Taty Frans, one of the top names in freestyle is also showing his racing skill at the PWA Alacati, and is far from your average professional racer. Taty is equipped with enough knowledge and expertise to challenge even the fastest on tour, now he shares his secrets with Boards.…

Taty Frans. Image credit PWA/JC.

“I have always had to rely more on technique than strength, and while I am comparatively strong for my 70kg weight, I do not have the added strength and 30kg weight jacket of most of the slalom competitors. This means my equipment choice, tuning and training become even more important, and my approach to these must be vastly different to fellow racers if I want stand any chance of beating them.”

“Before I started freestyling I did a LOT of longboard racing, where I learnt how to stay calm under pressure, and keep control of any equipment.”

“Control is easy, beating the well-built guys is the biggest challenge.”

“Positive thinking helps a lot, and I always have to think that anything is possible or I would never win a race.”

“Having the right equipment for my weight and height is crucial, Maui Sails and Starboard supply great, fast gear for me, but my fins are definitely the most important part. If the fins are good, then it’s all good.”

“I usually tune my race sails with the details that are printed on the bag, as this works well for me. On my iSonic, I put the foot straps all the way to the back and I always use a fin that is 2cm bigger, as I like a lot of back foot pressure.”

“I always try to use the smallest equipment that I can, which usually means that my sail is 2m smaller than the big guys. Personally, I am happy sailing the equipment I know the best. Smaller equipment is lighter and faster, in both flat out speed and around gybes. Quicker gybing means I can make up places at marks, and if there are short reaches, like in Sylt, I am often faster than many as my entry and exit phases of the gybe are quicker too. Although I am a lightweight sailor I am also better in rough windy conditions, I love the challenge!”

“I struggle the most when it is really windy with long reaches, as the 100kg racers get so much speed that it is hard for me to maintain my position. For races like this I just stay confident, have fun and stay in the moment, ready to take advantage of any loss of speed or mistakes from my competitors.”

“Hitting the start line at full speed and in the right position is critical for a lighter competitor like me. If I am late for the start it is game over. A heavier sailor usually has better speed overall, so can afford to be a second or two late, or even not cross the line at full speed as they can just accelerate more and more. For this reason I train a lot on starts, practicing hitting the line, knowing my own speed and reading the wind shifts. The more you practice, the easier it will be to adapt to every situation. Again my longboard racing background gives me more confidence with this.”

The full feature with Taty is available to read in the current issue of Boards magazine. Get your hands on it here NOW, as the new edition of Boards (the winter wave edition) will be out in the near future!

Taty Frans is sponsored by Maui Sails, Starboard,

Mystic, Bonaire Windsurf Place and Maui Ultra fins.

With only one heat sailed yesterday of Round 6 and Bjorn still in a clear lead of the event over the RRD team of Julien Quentel and Antoine Albeau, it was going to be a long day at the beach as the PWA race crew were very keen to get this round completed.

Dunkerbeck takes the win. Image credit PWA/JC.

Against the forecast, the wind actually picked up enough to start some racing and by 2pm we were out on the water for a very fickle onshore day of racing! You can always tell the conditions are tricky by how many over-earlies there are in the racing. No less than 15 over-early general recalls took place today with on average 2-3 sailors getting bumped per heat! The race was all down to the start as in 10-12 knots there is not as big a speed difference between a lot of us sailors and with the flatter water it was unlikely that anyone of us would fall off a gybe! I spoke a bit too soon and in my Heat (which happened to be the French National Championships with Albeau, Montefon, Le Guen, Questel and De Souza all in my Heat!) I managed to hit the first mark with everyone at once and promptly spat my gybe and took waaaaay too long to get the sail back up and finished LAST. Not my finest moment but in a way I was glad to not have to sail so late in to the afternoon!

Micah and Bjorn. Image credit PWA/JC.

Somehow we managed to sneak in enough heats to sail the winner’s final but not the loser’s final, with Micah Buzianis dominating this final race taking the winner’s final ahead of Bjorn Dunkerbeck, Ross Williams and Steve Allen. This 2^nd for Bjorn was easily enough for him to win the event and just sneak ahead of Antoine Albeau in the 2012 PWA Rankings for Slalom with Antoine finishing 3^rd at this event and Julien Quentel 2^nd overall.

It was an extremely difficult week of racing here with winds very up and down each day of the event making sail-size critical and the starts even more so which can be seen by the amount of different final winner’s and BIG names well down the results list like Maynard (32^nd), Questel (29^th), Volwater (28^th) and Gonzalo in 25^th overall.

At least the temperatures were nice and we were blessed to be able to sail in boardshorts all week after a horrifically cold event in South Korea last month. We now have a full month’s break before the first of the Canary Island events kick off with Pozo (waves) and Fuerteventura (slalom) being the highlights. I’ll be on my way back to Lake Garda with the Italian team for a month of relaxing, training and work before we tune up the 5.5m’s and small boards for the typical 50 knots we usually race in on the Spanish islands.

A big congrats to Bjorn for winning another event and to Quentel who really dominated yesterday to finish 2^nd overall. It’s still early days in the season with 3 more slalom events to go so we’ll see whether Bjorn can take the title again this year or Albeau will be back and hungry as he’s typically the fastest guy in nuking conditions and won the Fuerteventura World Cup last year by a streak!

Check out all the week’s reports by clicking the numbers below…

James Dinsmore rigging at Reggio Calabria. Credit PWA/John Carter.

Name: James Dinsmore

Sail number: GBR659

DOB: 01/06/1975

Years windsurfing:  23

Disciplines: Slalom

Home town: Born in London

Current residence: Hayling Island

Sponsors: Starboard, Severne

Boards: What is your history in windsurfing? When and where did you learn and first compete?

Dinsmore: My first memories of windsurfing were as a kid on a gravel pit lake. My father had an original F2 Lightning and I vividly remember the excitement when he bought a clamp-on boom for the first time.

However, it was not until after I got a job and a car in my twenties that I really got hooked. Windsurfing started to dictate my movements and soon I took a job in Australia in search of wind and sun.

My first experience of racing was at the Lancelin Ocean Classic in Western Australia. At the time I only owned wave gear and whilst the front-runners disappeared over the horizon I slogged on and off the plane for 25 kilometres. It was a frustrating business, but gave me an appetite for more racing. Several years later it was a lot more enjoyable coming back and finishing in 8^th place just ahead of Scott McKercher.

Boards: Do you consider yourself a professional windsurfer? If not what is your profession?

Dinsmore: No. Windsurfing is a rather expensive passion for me and I have to work hard as a hospital anaesthetist to save money for the gear. I used to do a lot of night-shifts with the benefit that I could get out on the water in daylight when I wasn’t working.

James Dinsmore at Defi. Image credit Dave Strudwick.

Boards: What made you get into competition and what are your plans for this year?

Dinsmore:  When I moved back from Western Australia to England, I wanted to keep my windsurfing exciting. On the South Coast more often that not the winds are quite light and there are no waves. It would be easy to get lazy and bored sailing big gear out and back aimlessly.

Racing gives you a focus and pushes you to always be trying to get more out of you and your equipment. Even when I go out in a light 12 knots seabreeze I push myself to sail at the limit and stay on the plane through every gybe. I constantly ask myself ‘would I go faster if I put on more downhaul, put up my boom or if I try a different fin?’.

Every time I go out I aim to learn something new that will mean I am better prepared for the next race. When competing you go outside your comfort zone and in doing so become a better sailor. This year I am doing the BSA series, PWA events in Italy and Costa Brava and the Defi event in France. Unfortunately neither the PWA event in Italy nor the Defi wind had good wind. I have my fingers crossed that Costa Brava will be a better event in a couple of weeks.

James in front, racing at Weymouth. Image courtesy Dave White.

Boards: What is your best competition result to date?

Dinsmore: The highlight of my racing career was making one of the losers finals at the PWA slalom event in Aruba last year. I remember starting at the boat end of the semi-final next to Antoine Albeau and I am sure he was thinking ‘who the heck is he?’ I was PWA Sailor of the Day, which was pretty unbelievable as a career doctor from the South Coast.

More from James on page two…

Hot off the press here in Korea, Micah Buzianis has topped the list after a solid fight back at the tail end of the event. It’s his first event win for a while and he looked over the moon.

The young French rider Antoine Questel made a horrible mistake, sailing to the wrong mark while leading his semi final handing Micah the opportunity to take the win. But that said, Questel is a name to watch out for as the PWA slalom season continues. He has shown, mistakes aside, that he’s got the speed and composure to top the rankings.

Micah Buzianis wins in PWA Korea. All images courtesy PWA/JC.

The best news for the UK is, that our very own Ross Williams jumped three spots in the last round and made it to third place on the podium. A great result for Ross who looked sharp all week and laid down a solid foundation to build an assault for the top of the slalom ranking this season.

Ross said: “It’s been a two year hiatus since I’ve been on the PWA slalom podium and it’s good to be back!”

PWA Korea: Ross Williams finishes third. All images courtesy PWA/JC.

Bjorn had a horrible last couple of rounds getting knocked out after hitting something yesterday and then slicing his foot open today, pushing him down to ninth place. Antoine Albeau also didn’t look his usual self and had to settle for fourth here.

The racing for myself got better and better, and by the last couple of rounds I started to at least feel in the fight. I would defiantly like to race with these guys a little more often, it’s so competitive out there on the course and I miss that. But, I have the Maui Race series to look forward to in a couple of weeks and this has been a great warm up for that. The only difference is then it will be back to racing in shorts in steady 25-35 knot trades!!

Thank you Dan for some great reporting all week. Good luck in Maui and we look forward to the next installment!

Reports from every day can be found by clicking through the numbers below…