiian dreamscape to us mere mortals, MauiSails have put together a nice little video spot guide of Maui?s north shore. From Kanaha to Hookipa and everything in between, you can get your bearings of windsurfing?s homeland whilst checking out some great action of MauiSails? 2011 lineup getting put through its paces at each spot.

Watch the MauiSails spot guide HEREor check out the 2011 MauiSails range at www.mauisails.com

Photo credit: MauiSails/Bogo

PWA Nations Ranking

The nations face off; how did your country perform on the 2010 PWA World Tour?
The PWA?s stats guys have been busy scrutinizing the 2010 season results data base to bring you the Overall PWA Nations Ranking.

What?s the Deal?

The Overall Nations Ranking allocates a position to each competing nation on the PWA World Tour, based on their performance over the course of that year. Ranks are subdivided into the three PWA disciplines (race / wave / freestyle) for each nation, in addition to a final overall rank for the season based on the combined scores for each disciple.

The rank for each nation is based on the top two performers in each discipline, regardless of sex. These two scores are then combined and allocated to their respective position in the nation ranking score sheet for that discipline. The overall ranking is calculated on the combined scores of all three disciplines for each nation.

The Winners at a Glance -

2010 PWA Overall Nations Ranking:

1st France
2nd Switzerland
3rd UK

2010 PWA Nations Ranking Wave:

1st Spain
2nd Germany
3rd Brazil

2010 PWA Nations Ranking Slalom:

1st France
2nd Switzerland
3rd USA

2010 PWA Nations Ranking Freestyle:

1st Bonaire
2nd Venezuela
3rd Belgium


From all the staff here at the PWA, we offer our congratulations to France, the 2010 PWA Overall Nations Ranking Winners.

The WindSurfing Movie II

The WindSurfing Movie II isn’t your typical windsurfing movie. TWMII follows Levi Siver and his best windsurfing friends around the world in their search for wind and waves – but rather than straight windsurfing porn, it’s an introspective look into the mind and motivation of one of our sports most talented athletes.

http://windsurfingmag.com/

Esperance Windsurfing ; )

Esperance is a large town situated along the western edge of the Great Australian Bight, 725 km from Perth. The rugged coastline of long white beaches, granite headlands and picture perfect bays dotted with islands make Esperance a unique place to visit and sail. The numerous beaches and enormous bays provide a variety of wave sailing, slalom and learning locations.

I was there a few years ago and it really is a dream location!
if you're lucky you can surf with dolphins!

Here you can find information http://www.visitesperance.com/

Cheers from a cold Holland!

LIke Father Like Sun by SoulArch

December 10th, 2010 by Levi

There was a glowing light in the east this morning. It’s so good to see the sun again. The swell dropped again from yesterday and was only about 1-2 foot on the sets on the open beaches, with some gusty northerlies knocking the waves around. Great to see people getting up around 5am for summer morning sessions. Enjoy!

http://www.soularch.com.au/

Margaret River

Margaret River is located in the pristine south west, surrounded by beautiful beaches, forest and wineries. There are literally hundreds of surf breaks in the area, offering some of the best and most reliable surfing in WA. The town of Margaret River, a bit over two hours drive south of Perth, is situated about 10 km inland from the coast.

The wave sailing is at Prevelly Park - look for the 'keyhole' in the reef down near the Margaret River mouth. With consistent swells throughout the summer, conditions range from a minimum of head high waves up to well over mast high. The sea breeze blows most days in December and ranges from sideshore to cross-offshore between 12-25 knots. Definitely for the serious shredders!

Have fun ;)

Cheers

French Sailor of the Year

Congratulations to Antoine Albeau - French Sailor of the Year 2010.

The expert jury of the French Sailing Federation (FFV) created a stir on Monday the 6th of December by giving, Antoine Albeau the title of Sailor of the Year 2010.

Antoine has 17 world titles, including two acquired in 2010 (in slalom and Formula Windsurfing), has excelled in endurance events and also held the world speed funboard record for a time. Antoine Albeau, was presented with his trophy at the Night of Champions, organized by the Paris Boat Show.

This is only the second time that a windsurfer has been enshrined in the FFV since sailor of the year in 2001.

Winners of the Sailor of the year since the creation of the award in 2001:

2001: Michel Desjoyeaux (Vendée Globe 2000-2001)
2002: Olivier Backès et Laurent Voiron (Vice Champions Tornado)
2003: Xavier Rohart et Pascal Rambeau (Star World Champions)
2004: Faustine Merret (Olympic Champion in Windsurfing - Athens)
2005: Vincent Riou (Vendée Globe 2004-2005)
2006: Lionel Lemonchois (Route du Rhum)
2007: Michel Desjoyeaux (Solitaire du Figaro and Transat Jacques Vabre)
2008: Francis Joyon (Record around the world Solo)
2009: Michel Desjoyeaux (2nd Victory in the Vendée Globe).
2010: Antoine Albeau (Slalom and Formula Windsurfing World Champion)

Photo credit: PWA / John Carter

Cheer Robert

Byron Bay Surfs up!

From humble beginnings, Byron Bay underwent many transitions from dairy farming to major meat exporter, followed by sand mining and whaling. In the last 40 years, Byron Bay has transformed into a popular beach resort and alternative lifestyle. Renowned for its surfing beaches and beautiful rainforests, Byron Bay today enjoys a relaxed and informal lifestyle that has become a favourite for many travellers. Various adventure sports, fine dining and live entertainment are also available. The Cape Byron Lighthouse dominates Australia's most easterly point and is a popular place to visit for its spectacular views.

Cheers Robert

The fastest windsurfers of 2010 have been named

Anders Bringdal and Zara Davis have conquered the 2010 Speed Windsurfing titles by the International Speed Windsurfing Class (ISWC). The standings reflect the overall performance in the five events held this year.

Bringdal was born in Sweden in 1967 and learned to windsurf in the Stockholm archipelago in 1980. Robby Naish is his hero. Anders Bringdal competed in the transatlantic race and still remains as one of the greatest world speed windsurfers.

Zara Davis was born in Britain in 1966 and started to sail in 1969. She has conquered national and international titles. The Bristol windsurfer holds thewomen's world record the nautical mile at 34.74 knots.

Swift.com - Top ranked PWA wave sailor

Top ranked PWA wave sailor, Robby Swift reveals his new-look website and joins Facebook...

Whilst being one of the world's best wave sailors, Robby Swift (JP, NeilPryde) also happens to be one of the top media men when it comes to windsurfing. His content includes the outstanding videos which he makes for sponsors JP and NeilPryde, so it was about time he updated his own site to show off his many talents.

Along with his shiny new website he's also just joined the world which now seems to revolve around Facebook. Find out what Robby Swift's up to, and get the inside line on his life as a pro HERE. And don't forget to hit the "Like" button to stay in tune.

With rumours that Swift will be concentrating solely on wavesailing next year, it'll be well worth monitoring his sites in the near future for hell-raising stories and videos of big wave lunacy with legend, Jason Polakow (JP, NeilPryde).

Stay in touch with Swift at www.robbyswift.com

Awesome dad

Constructors Championship

JP and NeilPryde take the highly coveted PWA Constructors Championship titles following a year of world-class competition on the PWA World Tour.

PWA Constructors Championship 2010

JP and NeilPryde take the highly coveted PWA Constructors Championship titles following a year of world-class competition on the PWA World Tour.

The PWA Constructors Championship title is an extremely sought after award which represents the epitome of windsurfing development and manufacture. Throughout the year brands within the industry have the opportunity to gain points from their sponsored riders results at every single World Tour event. At the final showdown of the season, the points are totted up, and the prestigious awards handed out.

Board Brands - Overall
Following years of domination by Starboard, JP Australia has finally knocked their closest rivals off the top spot to claim the overall Board Brands title. Their team riders raked the points in throughout the year, with their biggest hauls in both waves and slalom. The 2009 constructors champions, Starboard finished an extremely close second with their strengths lying in freestyle and slalom. And, Fanatic ended the year in third, despite having world champions crowned in both men's freestyle and men's waves.

1st JP Australia
2nd Starboard
3rd Fanatic
4th Tabou
5th Patrik

JP brand manager, Martin Brander commented: "We at JP strongly believe in the professional side of windsurfing. We think to keep a sport interesting and make a brand a cool brand it takes personalities and success in professional competition. This is why we have a rather large team of PWA riders. Consequently it has been our goal since several years to win the PWA constructors ranking. This was a pretty ambitious goal as JP originally started out as a brand with mainly wave boards and a few freeride boards. Later we became really strong in the Freestyle area - largely thanks to Ricardo Campello and Josh Stone. But we only entered the Slalom market six years ago. After missing the Constructors World Championship Title in 2009 by only one point, we are very proud that we have finally achieved our goal, and we are especially proud that we also won the Slalom and Wave rankings. Finally the time and effort of all involved has paid off.

This success really is the success of our team and our shaper, Werner Gingler. The great thing is that our team riders are really a team, and not just a group of people who happen to be sponsored by the same brand. Whoever has seen Antoine Albeau caddying for and coaching Ricardo Campello in Waves, and Ricardo caddying for Antoine in Slalom knows what I am talking about. The same thing happens between all our riders. Robby Swift has lent equipment to his team mates so many times - several times he was simply too generous and he ended up without equipment. Our riders always help each other - physically and mentally. There is a true team spirit and this is great.

So I want to thank all those involved in this great achievement but especially the following people:

- Werner Gnigler - who designed those great boards
- Antoine Albeau FRA-192 - 2010 PWA Slalom World Champion
- Micah Buzianis USA-34 - 4th in Slalom
- Ricardo Campello V-111 - 2nd in Waves
- Kauli Seadi BRA-253 - 4th in Waves
- Robby Swift K-89 - 6th in Wave
- Yegor Popretinskiy RUS-11 - 8th in Freestyle
- Maarten van Ochten H-73 - 9th in Freestyle

Congratulation to all these guys, keep pushing & all the best for the coming season!"

Board Brands - Slalom
2010 slalom world champion, Antoine Albeau (JP, NeilPryde) along with team-mate, 2010 Turkey world cup champion, Micah Buzianis (JP, NeilPryde) can lay claim to the biggest contribution of points to JP, which enabled the brand to take the slalom board category from Starboard.

1st JP
2nd Starboard
3rd RRD
4th Tabou
5th Patrik

Board Brands - Waves
In waves three times former world wave champion, Kauli Seadi (JP, NeilPryde), along with 2010 vice world wave champion, Ricardo Campello (JP, NeilPryde, MFC), and 2009 wave world championship runner up, Robby Swift (JP, NeilPryde) launched JP into the lead after a huge haul of points at the Kia Cold Hawaii, as well as Pozo. Fanatic came a close second with 2010 wave world champion, Victor Fernandez (Fanatic, North, MFC) claiming the majority of their points, but the team couldn't quite match the strength of JP.

1st JP
2nd Fanatic
3rd Starboard
4th Patrik
5th Tabou

Board Brands - Freestyle

The fleet in which JP made the least gains was that of slalom, which allowed Starboard's team of freestyle whiz kids to take the lead ahead of Fanatic, and F2. Those that contributed the most were 2010 women's freestyle world champion, Sarah-Quita Offringa (Starboard, Vandal), and 2010 Podersdorf champion, Taty Frans (Starboard, MauiSails, Mystic), along with his team-mate Kiri Thode (Starboard, Gaastra).

1st Starboard
2nd Fanatic
3rd F2
4th JP
5th Naish

Sail Brands - Overall
NeilPryde once again proved to have the strongest team of riders on the world tour with a world championship win in men's slalom for the fifth year running, two podium positions in men's waves, and two top ten riders in men's freestyle. Their closest rivals this year were North, who move up the rankings to swap places with Gaastra who finish third this time.

1st NeilPryde
2nd North
3rd Gaastra
4th Severne
5th Simmer

Chief designer for NeilPryde, Robert Stroj commented: "Firstly I would like to thank all of our team-riders who gave their best through out the season to make this happen, our third year in a row! Our design team spent an enormous amount of time and effort on the development of new RS Racing EVO3, featuring the new Integrated Compact Clew system. Winning the PWA constructors championship together with Antoine winning the overall PWA Slalom title on our sails proved that this was a great step forward in sail design and was the best reward our design team could get!"

Sail Brands - Slalom
NeilPryde annihilated their closest rivals, Severne in slalom due to the ongoing achievements of both Antoine Albeau, and Micah Buzianis who between them won three out of the five counting events. The other two victories went to thirty-five times world champion, Bjorn Dunkerbeck (Starboard, Severne, Mystic), who along with 2010 women's slalom world champion, Karin Jaggi (Patrik, Severne) helped their sponsors achieve second place.

1st NeilPryde
2nd Severne
3rd Gaastra
4th North
5th Loft

Sail Brands - Waves
In waves, the same team of Kauli Seadi, Ricardo Campello, and Robby Swift who launched JP into the lead in the board brands championship, along with 2009 Pozo champion, Philip Koster (Starboard, NeilPryde, Dakine) formed an unbeatable team to put NeilPryde well ahead of second place finishers, North. Although Victor Fernandez claimed the world title, he'll never beat the strong team of NeilPryde single-handed!

1st NeilPryde
2nd North
3rd Severne
4th Simmer
5th Gaastra

Sail Brands - Freestyle
In a similar fashion to JP, NeilPryde's downfall was in the freestyle discipline which allowed a new brand to take the top spot. With three fine freestylers in the top five, Gaastra have jumped into the lead due to the success of 2010 men's overall freestyle runner up, Kiri Thode, 2010 Podersdorf world cup vice champion, Steven Van Broeckhoven (F2, Gaastra), and 2010 Lanzarote world cup runner up, Tonky Frans (F2, Gaastra). Just like the waves, North can lay claim to the 2010 men's freestyle world champion, Jose 'Gollito' Estredo (Fanatic, North), but on his own he'll struggle to win the constructors title.

1st Gaastra
2nd North
3rd MauiSails
4th Vandal
5th NeilPryde

Info Lancelin

Lancelin lies about 130km north of Perth. It is a small fishing village (mainly Crayfish (lobster) Fishing), that also has a large contingent of sailors from Perth, the rest of Australia and from around the world. It has about a dozen shops, 2 Hotels, 1 sailboard shop, 400 local residents and many holiday residents.

During the Australian summer Lancelin comes alive with windsurfers from all over the world. It provides a great holiday place for the sail-boarder, with warm weather, consistent winds, and surf. Lancelin is close enough to Perth to attract day sailors as well as long term visitors from the rest of Australia and around the world.


Cheers Robert

Christmas Crackers

LET THE PWA HELP YOU FIND YOUR PERFECT GIFT THIS CHRISTMAS
Stuck looking for that perfect Christmas present? Fear not, the PWA is on hand to help you out. Over at our partners PWAWORLDTOURPICTURES.COMwe have THE definitive collection of PWA competition images, captured at some of the world's most iconic windsurfing destinations.

From the crystal blue waters of Cape Verde, to the moody, windswept beaches of Denmark, there's an image to inspire every windsurf fanatic out there.

The process is simple, choose your favorite photo, then pick how you'd like it presented, be it a classically framed photo for the office wall or a puzzle for those windless days, and we'll get it printed and dispatched to you in minus time.

All the latest images from the 2010 season are available, and if you happen to have a favorite shot on the PWA's website which isn't currently in the print on demand gallery, just send a request to pwapictures@pwaworldtour.com and we'll get it added.

To avoid disappointment, please note the following last order dates to receive your gift in time for Christmas:

UK
Print orders: 17th December
Other products: 19th december

Europe
Print orders: 14th December
Other products: 12th December

World
Print orders: 9th December
Other products: 7th December

Get browsing now at WWW.PWAWORLDTOURPICTURES.COM