Hello Everybody,

It's that time of year again and the canary islands has called us out to play again, but only just!

With less than 3 weeks before the scheduled start date to the event it wasn't confirmed as officially on, we didn't even know if we were going to be here! i guess the global financial crisis has made the organisers - Pozo Compass, the Canarian government and the PWA tighten there belts so much so to the point that it almost wasn't going to happen at all, dark times.....

Someone, somewhere obviously just remembered at the last minute they'd stashed a bunch of fifty's down the back of the sofa for such a rainy day and all of a sudden, we're on... Happy Days! good work one and all for the collective efforts to keep this show rolling....

As for me (Phil Horrocks), well, i started this whole forum rider event reporting at this very event last year, it seemed to go down rather well too. Scrolling through to page 10, on the general discussion pages is the thread from last year, 12,500 views or something like that? It was perhaps one of the most epic Pozo events ever so it wasn't surprising really! The problem i feel is i've set myself a rather impossible task to follow...

It's my choice to write this forum and i write about whatever i want? but it's also welcome if you folks at home want to chip in with something to try and steer the ship along the way. It's primarily about me and my experiences here, the highs, the lows, but i'll also do my best to bring inside info on all that's going on out here..

For those of you who didn't read last years blog and have never heard of me then here's a little bit of background to me at my personal website for your homework [www.ripandslash.com]

And a couple of pic's here to put a name to a face, board and sail....

Better get my rest now as i'll kick things off properly tomorrow...

cheers

Phil



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2010 | 11:07am by Phil Horrocks.

A slow morning in Gran Canaria....

Table tennis against Proffitt.... useless... not his forte..

A lot of sailors were up and about for breakfast today, bright eyed and bushy tailed, there's a reasonable amount of chitter chatter about what we're expecting to happen in the week ahead...

Kauli's been here since the 11th of June he told me over his muffins this morning scoring a few good days of wind and swell..... on his 3.8 maxed!
Never heard of him? new to all this? 3 x World Champ.. check him out here [www.jp-australia.com]
He said it's been hard getting back into full power port tack sailing but it's getting better all the time..

The main talking point's the amount of wind and waves forecast for the event, at the moment it's pretty slack with barely a ripple and Pozo enjoying a seemingly windless morning. It's starting to look like the NE trades are going to kick up again to full strength in a few days, and maybe, just maybe, there might be a slight bump of swell around for the event?

Looking at the wind maps and the like for northern europe i'm expecting we'll get something, there seems to be a fair amount of low pressure activity surrounding the UK and it's the Canaries that feeds off the swell on the back end of these systems, taking around a few days to arrive and generally from the north. If the swells got West in it, that's not a good sign, bear in mind we're on the SE tip of the island pretty much.

I won't lie to you, it's not gangbusters, yet? a lot can change within in a week...

Back to the sailors and who's hot and who's not, since we arrived (2 days ago) there's only been a few hitting the water as it's been so flat, Proffitt and I had a couple of sessions, given it's been so windless in the UK for so long we we're mad keen! even knee to waist high on 4.7's was better than we've had in the last 2 months!

Ze Germans of Voget and Jung were out there, but nothing wild going down, mostly equipment tuning and just getting used to it i suspect. It looks like an Army of local kids have been training over the winter as usual, and ripping! i hope the contest is in the morning whilst they're still at school!! The rest of the guys are either resting or still to arrive i imagine... Haven't seen any of the local big shots out yet? no Koster, no Jonas, i guess if it's been good what we have right now is not enough to tempt them out.

It looks as if the wind's filling in at Pozo so i'm off up the road to check it out now...

Hopefully my winter training in SA will mean i can slip into the windy port tack fairly easy again....

Not much going down at the beach in truth.

I went for a sail around lunchtime, on the 4.7 Manic and the JP quad 74, i could really have done with something bigger as Werner took great pleasure in pointing out! It was very marginal conditions, an 82 and a 5.4 would have been loads of fun, well, better at least....

It seems there is a small window in the tide when the odd ripple comes in the bay and you can get a sneaky jump, but, really we are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of sailing conditions!

I heard rumors that some of the guys went up to a place called Ojos up near the airport yesterday and scored it a little better, i was tempted to go look today, having said that, i thought this is where we're competing and this is what i need to practice in....

Let's hope its better than this tomorrow....

I'm off back to the hotel now to get out of the heat....

ciao for now....

Good afternoon from Pozo,

A somewhat windier day with a darn site more action than the previous days!

It started slowly, with the wind filling in properly around lunchtime, there were a few pro's down here already when i arrived, the likes of Swift, Williams, Volwater, Fernandez Lopez to name a few.

The conditions were tricky to read for me, as it's the first proper day of wind, it didn't look that windy from the beach but definitely windier than the previous days. I opted for the 4.5 thinking it might be a bit on the small size but within half an hour i was totally stacked!

I'm struggling a little bit at the moment with some sort of cold/virus, i've actually had it for a couple of weeks and can't seem to shake it, i've just got no energy at the minute, my sinus's and ears are blocked and my nose is like niagra falls in the morning!! A trip to the pharmacy this afternoon to pick up some pills i think?

Alex Mussolini seems to be the man to watch at the moment, he's unbelievably consistent, sticking all the tricks the majority of the time, it's definitely got me thinking that the likes of Victor Fernandez won't have such easy routes to the finals as in years before.
Victor a sailor that's always had all the tricks along with Koester, will be given a run for there money if people with stylish riding like Alex can keep up there consistency with the tricks. Has Alex got the abilities to beat these two, yes, but, with one gaping floor in the jumping arsenal, the double forward, which unless he's keeping well hidden to surprise his opponents seems to be his only weakness...
Alex has all the other jumps, 1 handed and 1 footed to boot, he just doesn't seem to have a consistent, on demand double like a Koester or Fernandez... which could be his undoing... Early days.. maybe he's been getting them nailed in Tenerife and keeping them under wraps but we haven't seen one yet from him here in GC?

pic 1. Swift by the way, landed a peachy upright double right next to me this afternoon, he does look dangerous this year...

pic 2. Kenneth Danielsen arrived from Denmark yesterday and within 3 hours had filled his board full of holes and got half a dozen cuts all over him... still smiling though... good spirit!

pic 3. There's a few cabins going up at the beach, there must be a contest coming soon?

ciao for now....

Hi Phil

Keep it coming. Too funny. (-:

Good luck for the comp!

RS

cheers Rob,

It's Weekend madness at Pozo today, seems like every man and his dog wants a slice of the action, and in the canaries it seems like every local does actually have a dog... horrible little things normally if i'm honest... it seems like the yappy little ankle biter is the hound of choice on this island... handbag dogs, it must be a fashion thing?

We got down the beach a little earlier this morning to try and catch what little swell there looked like being before the tide went too low, it does seem Pozo is all about the tides, you normally get something reasonable for an hour or two a day, it's just being there at the right time is the tricky bit! it's about a 14hr day here, and windy throughout, so like i say there's always some point when it's reasonable.

For me it was much better this morning, i had a few quite nice waves, some Taka's and a few half decent jumps, the 1 handed backies are feeling more natural and the tweaked pushy is coming back, as long as i can get high enough off the ground to give me time to tweak it! No beating around the bush, you do have to force a lot of jumps in less than ideal conditions but it's the same for everyone, it is good when you do get the good ramps and you can really fly!

For a while i thought i was at a freestyle contest this morning, i was in the water by the beach and 4 sailors came in, one after another, popping out shaka's on the way in, i think there's going to be a lot of guys trying these moves this year, will be interesting to see how many of them can actually pull them, off a wave, on demand, in the heat of battle...

Today's top performers so far were Bouj, Alex and Volwater, Bouj with some big forwards and you could clearly see him winding up for his doubles, i saw him try one but it wasn't great, he's clearly keen to get them dialled though so things are looking good for him, Alex was pretty consistent again. Volwater had so nice table forwards and good go at a double off what didn't like the perfect ramp, so it was a good effort...

The Brazilians are just launching, now they're out the world cup and there's no footy for them to watch we might see them out on the water more..

I'd thought Dany Bruch was still in tenerife, turns out he's here, just been nursing a sore back, he's planning his session to coincide with the Germans playing there quarter final at 3 o'clock, hoping half the tourists will leave the water to watch.

Hancocks having a terrific time, he brought a semi broken board, sailed it, it broke, unsurprisingly... his new ones just arrived and about to finally hit the water he's locked himself out of his car, he's blaming car mate Graham Ezzy so it's ok... not sure he's too stoked with the conditions either at the minute...

Off for some lunch now....

Conditions improved for a while and then deteriorated throughout the afternoon, at one point switching to wind from the south, it was the perfect time to go watch the Germany V Argentina game up in the mall with the German riders and cheer on the Argies for some banter... It didn't work.... the thrashed them, i was supporting germany by the end! at least we could say England got by the world cup winners if they go all the way?

Back to the beach and the wind was back on but nearing a high tide the waves were pretty pants, not enough to tempt me out again, i'm saving my energies for the less crowded sunday morning session hopefully?

Any talk of new tricks Phil..
Double back/push loop?
Triple front?

Hi Mack,

So far the conditions haven't been anything special so it's not the easiest to see who's been working on anything big over the winter?

As it is, when it's marginal, everybody is doing the usual banker moves, the tweaked pushies, the one hand backloops, the doubles to a certain extent, you don't really have the power or projection at the minute to do anything new or especially radical, but, for sure as soon as it switches on full power we'll see the level of sailing rise rapidly!

So who's making the most of the marginal stuff? Brawzinho and Ricardo seem to be pushing the backside grubby harder in the lighter winds, chatting with Brawzhi this morning over his food mountain he thinks its a good move for the lighter stuff, expect to see it if he's on 4.7 to 4.2 but he's not holding out much hope for busting it out if it's full power 3.7 or 4.0. How will it score is a point i'll try and discuss next time i see a judge, in reality it's far harder and less reliable than a taka or shaka so in theory should score higher but perhaps visually it's not got the wow factor, so they might actually not score it so high? i'll get back to you on that one...

I'm hoping for a quieter session on the water this morning as all the spanish will either be at sunday morning church or the sinners recovering from their hangovers after last nights football result! the was a lot of tooting and hollering going on around about the hotel last night...

don't forget, you can register free and use the live webcam at www.cutre.com to view the live action..

i'm off to the beach to check it out... ciao for now..

Well, my plan of getting to the beach this morning and it being nice and quiet kind of didn't work? It turned out that there wasn't actually any wind!

Pozo was covered in cloud and there was barely 15 knots of wind, and as usual, pretty flat! it was however quiet, as we hoped.

After a short while there was a line of blue breaking the cloud which just seemed to grow and grow. With that the wind came in and we were out, not many sailors on the water of note except Albeau who was putting in the hours, fair play.. the waves started to build, on 4.7's it was pretty fun, a few jumps and some decent riding at times, but, it was incredibly onshore, you could almost jump starboard tack on the way in as you were almost heading up to towards the break water above the cafe!

After an hour or so we were in and having lunch, it was a good chance to watch the boys putting in their efforts, the Pryde / JP team were out in force, Swift, Kauli, Antoine, Ricardo all out tuning it up.. The north boys of Victor and Brawzi were out, Victor's fleeting in and out of moments of brilliance, pulling big backside 360's in heavy wave sections and then following it up by catapulting in the shore break, Victor was also falling on quite a few backloops which is very unusual for him, he's still got a few days to pull it all together though..

I was just about to leave the beach and Koester turned up.. Fair play he's looking sharp.. I was sat up on the bank watching with Ben Severne and his entourage to see him nail a perfect clean double on his first run out, nice.... he followed that up with a ride in getting a shaka and a couple of turns. Second run out, perfect double! again! if only he was a bit more consistent we all commented! ha! ha! That was are Q to leave... back home to watch some videos and swat up for training tomorrow if were going to catch him up! He is looking a hot favourite i'd say!

Nice article and an interesting one.

I think a lot depends on the conditions. Doing a taka at Hookipa is much harder in my opinion than a goita. However here in Pozo, doing a goita is much harder than doing a taka.... so I am not sure you can generalise and create a list like you do with the jumps. I guess we have to rely on the judges being good enough to know what is harder. A taka on the point in Pozo off a good section is equal to or greater than a 360 at the same point, however a taka on the white water on the inside is much easier than a 360 in the same place... so I guess we maybe just have to hope the judges know what they are doing. In most cases they seem to be on it in Pozo, except when I lose, and then they clearly have no idea!!!

Pozo this afternoon was a bit of a ghost town, a few sailors around unloading their equipment onto the beach ready for a rigging frenzy but no on the water action to be had..

It seems to be a pretty low budget affair this year? last year we had tents and pa systems going up a few days in advance, so far we have 4 containers and that's about it?

I guess tomorrow the PWA brand up what they can with the flags and there'll be lots of people around so it will seem a lot busier around the event site... at the moment there's not much happening at all?

The trials for the event were supposed to be held today but it seemed with no wind, nothing happened? i guess they will just give them out now??

We have the opening ceremony at the hotel this evening so that's when we'll really get to see who's here..

you can check the official Notice Of Race of who's in so far at [nor.pwaworldtour.com]

If you want to work out who's up against who in the 1st round (top 16 are seeded through to second round), assuming all those listed turn up, plus the 6 wildcards... as a rough guide you have to do this:

we know 17 goes against 48, add those two up = 65. Then do your 65 minus the seeding number and that's what seed your up against..

So just for fun, let's do Koester... 65 minus 25th seed Koester = versus seed 40 Jamie Hancock K218


I do find it totally bizzare Philip Koester can be seeded so low for an event he dominated last year?, but, i guess rules are rules...

You might be able to see the full draw this evening, if not, tomorrow when it all kicks off...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2010 | 5:28pm by Phil Horrocks.

I imagine Hancock is over the moon with that draw!

John is surely right in that judges at PWA level should have the knowledge and experience to be able to tell which move is harder in which conditions and score them accordingly. Taka after taka off piddly small white water should not be scored highly, but then again, if the only other option is to do a lame top turn are they not a better/higher scoring option?

I don't think limiting the type and number of tricks on a wave would work for every event, maybe it should only apply to events where conditions are really poor (like flat pozo).

Anyway, what I really want know is what is the rivalry like in camp between the respective world cup nationalities? Are Klass and ze fellow Germans strutting their stuff? And what are the plans for the semis and final?

And also, how much stick are the French, Italians and English getting?

Word bro.... There's a little world cup fever...

There are no italians? well there were some here but they left before the competition got going, a bit like the world cup i suppose!

The English are pretty tight lipped with not much to shout about as you'd expect, apart from Proffitt who blatantly doesn't give a monkeys who does well and supports any nation that's got one of his fantasy footy players in!!! it's all about the points not the football....

Ze Germans are not overly boisterous either, they're not scheduled to be getting excited until after they've won it of course, the machine doesn't allow for emotion to be released until the job is done..... Klaas did let out a small Whoop by accident when it went 4-0 though?

The Brazilians aren't interested now they're not in it.... but Alfie did say the Brazilian freestylers were weeping like little girls in Lanzarote after the Germans put them to shame! hankies all round...

The Dutchies are suprised they got as far as they have, that's now turned to Mevissen being convinced they're going to win it! love his enthusiasm.... blind faith powered by red bull!

The spaniards are all bravado and flexing there guns on the beach.. they think they're going all the way.

and as for the French, well... they're still French whatever happens!


I wonder who Koester or Bruch for that matter will be supporting if it goes to a Germany v Spain final? will he be E44 or G44? or E181 or G181?

Great stuff Phil, keep it coming boyo.

on the move front,for onshore such as pozo, doesnt getting a good critical cutback, or even frontside aerial involve a lot of skill, and should maybe be looked upon with greater regard than a taka over an already broken wave - do they score moves on already broken waves in surfing?

Also, since you mentioned freestyle wave, how does a bottom turn into grubby, then cut back, or similar with mid bottom turn spock score - they both look impressive. Do they even count?

Good question clyde. not sure i really think there's many bottom turns into spock out there... can't imagine there's much of that going down this week, so it shouldn't trouble the scorers...

The beach today is a pretty windless sorry sight for a world cup windsurfing contest at the minute... It doesn't really feel like normal Pozo at the minute? There's no sunshine, no wind, no flags flogging noisily away, no PA system blaring out bad canarian dance music or the usual throng of slalom sailors rigging, tuning and causing chaos.... It all feels a little deserted right now?

For sure it won't last though? there's hot tips from locals that the wind's back tomorrow and i'm sure as soon as the sun's out, the rattling of the flags and the prospect of competition are back things will start to buzz again....

The draw's been done after everyone entered, not quite as i predicted, i might have got it a wee bit wrong, i didn't take into account this was the first event of the year and so the seeding worked out a little differently... check the draw at [www.pwaworldtour.com]

Obviously the biggest name missing is retired world champ Josh Angulo. Never his favourite event i would think but his keenness and presence is definitely notably missing on the beach... Well it is for me anyway? We typically rig and base ourselves the furthest downwind near the corner by the windsurf centre. Next to Swift, Buzianis, Angulo and Pritchard usually... it's usually overflowing with gear and people and there's plenty of banter and craic around the pits, i wonder if Angulo's keeping an eye on what's going on out here still and ever so slightly missing it??
Without the racers there's a lot less gear on the beach and fewer sailors so it definitely feels like an unusual year this year, quite a few are missing actually, the Jensen brothers are notable absentees too..


The biggest surprise to me about the draw is Koester and Kauli potentially meeting in heat 17 battling for a spot in the last 8? that's pretty early for these two to be clashing and one that can have serious consequences for a couple of world title hopefuls! the victor getting the pleasure of potentially meeting a Jonas or Mussolini most likely in heat 23.
The only one to be pleased to see that must be victor Fernandez. He has no easy route either, but he doesn't really meet a title contender until heat 22 which would most likely be a Bruch in my opinion...

Heat 23 is the one to predict, from there anything can happen really but i'd say from the top half we'd be looking at Koester and Mussolini and from the bottom half Campello and Victor Fernandez..

Just for arguments sake i'll go with a Koester, Fernandez, Mussolini, Campello finish to the top four slots in the single elimination.... but, there a lot of guys who can upset the apple cart on the way to this, including Kauli, Jonas, a charging Swifty and Bruchey to name a few....

looking out for team GB...
Hancock actually has Kai lenny in the first heat, if he advances that it's Koester waiting.
Proffitt in the bottom section of heat 1 takes on Denel, he beat me in Sylt and is quite dangerous! Kauli Seadi awaits.
Horrocks (me) in heat 8 against Mauch, not seen him sail yet, worryingly! with Pritchard to follow potentially.
Williams in heat 12 likely to face slalom world champ Albeau, on fire after cracking result in Sylt last year.
Swift in heat 13 facing either Ezzy or Jung, he should advance to face Brawzinho most likely.
Skye down in heat 14 is waiting for either Bouj or Jaeger with one eye on Campello if he advances..

This is a windsurfing competition, absolutely anything can and most probably will happen!! nothing's ever taken for granted so all sailors will be keeping an eye on the changing conditions and making sure they are best prepared for whoever they might face!

Should be a very interesting single elimination when it gets going.... looking promising for tomorrow....

It's officially off for the day, no more competition.... everyone's off back to the hotel for the Uruguay V Holland game... No one supporting Uruguay..... it's all Orange....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2010 | 3:07pm by Phil Horrocks.

Christ have you seen Kauli's career highlights! He must love every day!

Long day at the beach today, and not too much happened really?? well, there was a bit of windsurfing at least...

We managed to finish the first rung of the ladder, i'm still in which is good!

Proffitt kicked things off this morning with his heat against the big haired Jules Denel and on the other side of the heat it was the battle of the small people with big personalities as Hancock took on Lenny. Interestingly Hancock was on a 4.0 whilst Lenny was on a 4.7..... that could have been part of the reason for the result with Lenny taking the heat..
Ben sailed well making sure he was in charge getting good points right from the off, Jules looked like he was struggling on his stuff and could have done with a bit more power. Ben racked up the points and i'm pretty sure it was a convincing win, the Veteran Proffit is sailing to his full potential again (Pic 1)

There was a bit of a break in the middle of the day as conditions deteriorated to a pretty poor state, so much so the 12 minute heats were cancelled, abandoned and then re run a couple of times. Eventually, somewhat desperately to keep things going they went with 18 minute heats, it turned out to be a pretty good idea, the sets were taking an age to come through and it was a bit of pot luck as to whether you were riding or jumping at the minute the set came in. At least with long heats there was more chance of everyone getting a bit of the action and removing a small amount of the luck element from the competition...

Ezzy and Jung are room mates back in the hotel and were drawn against each other, it was a bit of a ding dong battle and the helmeted warrior came out on top.... Gonna be some awkward silences in there room tonight.... Hopefully graham makes up for knocking his chum out by supporting Germany later... i'm sure they'll kiss and make up.

The rest of the heats were a bit of a blurrr really? i watched a few here and there, the best of the bunch was the battle between Moroccan Jumping Maniac Bouj - who by the way was so outraged by mistakes on the boardseeker Pozo promo page so much that he felt the need to get it off his chest! [www.boardseekermag.com] - and Jaeger i've got a bad foot Stone.... He has got a genuine bad foot but you wouldn't know it, he's busting out the backies and stunts as if there's nothing wrong? Must be his Tash power.... (Pic 2)
Bouj didn't have his best heat it's fair to say, he was sailing so much better last week when it was a bit stronger, i think the marginal stuff today threw him off track a little bit?

I was the last heat to go, i went on my 4.7 Manic and 74 quad fin, it felt pretty good and with long heats i'd thought no worries i'll be able to relax and go through everything i can do, it actually wasn't that simple, i could have done with a slightly bigger sail and i found it almost impossible to ride anything? I've been coming to this spot for about 7 years now, i still don't really have a clue how to ride here!! It's unbelievably difficult when it's marginal conditions. I find myself on a wave or swell and then i go to ride and the wave seems to disappear, back off and reappear somewhere else? the locals make it look easy, trust me it isn't!
My opponent, a young local whipper snapper by the way, they're the worst! i've been beaten by one in the past, you've never seen them sail before, never heard of them, and they're normally pretty damn good, fortunately this one was saving his best sailing for another day, i was too strong for him in the jumping department.

After my heat they went into the second rung of the ladder and Proffitt's second heat of the day, against a previous world champ Kauli Seadi, with the bottom half of the heat made up of Koester and fellow Red bull chum and nipper Kai Lenny.
The conditions were getting worse and worse and it was pretty pants stuff if i tell the truth? This was classic Proffitt upset territory, i've been to enough UK wave events that have been run in this kind of garbage and Proffitt definitely has the slippery snake knack of getting through heats when it gets tough like this.... and it was happening again.... Ben had a pair of jumps in the bank and a bit of a wiggle, whereas Kauli was taking his time, had 1 jump in the bag and struggling to find a wave.... Tick Tock, time was moving and Kauli was looking a bit frustrated, he swapped for bigger gear and it really was marginal... Unfortunately for Proffitt the heat was eventually cancelled and his dream of an upset was over! at least for today?
On the other side of the draw Koester was making the conditions look awesome, jumping and riding like no tomorrow..
I think head Judge Duncan Coombs could sense the kind of verbal volley he would have got if he let it run the distance, going for the blue and white checkered flag proved to be Kauli's saviour on this occassion... rightly so tooo... it really was scraping the barrel of conditions, you know it's not good if in an 18 minute heat you can't fill the sheets?

The wind never came back and so all sailors have been released for the day... we're back at the beach for a 9 o'clock skippers in the morning, all that's left to do is go and cheer on our respective teams back at the ranch this evening....

By the way, last nights Semi Final was played in the stadium in the background of Pic 3 below!

I think the conditions will be a lot better tomorrow and hopefully all of the UK boys can get through some more heats tomorrow...

ciao for now.

Go proffit, skye and swift!!! Old man Proffit beating Seadi, we ll never hear the end of it now!