Tnerife Day One

Day one was, in many respects, a case of being thrown in at the deep end. Having had only had 2-3 decent port tack sessions this year an outing with a 4.2 was perhaps not what the doctor ordered! After only about and hour and a half I had a blister on my foot and the skin my office worker hands were beginning to wear thin!! Oh and to top it all I fell in on my first jump. That said it was lovely to get back in water. The set up in Tenerife is great. The hotels and apartments line the beach but the lie of the land means that you can chill out by the water side in complete shelter or walk the 200m or so down from the town centre to the windsurfing hire centres. As last year I’m hiring kit from the OTC www.otc-windsurf.com , it’s a multi brand hire centre where the have a selection of boards from all the main brands like JP, RRD, Quattro, Starboard etc. This year also they have a selection of a Carbon Arts from New Zealand which I was particularly keen to try out seeing as I still have one floating around in my shed from my NZ days (see my previous post below). As I said the first outing was pretty painful but the kit was good. For the morning session I had a 73l Carbon Art and a 4.2 Severne. The single fin board was sweet with a traditional outline and I knew from my first gybe what I was in for, with its fast and a certain extent gunny tail it set up into the bottom turn really nicely and was easy to drive off the rail and to switch back for the off the top. The sail too was interesting; it’s one of the new generation of wave sails that has a straight foot with no batten below the boom. In the cross on conditions up by the wall it meant that switching from back side to front side and staying in close to the wave was no problem as the foot of the sail didn’t catch on the water or my shins. All in all the morning session was good and I had one of those session when you seem to find yourself always in the right place at the right time. After a brief pause for lunch, wound repair and just taking a deep breath I went back in on a Starboard Kode 74 and a Goya eclipse 4.7. It seemed the wind had dropped but after only a few minutes out I was maxed out off the beach with too much power to do anything other than big floaty jumps. Again the kit was good, I particularly liked the sail and the board was nice but perhaps a little big, or may be too much of an all round shape, a jack of all trade and a master of none if you will. The wind continued to pick so I switched straight down to a 3.6 Pryde Zone and a RRD 74 Twinser. It has to be said that both the sail and the board did not suit me. The sail was neutral and gutless (probably great in the bigger sizes in cross shore DTL conditions) and the board was scatty and unidirectional, just like it’s supposed to be I guess! Anyway it meant may afternoon’s session was marred by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I cocked up almost every jump and loop I went for and span out on all most every off the lip! Having said that the conditions were good, and Adam from the test centre was the standout sailor with numerous floaty backies and a very nice double forward. As for the other sailors here, well there’s a tale to tell, but more of that later.

The pics are of the new 2011 boards including a thruster set up from JP and Taboo and some nice looking quads from Fanatic and a proper tri fin from exocet