BrUWE Wet Dreams IV

Through the winter, the racing season takes a back seat, and I go to University and study. However, there is some relief: the SWA series!

Last weekend, it was the turn of Bristol and UWE (BrUWE) windsurfing clubs to host 200 student windsurfers from around the country, for an amazing weekend.

Picture by Will Jones

A huge amount of organisation went into the event, and it payed off big time! There was instruction for all the beginners (who are now not quite beginners after Aussie Kiss), who could also get there RYA Start windsurfing certificate for no extra cost, as well as freestyle and racing for all levels. (oh, and two mental parties...).

There was very little wind, I got planing for a few seconds on Saturday with a lot of pumping, a 7.8 Tushingham Lightning, and an RRD Firerace 120, however, that didn't stop the action! The light-wind freestyle competition was good fun, I didn't quite reach the same level as I did at AK, possibly a bit too underpowered. However, Ollie Acton, and Chubsie from Solent had all the moves, and took 1st and 2nd with Dan Lytton from Exeter in 3rd.

Unfortunately Chris Guest was unable to join me in the Team racing, but Bristol managed 5th I think.

I won the Advanced racing, shame it wasn't windy, as last year saw some exciting planing slalom, anyway, can't complain!

A huge thanks to all the SWA sponsors, and all the Bristol and UWE committee who made the event happen.

Busy times for me now, with Industrial Placement interviews, but next stop is Liverpool for their core event: Northern Monkey 2 + 2 = 5. See you there!

Aussie Kiss!

It's that time of year when UKWA competitions make way for SWA madness!
Aussie Kiss is the Student Windsurfing Association's big festival which happens every October at Roadford Lake in Devon. This year I was instructing on the Saturday, and competing on Sunday. Unfortunately a run of bad luck in the Team racing final resulted in a poor result for Bristol, who are last years SWA Champions. The wind was onshore, making the beach start difficult with 8 people in a line, the positioning of the mark relative to the pontoon meant that I (who started downwind of everyone) had to complete two tacks to make it rather than one, and my fin got stuck on the beach, then the boom slipped... oh well!

The lightwind freestyle was awesome fun, and I got 3rd place! I sailed well thought out heats, stayed focused, and had awesome fun to make it to the final.

Photo by Supersaturated

A big thanks to Roadford lake for putting up with 500 odd students turning the place into more of a mud-bath than usual, the SWA committee for organising an amazing event, and all the SWA sponsors for making it possible, and providing nice shiny demo kit!

Three Raceboard wins in a row, and some Slalom fun.

Haven't updated for a while, but since then I've competed in two events.

The first was BSA Slalom 6 at Christchurch. Saturday saw ok wind, but it was very offshore and consequently too uneven to run any races, with lulls below planing. Never mind, plenty of wind on Sunday! I don't have any slalom (or freeride, or anything between 5.0 and 8.4 sails or boards between 85 and 295 liters!) so Nik Baker kindly lent me some 2013 demo kit from Fanatic and North, I was pretty powered up on the new RamF13 7.0, paired up with a 120 Gekko (wider than you'd think with that volume) which was very interesting in the bumpy water! Anyway, my starts seemed OK, and my gybing consistent, so dispite getting more and more out of control as the day went on and the wind picked up (untill the last race when I managed to trade the Gekko in for a 111 hawk), I managed to string together a fair few 3rd places. Not quite enough for the podium though! I got 4th, but it was super fun. Would love to see what I could do if I had some slalom gear of my own! The Results still aren't on the Website! Thanks to Nik Baker for the kit (and for not even expressing any annoyance at the broken boom!).

Picture by Dave White

6-7 October was the RYA Youth and Masters, and Stena Line Cup 6 at my favourite racing venue of all time - Portland Harbour! The wind was easterly (or there about  all weekend, with some nice light wind planing conditions on Saturday and Sunday morning dropping to marginal/non planing later in the day. 6 races were completed for Raceboards, and I had my most successful event ever, recording results: 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1! I am getting more and more in tune with my Starboard Phantom 380, and seemed to find some fantastic speed and a high angle upwind, which coupled with some solid starting and some good board on fleet positioning, usually saw me arrive to the windward mark first. Even when I had a bad start (which happened once), I managed to pull back some places and and arrive to windward in the top three. Downwind, my light weight and my fat board was the perfect combo to get planing, point deep, and stay planing (with a lot of pumping), I still think I could be faster downwind off the plane though - a bit of fitness work called for I think! Anyway, congratulations to Mark Kay for his second place - he has been pushing me every step of the way the last two events, and to Tom Naylor for his 3rd place - always up in the top 5, regardless of the winds strength. Thanks to all the event organisers and sponsors Stena Line. Hopefully I can make it to some more events next year!

1. Louis Morris, (Tushingham XR Race, Starboard Phantom 380)
2. Mark Kay, (Demon VG7, Starboard Phantom 377)
3. Tom Naylor, (Tushingham XR Race, Starboard Phantom 380)

Full Results here: http://results.ukwindsurfing.com/2012/StenaLineCup6_Youth-Masters.html

Stena Line Cup 4

Last weekend was Stena Line Cup 4 at Christchurch, and I won! That makes it two events in a row!
A big thanks to event sponsors Stena Line, and also to all the UKWA team that make it possible.

It was an awesome weekend racing in the Raceboard Fleet. Saturday morning was overcast, with light westerlies giving gusty and shifty conditions. I had a great start in Race 1, but dropped to 4th on the second beat in the unpredictable conditions. With the wind becoming increasingly unstable the race committee postponed until after lunch.

After lunch, the sun appeared, and we were greeted by a consistent cross onshore wind of 9-11 knots SW, which built to 12-14 knots during the afternoon, my favourite conditions! Comfortably planing, but not too overpowered for 9.5. We managed to complete 4 more races, I continued to have good starts, surprising myself with my acceleration off the line, and won race 2 and 5, with a second place behind Mark Kay in race 4. I was leading Race 3 until I over-stood the mark on the last downwind, allowing Mark Kay and Marc Carney to overtake. I felt like I had really good speed upwind, and pumped hard downwind to point deeper than anyone else, but Marc Carney was flying upwind on his Mega Cat, and I felt I lacked a bit of straight line speed from Mark Kay.

I started on Sunday in 2nd place, trailing Mark Kay by only 1 point. With overcast conditions, and drizzle, the wind was not able to increase to the strength we had yesterday, but there was enough wind for close racing, and more wind than on Saturday morning. I won the first race, I was just on the edge of planing downwind, so pumped hard all the way to stay planing and put a sizeable margin between myself and Mark. This put me on tied points with Mark Kay. The wind dropped below the planing threshold, and it was neck and neck until I squeaked past Mark after he misread the number of laps. Mark needed to finish two places ahead of me in the last race to win outright and looked comfortable after my shocking port tack start due to the strong tide flowing up the course. I managed to claw back a 2nd place in the race to take the event win.

Results:
1 - Louis Morris 8 points (Tushingham XR 9.5, Phantom 380)
2 - Mark Kay 9 points (Demon VG7, Phantom 377)
3 - Tom Naylor 21 points (Tushingham XR 9.5, Phantom 380)
Full Results
Official Event Video:

New (to me) board! I now have a Starboard Phantom 380, super fast board, can't wait till the next event! 1-2 Sept, UKWA Stena Line Cup 4 at Christchurch.

I won!

UKWA Inlands 4 at Whitwell saw light non planing winds on Saturday, and gusty marginal/planing winds on Sunday. With a borrowed Starboard Phantom 380, I found a level of performance I didn't know I had, and won 5 races out of the 8 race series. It was a fantastic weekend of racing, with some physical, tactical, close racing. My starts seemed particularly good this weekend, and I was flying upwind on the new board, which with its bigger fin and fat tail allowed me to plane earlier and head deeper downwind. I think I need to find some money to  buy one!                                                                                               

Results:

1st Louis Morris (Starboard Phantom 380, Tushingham XR 9.5)

2nd Rob Kent (Starboard Phantom 377, Tushingham XR 9.5)

3rd Jamie Ingram (Starboard Phantom 380, Tushingham XR 9.5, RSX 9.5)

Photo by Andy Watkinson

June 18-19th was event 3 of the UKWA Inland series at Oxford Sailing Club, and I got 3rd Raceboard! So happy with my first UKWA podium result, some fantastic racing. Only one race was completed on Saturday, with 25 knot gusts, it was pretty hard work but felt confident on my 8.4, just had to hold my gybes together! Sunday was very different, and 5 gruelling races were completed in very tricky, shifty marginal conditions, there was some really close racing which was fantastic, with several different people taking race wins - sadly not me, but I managed to be pretty consistent over the series of races, with the exception of the disastrous last race! This weekend it is off to the Midlands for the next event of the Inland series on Rutland water, looks like light wind Saturday and marginal Sunday - hard work!

Farmoor results:

1. Rob Kent, Starboard Phantom 377, Tushingham XR

2. Mark Kay, Starboard Phantom 380, Demon VG7 

3. Louis Morris, Fanatic Cat Class X, Tushingham XR/North Ram F8

Picture by Andy Watkinson