Saturday, June 15, 2013

Wave sailing is not boring

I love watching windsurfing videos , but I have to admit that I often find wave sailing videos boring. Up, down, up, down, and repeat. Probably lots of fun to do, but boring. Enter Philip Köster, the 19-year old PWA world champion in the waves 2011 and 2012:

This is definitely not boring. This is one of the coolest windsurf videos I have seen. Ankle-try double forwards! Sky-high stalled spin loops! Fully planing 720s in the waves! One-handed, one-footed, no-handed you-name-it-tricks (because I don't know the names).

Philip is sponsored by Maui Ultra Fins (MUF). I have bought a total of 5 weed fins from MUF, including 2 Deltas.With my last order, they also sent me two fins to demo: a 23 cm X-Wave, and a 17 cm Style-Taty freestyle fin. I absolutely love my 26 cm MUF Speed Weed and my 30 cm MUF Slalom Weed. They go upwind like pointer fins and take tons of pressure without spinning out. I think they reduced my planing threshold by 2 mph compared to the similar-sized fins I used before. Even Martin was mightily impressed with the 26 cm MUF Speed Weed when he tried it. If you want to try one of the fins, find me at Kalmus beach in Hyannis on a windy day. If you don't know me, look for the white high roof Nissan van.

I tried the X-Wave a few times at Kalmus, and liked it. The fin is a bit more radical than I am, and needs a soft touch unless I am powered on 5.0 or less. But even for my limited skills, it makes wave play a lot more interesting. And it was signed by Philip, so I'll definitely have to keep it.