Set in the beautiful Rutland countryside and close to some lovely old towns like Stamford and Oakham, it is also a great place for a BBQ, bike ride or pub lunch.

SWA Nottingham Pondlife VIII

Last weekend the students of the UK were back out on the water. The second event of the year on the SWA calender hosted by Nottingham University and Rutland Water, Pondlife VIII was awesome. A super-competitive tug-of-war, some awesome SUP racing, some super-close team racing (on the RRD Firerace boards kindly provided by Boardwise and RRD), some of the highest standard individual racing ever seen at SWA events and some sick freestyle. That lot topped with two mental nights of partying all in all made a weekend to remember.

Thanks to Mark Hammond from Boardwise and Adam Sims from RRD for providing demo kit for the weekend.

Look out for a full write-up of the events and more event photos coming soon to the SWA website and Facebook Page: www.studentwindsurfing.co.uk / www.facebook.com/studentwindsurfingassociation

SWA Pondlife VIII

Get ready for SWA round 2: Pondlife – STUDENTS IN NEED! Yet another weekend of the Student Windsurf Association doing what they do best, windsurfing and partying!

With demo kit provided by the SWA awesome sponsors the UK’s biggest reservoir Rutland Water is really the only place to be on the 12th and 13th of November. With two epic nights of partying at Nottingham Uni on top of that it is an event you really can’t afford to miss.

SATURDAY NIGHT PARTY – FANCY DRESS ESENTIAL!

Theme: children’s TV programmes. Following the X-rated Aussie Kiss we have gone for a more innocent theme, so delve deep into your childhood memories and show your creative side.

Included in the Pondlife entry fee an awesome sweat, 2 night B&B, 2 epic exclusive nights out to Forum and Market Bar with a free drink, private bar and exclusive drink deals with pizza on the sat night! On top of that Pringles have kindly provided loads of tubes of crisps to be given away.

As the second stop on the SWA competition series our sponsors will be providing prizes for freestyle and team racing! And not forgetting, a good result in these events will take competitors ever closer to winning the grand series prize. As if you need reminding, the series freestyle winner will take home a brand new Fanatic Skate (thanks Fanatic/North) and the Uni coming out on top of the Team Racing will win an RRD Firerace courtesy of RRD and Boardwise.

More at www.studentwindsurfing.co.uk

Pondlife VIII

Student Windsurfing Association press man Will Jones has news of the next shindig on the SWA calendar…

It’s that time of year again! Everyone is just about fully recovered from Aussie Kiss so lets do it all over again. It’s time for PONDLIFE VIII – STUDENTS IN NEED!

That’s right this time the SWA are taking on innocent children’s TV programmes. After seeing what X-rated Aussie Kiss theme had to offer I’m more than sure some childhood memories are going to get ruined by windsurfers from all over the country!

For just £32 you get your very own limited edition Pondlife sweat, 2 nights’ B&B, 2 epic exclusive nights out to Forum and Market Bar with a free drink, private bar and exclusive drink deals with pizza on the sat night! Saturday night fancy dress compulsory so get creative! And of course, not forgetting, 2 days of windsurf fun and tuition and much much more!

Pringles and Red Bull will be around giving away lots of great freebies and all our amazing sponsors will be providing prizes for freestyle and racing competitions.

The tickets are live at www.studentwindsurfing.co.uk now – be there or be a sailor!!!

Rutland Marathon weekend

We’re expecting results from last weekend’s racing extravaganza at Rutland Water very soon, as the Midlands played host to round 3 of the UKWA Inland series, the RYA National Junior Championships, and the legendary Rutland Marathon. Of course, our irrepressible editor Dave White spent another weekend at the coal-face so was on hand to photograph proceedings for our August issue – and having literally risked his driving licence getting these pictures back to the office so quickly yesterday, we thought we’d better publish this gallery as soon as we could while we wait for news of the winners to filter through to www.ukwindsurfing.com and www.rya.org.uk

W4CR Rutland poster

Rich at Dave Nobles in Loughborough has been in touch to let us know about their Windsurfing4CancerResearch extravaganza next month: This year I have got involved with Gordon Roach from Nottingham Trent Windsurfing Club www.trentwindsurfing.co.uk to help run the W4CR event at Rutland Water, we put our heads together back in December and came up with a plan for a fun filled day on the water with the aim of raising as much money for the charity as possible, we wanted to do something a little different to the sunrise to sunset sailing as we can only hit the water from 9am till 6pm, so we came up with running fun races throughout the day.

First off we decided on doing Master Blaster Races which is great fun and anyone can get involved, as all you need to do is sail out round a mark and back to the beach, we then came up with a Tandem Race, problem was we only had one tandem Which Belongs to Trent Windsurfing Club, within two phonecalls we had 3 Starboard Gemini tandem boards thanks to Rutland Water Sports and Nott’s County Sailing Club www.ncsc.org.uk

Last of all we came up with setting up a GPS speed ladder for the day as we have a lot of windsurfers that just love going fast.

Once this little plan had come together we realised we hadn’t figured out how we were going to make money out of this, so we will be charging £2 a head per race which all proceeds will be passed straight on to the charity, and £5 for the hire of a GPS for 30mins, if you have your own GPS there will be an entry fee of £2 to get onto the ladder.

Since then I have been contacting suppliers to donate a little something for us to give out as prizes, so thanks goes to Naish Windsurfing for the two waist harnesses, O’Shea Surf for the two hoodies and two Tees, and Pat Love for two Mast Bags, we also have small prize donations form Dave Nobles Windsurfing www.nobleboards.co.uk and Rutland Water Sports.

Last of all I was chatting to a customer in the shop and he mentioned that he was good friends with the Mighty Ant Baker from Baker Windsurf Academy www.baker-academy.com with in a week I had a call saying there was a chance that Ant would be coming up to the event, with this I jumped up and got emailing, we now have 2 clinics being run by Ant Baker one at 10am and one at 1pm, hoping to get donations trough the day,

If anyone wants any info on the day and how to get involved please contact myself rich@nobleboards.co.uk or Gordon Roach windsurfing123@aol.com

Windsurfing 4 Cancer Research…..More than just a day at the beach

SB Family Freeride

FAMILY FREERIDE IN ALAÇATI 21st July 2011

Dads, daughters, mums and sons make your move!

Simon Bornhoft Windwise  coaching and holiday adventure for the whole family! This special week gives the whole family the very best in coaching and a fabulous time on and off the water. Superb safe windsurfing and a range of accommodation options offering beach, spa and childcare! Take the windsurfing at your pace and enjoy the après windsurfing of Alaçati town, sail boat trips, hot springs and other cultural adventures. For those who want a ‘beach and a book’ there’s a relaxed sheltered viewing area and tasty beachside restaurant providing the perfect setting to unwind during or after a great day on the water.

UK Skills & Drills

UK SKILLS & DRILLS TOUR 2011

Simon Bornhoft will be embarking on a 25 date WindWise Skills & Drills Tour kicking off with a selection of dates for the Spring and Summer. To improve your windsurfing, join one of these immensely enjoyable and effective skills training sessions.

Small groups, proven results, SB’s renowned coaching, individual attention and video feedback, what are you waiting for?

Here’s the dates for the diary.

HAYLING ISLAND 2 DAY COURSES

Improver-Intermediate: 17th & Wed 18th / 19th & Fri 20th May  (3rd & Sat 4th June)

Intermediate-Advanced Freeride:  3rd & Wed 4th / 5th & 6th / 7th & Sun 8th May

SUMMER TOUR ONE DAY SKILLS & DRILLS COURSES

Chalkwell, Southend Friday 29th April

Chalkwell, Southend Saturday 30th April

King Georges Reservoir, Chingford, London Sat 21st May

Datchet Reservoir, London Thursday 2nd June

Rutland Water Sun 5th June

Llandegfedd Reservoir, Wales Friday 1st July

Grimwith Reservoir, Yorkshire Sat 2nd July

Barrow in Furness Sun 3rd July

To reserve your place, find out more and book online contact WindWise.

info@windwise.net

www.windwise.net

Magical Moulay

NEWS FLASH! MOULAY 23-30th May

Want wind, waves and adventure?

SB WindWise have just had two cancellation places come up for the SB Windwise course in Moulay.

If you want to get into or give your wave sailing a boost, contact Windwise ASAP!

Loads of new kit available for demo.

We had a great turn out for our demo weekend, with everyone getting there on Saturday night for a BBQ and a few beers. Everyone got up nice and early to find enough wind to get plaining although the wind then dropped off until just after lunch. It then kicked back in and we got to see some great sailing, at one point there was no kit left on the bank for demo.

Thanks to everyone who came along to demo the kit and a special thanks to the distributers who helped make it happen.

Rutland Water

Rutland Water welcomed just over 150 windsurfers last weekend, with the camping field packed and the shoreline covered in the brightly coloured rigs, all but the formula fleet were set for a great weekend’s racing. The race site was a picture with the UKWA and the RYA coming together to put on a spectacular show. Three Marquees greeted competitors with Flags fluttering and all the latest information and promotional banners on display.

Sun cream was the order of the day on Saturday and by the evening anyone who had forgotten was glowing a bright red. The wind was light and shifty, unusually for Rutland blowing from the North, offshore from our location at Whitwell and setting a course was always going to be difficult.

The welcome briefing was soon over and all the raceboard fleets headed out on to the water. Under the new sailing instructions the race officer Mike Dempsey used the course board to change the designated course to leeward two laps for all fleets. A wise choice with the wind swinging from left to right and back any other course would have been useless. There was however either great skill or was it great luck required to get those lay lines right and at no time were the race leaders safe from a random individual performance. Two rounds of racing were held and everyone went back to shore for a short lunch break.

During the lunch break the wind built slightly and Mike called out the Formula fleet. Unfortunately it did not hold and despite running one counting race the wind was poor throughout. That was the end of formula racing for the weekend. We thank the fleet for its support despite the poor forecast. After a short lunch break Mike called the raceboard fleets out for one more round of course racing. With one minute to go the race crew had laid three separate windward marks removing the unwanted two at the last possible second to make the course as true as possible. Sailors returned to shore for the Rutland Marathon briefing with sailors taking care to study the detailed plan of the lake and the relevant rounding buoys.

Junior course race officer Mike Roberts suggested starting the 43 juniors first and what a spectical it was. With the main course sailors having a gate start some five minutes after the juniors it was not long until all 150 sailors were heading down the arm to the water tower. What an effort from the 3.5, 4.5, and 5.8 sailors, it was a long way for the older fleets in such light winds and they should be extremely proud of their efforts in supporting the ‘action for children’ charity.

The UKWA has supported this event for many years and our sincere thanks to the trade for supporting the T-shirt given to sponsored sailors. A display of Tshirts from the last 25 years could be seen proudly hanging in the race office, with some dated designs causing great amusement. Despite two hours plus of pumping many competitors enjoyed the evening entertainment of ‘human table football’ laid on by the RYA.

At 7.30 the human table football gave way to the real thing with many sailors crowding into the marquee to watch England take on the USA in the first of their World Cup Games. The roof nearly came off after just 4 minutes as England took the lead but the less said about the remainder of the match the better. Free beer and coke courtesy of Heineken UK did ease the pain slightly.

The forecast for Sunday was not promising but just before lunch Mike called out the ‘crash test dummies’ to try out the light and shifty winds. Traditionally this honour falls to the junior 6.8 & 7.8 sailors, but Mike breaking with tradition called the more mature raceboard fleet out on to the water. Despite their scepticism three rounds of racing were held and some tight and extremely tactical racing made for an exciting day. The juniors and the ‘Formula One’ RS:X fleet joined the raceboard sailors and both had two rounds of racing.

Our sincere thanks to event sponsors Boardwise and Overboard, and to all those who sponsored the Rutland Marathon T-shirt.

To all those who volunteered their time on and off the water to make this year’s event such a great success.

Rutland Marathon

So far the Rutland Marathon 2010 has raised £2547. Thank you to all the RYA & UKWA competitors who made such an effort this year to raise sponsorship.

Photograph by kind permission of Michelle Roche ( MRocheImages )

Marathon winner 2010 Paul Leoni (raceboard 9.5)

RYN National Junior Champions 2010

3.5 Rebecca Kent

4.5 Open Paul Carbis

4.5 Ross Warren

5.8 Lou Brown

UKWA Inland Championships

6.8 Robert York

7.8 Kieran Martin

RS:X Conner Bainbridge

Raceboard Mark Kay

Formula Keith Atkinson

Rutland Marathon winners

Rutland flyer

Dave Nobles invites you all to Rutland Water, Sunday 25 July 2010, to come and sample / test out all the new windsurfing gear for 2010. There will be some of the best windsurfers in the UK there for you to get those hints and tips that you may need to just get you round that gybe or land that loop or just simply get planing earlier,

Also there is going to be camping available on the Saturday night for those who want to make a weekend of it with a sneak preview of some 2011 gear from North/Fanatic and Tushingham/Starboard accompanied by a BBQ and some beers always makes a good night.