Reunion Wave Classic

Reunion Wave Classic 2010_Teaser from Open Ocean Media on Vimeo.
From Agust 25 till September 5.
For more information: WAVECLASSICINVITATIONAL

Jonas Ceballos & Mission X

Towards North

A lot of people think windsurfing in Gran Canaria is all about Pozo Izquierdo, but it's plenty of other spots just driving a few minutes and for a couple of them you don't even have to drive, you can go sailing from Pozo.
When Pozo Izquierdo is flat, there's a lot of chances you can find wind and waves in less than a 20 minute drive.

Teahupoo is on!

After 7 days with not contestable conditions, right now Teahupoo is not epic but it's good, and even if it's not huge is one of the most amazing waves of the world, so competition is starting right now.

For the live webcast: BILLABONGPRO

Billabong Pro Tahiti

We are at the sixth day of the waiting period of the Billabong Pro 2010 and competition has not started yet, but a new swell is just arriving at Teahupoo and contest director, Luke Egan has put the contest on hold till 11:00 local time (22:00 GMT), so competition could start in just a few hours.

For more information, to watch the webcam at Teahupoo or for the live webcast when competition resumes: BILLABONGPRO

Saturday for 4,7 - 4,2

Looks like after a couple days with North wind coming in and out, finally we have propper steady trade winds (NE) in Pozo Izquierdo.

Wedge carnage

Wedge Carnage from David Lee Scales on Vimeo.

Last day at Pantin, live

Good waves and rain, yesterday at the Ferrolterra Movistar Pantín Classic. Today the waves are smaller but the sun is shining for what it looks like it will be the last day at this 6 star WQS in Galicia (North-West of Spain), with the local surfer, Gony Zubizarreta already in the quarter finals.

To watch the live webcast, click HERE.

Common people, August

Matt biolos and 10 things you should know...

Matt Biolos, just won the Tribute To The Masters Shape-Off at the Sacred Craft Surfboard Expo in San Diego, ant here you hava a small advice to choose your surfboard, it's what he calls "Ten things every man should know about surfboard design":

1. Boards with a straight rocker paddle faster. And, paddling is 50 per cent of the game. If you can’t catch waves, you can’t surf. Even if you’re surfing two-foot windblown peaks with three friends, you still have to compete to get waves. And, you thought it was all about thickness, right? It’s not; it’s how the bottom moves across the water. However…

2. Volume is your friend. You can have a really thick board, but if you put a vee bottom in it rides neutral, whereas a medium-thickness board with concave can ride flat like a plank.

3.Tail shapes don’t matter as much as you think. If the width going into the tail is the same, a square, a squash, a diamond or a swallow is going to behave in a similar way. Round tails and pintails decrease the rail line, so they’re going to hold a little better and shorten a turn radius.

4. I don’t buy into the whole back-foot/front-foot surfer thing. We’re all surfing from the back foot. You’re either a weak back-foot surfer or a strong back-foot surfer. You push hard or you don’t. You’re either Taylor Knox or a flicky little kid.

5. Look at the outline of your board. Straight lines go fast. Curved lines turn. Simple.

6. The straighter the rocker, the further back you need to stand and boards with a continual rocker have a bigger sweet spot. However, and this is a big however, a drivier board will be more forgiving in picking up speed, just less forgiving when you need to turn.

7. Match the curve of the board to the curve of the wave. This is for the average surfer. Everything goes out the window for pros – they can do anything. I travel with a curvy board and a flat board: curvy boards for the Gold Coast and for Sydney shorebreaks.Flatter boards for mushy points or blown out crumblers. On a planky board, it ain’t gonna work when you need to jump to your feet and bottom turn in one quick move. And, when you do get up, all you’re going to do is parallel floaters.

8. There’s a magic number and it’s called your cubic volume. It’s up to us shapers to educate people, and it’s information available, right now, on our shaping machines. Let me explain. One of my team riders, Shea Lopez, was teasing me about how big my boards are. We were down at Lowers, two fat cocktails in hand, and he grabbed my board and said, “Have a fucking look at this boat!” And, I said: “Well, I’m fat, I’m 40, but you know what, fucker? I bet my volume-to-weight ratio is not far from your’s. I’m 30 per cent heavier and have maybe 30 per cent more volume. The difference is, I’m a desk jockey and you’re a professional athlete.” If we know our cubic volumes, all the other dimensions can be left to the shaper. Instead of saying, I ride 6’1”s x 18 5/8” x 2 5/16”, you’d say, I’m a 42, make me a small-wave craft. This does require a degree of trust in your shaper. Which leads me to…

9. There are two types of shapers you can trust. One is the local shaper who knows the conditions and who probably knows how you surf. That’s a certain kind of trust. Then there’s the trust you have for an international shaper. You trust Al Merrick because he consistently makes great boards for great surfers and for the globall market. If you live in Santa Barbara, where Al lives, you get local and international knowledge. If you live on the Gold Coast, you get both: Darren Handley and Jason Stevenson. If you live in Sydney, you get both: James Cheal (Chilli). If you live in San Clemente, you get Timmy Patterson and me. But, if you live in, say, Adelaide, you might have to balance the tradeoff between local and global knowledge.

10. Balance in a surfboard is everything and shapers walk a tightrope every time they build you a custom board. If you want a board with a lot of rocker, your shaper has to build everything around it to balance it out. If one element is extreme, the rest of the board has to act as a counterbalance to neutralize the extreme. Greg Webber was a genius on the wire. Everything is balance.

For more information about Matt Biolos and his surfboards: LOSTERPRISES

Goya & Quatro 2011

Live from Galicia

Right now you can watch live from Galicia, el Ferrolterra Movistar Pantín Classic, men and women 6 star WQS.

To watch live click HERE.

"Sailing" speed record

The images have already something more than a year, so I don't know if anybody has gone faster just with the wind power, but 126.4 miles per hour is not slow by any means, I imagine that won't be nautical miles.

Strong tides

The tide in the Canary Islands is a very important factor for the waves, now with strong tides with the full moon it's more critical, today at noon with the rising tide we had a really nice session in Pozo Izquierdo, two hours later, with the full tide, was nearly flat.

Keith Teboul

+H2O- Keith Teboul windsurfing- www.positive-h2o.com from +H2O on Vimeo.

Billabong Pro Tahiti 2010

Today starts the waiting period for the Billabong Pro Tahiti 2010, the forecast is not looking promising at the moment, but looks like could be contestable conditions for today or tomorrow.

For more information and live webcast: BillabongPro

Discards

I admit that lately I haven't been publishing too much of my pictures in Pozo Izquierdo, and this has been due to some accumulation of photoshoots for some brands over the last month, and usually the pictures from a photoshoot are for exclusive use from the brand who is doing the photoshoot, so I could not publish any of these pictures, but sometimes there is a decent shoot that does not enter the final selection because it's not interesting for the sponsor, usually because you don't see the product or the sticker, thanks to that, today I was able to "infiltrate" this picture from Alessio at a recent windsurfing session next to Pozo Izquierdo.

Sunday morning

Sunday morning in Pozo Izquierdo, strong wind (3,7-4,2), some small fun waves, and just a few guys enjoying a great windsurfing session; at the 3 small pictures above these lines, some of the unconditional local riders: Alessio, Fito and Lutz.

Creative destruction

Creative Destruction: Chapter 3 part 2 from CREATIVE DESTRUCTION on Vimeo.

4,7-5,3 and picking up

The day started with nearly no wind, but got better during the morning and right now people are windsurfing with 4,7-5,3 and looks like it's getting better for this afternoon.

Live from Lacanau

Right now, live from France, the Soöruz Lacanau Pro, a 6 star WQS, small waves at the moment, but good surfing anyway.

To watch it live click HERE.

*By the way, the website is not working very good on Explorer, so I recommend the use of another navigator.

Plastic bags

Push loop off the lip