Get your place at the National Watersports Festival 2013! from NWF Media Channel on Vimeo.

Simon Bornhoft, Hayling Island courses

LOCAL ACCOMMODATION (HAYLING ISLAND)

HIRE KIT / GREAT FOOD

WEEKEND & WEEKDAY COURSES

VIDEO FEEDBACK / 1-2-1 COACHING / FOR YOUR LEVEL

UNIQUE SKILLS TRAINING GUARANTEES IMPROVEMENT & A GREAT TIME!

FOR MORE INFO & BOOKINGS GO TO www.windwise.net/uk-tour

WHERE: HISC & Other local Hayling beaches (Local accommodation & kit hire available).

BEGINNER-IMPROVER

Sat 27th & Sun 28th April

Sat 25th & Sun 26th May

IMPROVER-INTERMEDIATE ‘Skills, drills and all the essential skills to get your season off to a great start!’

Sat 27th & Sun 28th April

Sat 25th & Sun 26th May

INTERMEDIATE-ADVANCED  ‘Skills, drills and more more to break that plateau and make those moves!’

Sat 18th & Sun 19th May

Thur 23rd & Fri 24th May

Sat 1st & Sun 2nd June

WAVEWISE  ‘Get into and develop essential wave skills’

LOOPWISE  April-Oct 2013 ‘Are you up for it?’

WISEWOMEN ‘Getting more girls onboard!’ Mon 27th & Tues 28th May Half Term

KIDSWISE ‘Get the kids going!’ Mon 27th & Tues 28th May Half Term

BSA slalom action.

Venue

The Hayling Seafront is primarily a shingle beach above the high tide mark, with long stretches of sand below this line. About a third of the beach is protected by groynes. West Beach is Haylings most popular beach, and designated a windsurfing area. At high tide the waters can get deep quickly with the shelving of the beaches, at low tide the waters are usually shallow.

Directions

• From the A27, take the Havant/Hayling exit.
• Head south on the A3023 on to Hayling island.
• At Mill Rythe roundabout (approx 2 miles from bridge ) take right exit.
• At Beachlands roundabout (approx 1 mile) take right exit After approx 1/2 mile, left just west of the bottom of Staunton Avenue.

Parking / Camping

This is a Pay and Display parking area.

Please note:

“Overnight parking is not officially permitted by Havant Borough Council so our advice, as with the National Windsurfing Festival, is to use your own discretion and common sense. Considerate parking and behaviour hasn’t attracted attention here before.”

Hayling Island Tourism tel: 023 9246 7111; or go to havant.gov.uk For campers you can try ‘The Oven’, Manor Road tel 023 9246 4695. Another useful site is haylingisland.net.

Facilities

The action takes place from the ‘INN on the BEACH‘ where the race office will be based. Many thanks to our hosts at the INN! This building is right on the waters edge with a large deck for spectators to watch the racing; also bars and conservatory upstairs, with fantastic views of the Solent.

Tourist Information / Accommodation

Hayling Island Tourism tel: 023 9246 7111 ; or go to havant.gov.uk For campers you can try ‘The Oven’ ,Manor Road tel 023 9246 4695. See also theresort guide, tourist information, and haylingisland.net

“Cold conditions in the UK at the moment – winter just doesn’t want to relinquish its grip and there is even talk of snow at Easter! Luckily I won’t be around for that as I fly to Greece two weeks today. I’m really looking forward to getting back on the water in Vass, but in the meantime, here’s a few shots from a recent session at the Esso Garage on Hayling Island. It was absolutely freezing! I might have to invest in some winter boots :p”

All images courtesy of Mr. Josh Guard Eames Esq.

First up Boards caught up with one of the Team15 teams to watch out for, The Kielder Kestrels as well as BWA youth competitor looking to mix it up with the amateurs this year,Liam Ellis.

Of course the big news this week is that you can now pre-order the Boards Spring Summer 2013 edition – which will hit shelves, or your doorstep, on the 28th March.

We also had the latest edition of the Freestyle Secrets: part three – remember you can also check out parts one and two in the technique section of the website here.

Victor Fernandez in Shoreham - in the news this week one of the World’s top wave sailors, some say the one man that could take the title from Koester, was on British shores hanging out with Nik Baker.

Hayling Island slalom is starting very soon, a little further afield Fanatic have announced further coaching dates in Lanzarote. Another option if you’re looking to head away is to take the ferry, with routes to Ireland and more Stena Line are a great travel option, particularly as at the moment they are running a kids travel for free package!

Boards also has a new video only section on the homepage – currently located just below the news, all videos will appear in this separate section, so if you’re looking for the latest videos to hit the windsurfing world make sure you continue down past the news! Top videos this week are: Ant Baker showing his slalom style and up and coming racer Tom Wells going full speed ahead.

Until next week….

It’s open to all abilities but with a strong emphasis on the intermediate free-ride sailor with the simple off the beach (beachstart) format and no technical rules. Why not come along and join in all we ask is that first your subscribe to the group and also be a UKWA member for insurances purposes. We run events one eve during the week and weekends…. Its all about like minded enthusiasts coming together to have fun! More info can be found at https://ukwindsurfing.com/slalom/clubs/hayling/

Ross Williams leads Dave Strudwick and Jason Greenslades in a race last year at Hayling.

In this third part we will cover tuning, training and why people compete. 

BSA slalom action.

Tuning and Training

Simon Pettifer: When I go for a sail I try to have some sort of aim, this could be gybing practice. I’ll find two buoys close together (easy in Poole harbour), and gybe a lot, keep going until I cannot gybe any longer, this is the only way to improve – keep doing it! It’s also good to do this exercise with other sailors, if you make the two buoys really close together it makes for some fun sailing.

As for tuning I just try different things, maybe try a couple of different fin combinations to see which is faster; you need someone else to judge your speed against, or a GPS unit where you can go home and download your tracks from the day and see at what points you were going fastest.

It could be the downhaul, try a little more or less see and what happens. Once you find the sail at its best for you try to note where your downhaul is set to, so that next time you sail you can rig it just how you like it. The outhaul is the easiest to play about with, the adjustable outhaul systems let you sail around changing the settings all the time, letting you see where you want your outhaul for the appropriate wind strengths.

Sailing on your own is great for some things but to improve your speeds I think you need to sail with other people. We all know it sucks to be passed by other people so we try harder, if you get passed by your mate, go in pull on an inch of downhaul go back out and see if you can beat him; if doesn’t work try changing your fin – put a smaller one in – it’s all about finding out what makes a difference.

Simon Pettifer

Simon Cofield: Sail – I use a lot of downhaul, this allows you to accelerate in big gusts whilst the sail twists off. It’s important to have an adjustable outhaul. When the wind is up and down I’ll be adjusting my outhaul between heats, so I’m fully powered in the race. Board – You need a good fin, I have my straps as far apart as they go for control, deck plate position as above.

I do a bit of fitness training in the winter, on the water I do some practice racing around some of the marks in Poole harbour with Si Pettifer.

Kev Greenslade: Downhaul I rig dependent on the wind but always enough to get a nice amount of twist in the sail, I use very little outhaul until I get completely stacked but by then probably thinking about changing down. It’s also really important to find the right fin for you, your board and the conditions.

It’s really hard to replicate the conditions whilst racing as you would almost never sail that fast that close to that many people, when it comes to gybing you have wakes going in all directions space to find etc etc. So the best form of practice is to race. There are fun slalom series being run at Hayling, Poole and Weymouth now so get involved, and if they are too far away get your own going, it’s so easy. There is always a buoy to race around and if you do it in pursuit style, kit and ability doesn’t matter, everyone has fun.

Ant Baker. Image credit Dave White.

Ant Baker: As a chubber I like lots of downhaul and not much outhaul, this means I get great twist and a nice full body to hold my board down.

As I have to work pretty much everyday I get very little time to practice, in fact the last year I have only sailed slalom boards at events

James Dinsmore: When it comes to tuning your sail the single most important variable is the amount of downhaul you put on. It is really important to experiment and try to learn to feel what it is like to have too much or too little downhaul. If you have too much downhaul the sail tends to feel heavy and too powerful and when a gust comes you may feel as if you are getting lifted uncontrollably onto your toes. With my current iSonic board and Severne Reflex sails combination I notice that if I am under-downhauled it feels as if the nose of the board is being pushed down into the water. It feels ‘sticky’ and as if it might catch on chop. If I put a small amount of more downhaul (may only need as little as 5mm) the nose rides higher, the stickiness completely disappears and the board feels like it will make it’s way over even the nastiest bit of chop. When you have cranked on too much downhaul the sail starts to feel gutless and has poor acceleration. You may feel yourself over sheeting and the sail tending to drop backwards. Ideally with each of your sails you need to spend a session during which you start with the sail under-downhauled and then incrementally increase the downhaul until the sail is over-downhauled. It is a useful exercise as you will learn to recognise too much or too little downhaul and you will also be able to find the sweet spot of your sail.

If you don’t have one already then do get an adjustable outhaul. They are very easy to use and put at your fingertips the ability to massively increase the wind range of your sail. You will enjoy your sailing much more if you have one. Try to work towards sailing kit big enough that means that you are powered for the lulls rather than the gusts. An adjustable outhaul allows you to sail much closer to your limits. It may be more beneficial to have a very physical 30 minutes session quite over-powered than 90 minutes of cruising. It is a key skill to learn to get round a course while overpowered Make use of any buoys that may be in the water to practice gybing and starts. You will be forced to gybe whatever the water state is like at the mark, which is the same as on the racecourse. Otherwise it is only too easy to choose to gybe where it is flat and you will struggle in competition.

Racing at Weymouth. Image courtesy Dave White.

Why I Compete

Simon Pettifer: I compete because it keeps me keen, always trying to do a bit better than the previous event. The feeling I get when I’ve had a good heat and beaten someone that usually beats me feels great, you can’t get the same feeling from sailing down the park. When you do one slalom heat it may only last about three mins but it’s knackering, so much is packed into three minutes and the whole time I’m fired up, it’s hard to explain, something you’ve got to try.

If you want to try it, get down to your local spot and do some light hearted racing with your friends. Poole have a Poole slalom, Weymouth have the same thing going on, as do Hayling Island, all these places are ready for newcomers to turn up and give it a go, all abilities are welcomed. Any gear can be used, at Poole we do a handicap system where by the person that wins the first race starts last in the next one, the person that finished last starts first and so on, this means that the racing is good for all, there is always someone to catch up with or try to stop passing you.

I would encourage others to give competing a go because it will improve your sailing,  it’s definitely the best way to get better quicker, improve your gybes and go faster. Also you meet great people at events, all with the same thing in mind, windsurfing and maybe a couple of drinks – if there’s no wind of course! I’ve met some of my best friends at windsurfing events over the last 20 years even with a 15 year break in the middle.

Simon Cofield: I enjoy the challenge of racing against the top guys.

Kev Greenslade: I have been very fortunate to have been racing from a very young age, I have travelled the country and some of the World with my best mates doing what we all love. Doing well is just a bonus (a nice one though).

Ant Baker: I love the feeling of winning! The race course is a great place to practice your skills and gain some bragging rights over your mates!

Check out the other parts of the series here:

Danielle Lucas on the water.

“ON FORECAST COACHING SESSION this SATURDAY!

GETWINDSURFING will be at Hayling Island for a coaching session at Esso, 11:am – 1.30pm. Wind and temperatures are  looking good, sp come along and get involved with some winter coaching!

Blasting, Jumping, Gybing and more…..
Only £35

Email getwindsurfing@gmail.com to book or with any questions!”

Check out the Boards technique section for online coaching from GetWindsurfing and others. 

Many of you caught the action here Live, or were of course there too soaking up the atmosphere. For those that weren’t we will bring you the news and images from the event over the coming days.

First of all we have the results from what makes NWF, the master blaster racing, which was exceptionally tricky in the light winds this year. Old school longboards were sported by many, and proved to be the best in the conditions, especially on Saturday. Jeroen Kuik put in a very consistent performance to take the win in the national fleet, whilst Jasper Geddes and Jack Pettit tool top honours in the Turbo fleet. The National fleet saw Sam Sills take the win, ahead of Chris Guest in second and John Skye in third, with Imogen Sills taking the top women’s spot just ahead of sister Saskia.

Full results below:

NWF2012.National_Results NWF2012.Team15_Results NWF2012.Freeride_Results

The night windsurfing was of course a spectacle to behold as always, this time the tow in windsurfing and Adam Sims stealing the show.

RRD had none other than Roberto Ricci at the show, answering many questions and chatting with all on the beach. Check out this gallery of shots from Dave White, of course featuring Roberto and many others too.

Just to warn everyone Havant Council have fenced off the Langstone Harbour carpark at Esso beach.

I had a breif chat with the workmen and access is denied for two weeks while the Hayling Billy footpath is raised, to create a flood defense.

The overflow carpark is un affected and it is still possible to gain access to the water but parking and access have been severely compromised.

Could be interesting to see the chaos on a spring high tide and a windy weekend.

Esso Beach - pic Ian C

As many will no doubt already be aware this year’s bonanza will be longer in duration than before as the festival continues to go from strength to strength.

Friday 7th will feature entertainment from local band Half Light (check out their sounds here) and a Charity Auction Evening – and possibly a few shandies?

This years designated charity is Windsurfing 4 Cancer Research. All proceeds raised during the evening will go directly to the charity to help them continue with their great work.

Allan commented, “All donated goods gladly accepted as raffle prizes for the W4CR Charity Evening on Fri 7th Sept at this year’s National Windsurfing Festival (NWF) & National SUP Festival (NSUPF) – thank you to all those who have donated to date…”

To be part of this cracking windsurfing get together and help out a worthy cause, get yourselves down to Hayling Island seafront on Friday 7th September.

And if you would like to donate a prize then contact Allan directly - windandwaves68@yahoo.co.uk

More info on the NWF website here and Facebook page here

National Windsurfing Festival Charity Night Poster