DaNewsBlog

Sunday, September 29, 2013

PWA: Sylt Germany Live

Sunday, September 15, 2013

PWA: Kia Cold Hawaii ~ AWT: Hatteras Wave Jam

The PWA will live webcast the Kia Cold Hawaii from Klitmoller, Denmark. Cold Hawaii event organizers offer a livestream page and a how to follow Media Page for those that want to share or embed the broadcast. Denmark is 6 hours ahead of New York. 7:00 am New York = 1:00 pm Denmark. Generally, competition starts early in the day, local time. Visit the PWA Website for the complete reporting. Zoom this page to view the above iframe better. This event runs September 16 - 22. The last PWA Live Broadcast was accessible on Smart Phones and Tablets. The Home Page above (iframe) will default to the Live Page when they broadcast. On the PWA Live page, expect the full suite of streaming video, written Live Ticker, live scoring and audience interaction via Twitter and Facebook. To mute the above iframe, click the Pause Button to stop the video player.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, the AWT Hatteras Wave Jam runs September 16 - 21. Event reporting will be posted to the AWT FB Page and the AWT Website. Visit the Wind NC website for Event Info.

Monday, August 19, 2013

PWA Live: Alacati, Turkey

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Live PWA Webcast from Alacati, Turkey. Turkey is 7 hours ahead of New York. 7:00 am New York = 2:00 pm Turkey. First possible start is 11:00 am local time. Visit the PWA Website for the complete reporting. Zoom this page to view the above iframe better. This event ends Saturday, Aug. 24. Live broadcast are available for replay. The Live Broadcast is accessible on Smart Phones and Tablets. Home Page above will default to the Live Page when they broadcast. To mute the page, click the Pause Button under the video player.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

PWA : Tenerife Live

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Go To PWA Live for the full scale page or zoom this page for better viewing. The above iframe automatically goes to the Live page when they broadcast. Live coverage underway...this event ends August 9.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Live Webcast from Pozo ~ Radar

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Live Webcast from Pozo, Gran Canaria !!! The PWA high energy wave contest, July 9 - 14, is open to men and women. Only 32 men will compete with the final 6 selected from a group of 12 on opening day. 15 women have been selected including Sarah Quita Offringa, competing in her first ever wave contest. Pozo is 5 hours ahead of EDT. The above image is an iframe, the mirrored interactive live copy of the real PWA page. It will move to the Live Page on game day. PWA Website

Is Pozo the most extreme windsurfing event of the season? It's almost always the windiest. Competitors come weeks before to practice and prepare for the conditions. Injuries are common. Robby Swift broke his leg in 3 places just days ago. If anyone will ever do a triple forward in competition, it will likely be here. The pre-event buzz is huge.

Here is the always entertaining Ben Proffitt reporting from Pozo with all the latest on the build up to the big event:

Radar

Former editor of the now defunct Windsurfing Mag, Josh Sampiero, has been writing for energy drink maker Red Bull since last year. He covers all their varied sports interest.

Windsurfing Magazine subscribers who were pissed by the decision to replace their cancelled subscriptions with another Bonnier magazine, might find some weird solace with the announcement that Transworld Surf is ending their print edition.

The AWT will try a new event and format on Lake Champlain this September 28 - 29. The event will include demos, clinics, a long distance race and windsurfing, kiteboarding, and paddleboard exhibitions. And this, from the AWT FB: The former AWT Maui Makani Classic has been renamed the Aloha Classic. The PWA has been invited to join the 2 week contest window. If the PWA does accept, top Pros from the AWT brackets will advance as wildcards to the PWA contest. PWA Tour Head Judge, Duncan Coombs, will be Head Judge for the AWT event. One more item, the Pacasmayo Classic in Peru has added slalom racing to the schedule. AWT Website

The National Geographic Extreme Photo of the Week of Levi Siver was extreme because in that session he set a new world record for highest windsurfing jump. More info about the photo shoot on the Michael Clark Blog. More photos of Levi from the Red Bull Windboost. Mouse over the photo to click for more photos.

Did you see the video of the one arm kid doing a jibe in Bonaire? That's Theo and he lost his arm to cancer. Thanks to Taty Frans for giving him some love and attention. Theo needs financial help for additional medical attention. You can donate here.

Show me the waves. Kuma Movie has been shooting from the freestyle capitol of the world and ~~~ Part 8 Part 9.

You took the advice and bought the mast recommended for your new sail. The years rolled by, the sail wore out but that carbon mast is still good. Want to try a different sail brand? Find out what sails work the best on your old mast with the Unifiber Mast Selector.

A few hucking videos from Bruce Peterson featuring the King of the Huck, Dale Cook.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Summertime Gorge ~ Windsport ~ Radar

Nick Allen, Casey Hauser, Tyson Poor, Ingrid Larouche
photo by Trudy Lary

Strong consistent wind, a unique opposing river current and a local support community that caters to a visitor's needs for gear, food and shelter are why the Columbia River Gorge is one of our national windsurfing treasures. In the Gorge it's easy to rent gear, feed your face, enjoy a post sesh beverage and find a place to spend the night. On mainland USA, there is no other place like it where the windsurfing industry is so well dug in and able to offer a cornucopia of gear. This year, the volume of Gorge reporting in social media seems elevated; or maybe it's just the summer revival that happens every year when the area swings back into full throttled action mode. If you're planning a visit or have moved in for the season, here's a guide of sorts to help you get connected.

Speaking of guides, your first stop for news should always be Temira Wagonfeld's The Gorge is my Gym. And what's the biggest story everyday? The wind. Temira does a daily forecast plus a full sports spectrum report of upcoming events, happenings, food reviews and gossip. You can subscribe to her daily reports via email.

The most active and engaged organization in American windsurfing is the Columbia Gorge Windsurfing Association. They actually pay their president a reasonable salary. Their signature event and major fundraising source is the Gorge Windfest which features gear demos, clinics, free beginner lessons, swap meet, food and drink, music, windsurfing glitterati and the Blow Out Race. This busy organization also puts on the goofy King of the Hook multiple swap meets, runs the Gorge Groms program and now offers a weekly board member notes blog.

After a 5 year hiatus, the Freestyle Frenzy is returning to the Hatchery thanks to the AWT, Xensr, and the CGWA.

Over here on the mainland, there is no other place with this density of retailers where you can see, touch, try on and demo the product before you buy it. One of the Gorge retailing ancients (started 1987), Big Winds, is fully engaged in teaching, renting and selling gear. Two ways they promote their business and the popular water sports of the area is with their blog and Facebook. Big Winds is a worthy business model to emulate because of their success at blending making a living and the passion for water sports. Below is an inside view of their richly appointed store.

Check out the Gorge Community Guide, a directory of all things windsurfing with 28 different listings.

Windsport ~ The Photo Issue, a Special Collector's Edition, arrived in my mailbox a few days ago. Of all the categories of news items shared on DaNews FB, photos and their albums get the lowest traffic so I was a little concerned about a photo issue. But once I started thumbing through it, I found it full of how to technique, gear reviews, travel features and a few extra photos. The 98 pages of this issue also got me wondering about the impact of the closing of Windsurfng magazine almost a year and a half ago. What happened to all those subscribers? Real subscription numbers are a closely guarded secret but Windsurfing probably had around 10,000 subscribers. Did they all abandon print media? Or did most of them subscribe to both? It would be nice to see Windsport expand its number of issues and or the number of pages per issue. But for that to happen, the Mag probably needs more advertisers and subscribers.

Radar ~ Good news from the PWA: they expect to be Live Streaming from Pozo, Gran Canaria, July 9 - 14. Pozo is only 4 hours ahead of the east coast US, so grab your coffee and link up. Just in case you've been off planet for a couple of decades, here's why Pozo deserves your attention. And for some exciting build up to the event, stay in touch with Ben Proffitt's brilliant video reports via his Training Diaries.

At the recent US Kiteboard Nationals held in San Francisco, 7 of the top 10 finishers were riding Mikes Lab Boards. Out of the entire fleet of 75 competitors, 47 rode Mike Zajicek boards. Don't worry, Mike still makes windsurfing boards.

There is nothing conventional about Made Boards. The additive manufacturing process seems like science fiction. Their promotional campaign has been more poetic than informational. Now they are raising capital for their business via the internet. Have a look at their latest video on Kickstarter.

Kuma Movie is shamelessly laser focused on freestyle. No one else comes close to their volume of video reporting They are currently on Bonaire, where else, completely engaged in what they do so well.

The Kona Worlds are set for June 28 - July 3 at Trois-Rivieres in Quebec. Visit the 2013 Kona Worlds Event Website for details.

Most of us think new gear means made in 2013 and we would be happy to have some. If you'd like to see some 2014 gear, check out the blog Freewide Web. Keep paging down for the windsurfing stuff, he also likes bicycles and...

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Santa Cruz Recap ~ Pistol River Next

The Competitors' Edition ~ The first event of the 2013 AWT season, from Waddell Creek near Santa Cruz, was followed by every windsurfing news outlet from Europe to Australia and even some non windsurfing, sailing focused websites. Pete Dekay, editor of Windsport, wrote the summary of competition for each day. If you were too busy to follow the news while you were there, below is what the world read and saw about you at the AWT Goya Windsurfing Festival:

Participants: 2011 - 75 ~ 2012 - 80 ~ 2013 - 65.

The videos below are listed in the order they were published. Even though it's been over a week since the event concluded, new reports continue to get published. I will add them to this post when available.

For the latest developments about the next AWT event at Pistol River, look on the: AWT Website and/or AWT Facebook. This FB link is where all the AWT photos from Santa Cruz 2013 were posted. Only the AWT can post to this FB page. Some of you may have noticed that there are actually 2 AWT Facebook pages. The second AWT Facebook page, which is actually the one linked to from their website, allows everyone to post to the page but is not well supported by the AWT. That means not very much official AWT reporting gets posted there. This page has 3,294 friends. And the first, official 'cause of its content, AWT FB page has 2,067 likes which might explain why Sam is reluctant to lose either one.