MG Windsurfing

A quick glance at the weather maps yesterday told me that it was time to check out a new spot that I'd wanted to sail for a long time already. In Northern Germany, Whit Monday equals heavy traffic and crowded spots. With my home freestyle spot Saal near Rostock being invaded by thousands of kite boarders and with parking fees on the rise, it was not hard to give this spot a skip and drive a little further to find perfect freestyle conditions in an uncrowded lagoon. The spot did not look very windy when we arrived. The wind seemed to stay further out. However, the water state was just really deceiving. Since this spot is mostly knee-deep there were not many white caps forming and the water surface was flat as a pancake. I was perfect to slightly overpowered on 4.8 and 99l. Here are some photos shot by Hannes Bubolz. Thanks a lot buddy!

The footage for this video got filmed during five sessions I had between January and March 2012. With temperatures close to zero degrees, filming gets a lot harder. Windsurfing in winter is a unique experience. A grey and chilly morning can turn into a perfect day on the water. While most people sit in front of their tellies, you are out there braving the cold. Even after a short session you can't but smile... Thanks to Julia, Hauke and Markus for filming. Most sessions were in rather light winds, so I was using the 4.6 or 4.4 Sailloft Quad and a 90l Patrik Freestyle or 78l Trailer Wave most of the time.  

Just a quick update... The first German Freestyle Battle of 2012 took place yesterday. I was really unlucky this time and am not happy with my result at all. But that's competition I suppose. On the plus side, I now know that it's possible to do freestyle on a 3.6. A longer report might follow later this week. Not sure, but there should be lots of photos and videos around. Here are two pics from yesterday, thanks to Lukas for shooting them:

We had some good easterly winds today. So a friend and me decided to go to Rügen for a day. We went to Neu Mukran first because I wanted to sail in waves for a bit of a change. When we arrived at the spot it was super windy but a bit more onshore than expected. The waves were quite big too. Unfortunately the spot proved really hard to sail today as there was whitewater everywhere and not much wind in the impact zone. Not many jumps to be had, waverides were average as well since the waves were breaking all over the place but not where you wanted it to do so. Before leaving for a freestyle session, we got the camera out. So here are some pics:

What a windy weekend! Friday started great with 4.6 weather and some funny bump and jump conditions on the Baltic. Saturday and Sunday offered good freestyle conditions on the Bodden. Check out these photos from Friday. The first one shows a culo, the others kono and switch-kono. I hope to be able to edit a short video about one or two sessions that I had these last two months. Stay tuned!

Great 4-hour session at my homespot today. Quite choppy but there was also some flatwater to be had. I used a slightly bigger board today which was great as I wasn't always fully powered up. The only downside to this spot is that it's really shallow everywhere. And with shallow I mean knee-deep. This, in combination with the small chop, makes it really hard to learn some more radical double moves like spock into culo because you always have to watch out not to stick the nose of your board into the ground. Here are some pictures:

I made it to Warnemuende, Rostock's city beach, on Saturday. The wind was not as strong as expected so I took the freestyle board and the 4.4. Waves were small too. I still got a fair share of moves, so no complaints. It got a lot milder as well. The water temperature has risen to a balmy 3 degrees and air temperatures are around 9 degrees - not bad for this time of the year! The forecast for next weekend looks average to put it mildly. There may be some rather low easterly winds but I'm already thinking of going somewhere. Here are some shots from my last session. Thanks to Michi from boddenstyle.de: