Airwaves Noumea PWA Dream Cup - Waiting game continues on day 2

by Chris Yates on 20 Nov 2014 The waiting game continued on day two of the Airwaves Noumea Dream Cup PWA event, but the competitors’ patience wasn’t rewarded on this occasion as the wind remained too light for racing. A few sailors were tempted out onto the water, but apart from a few reaches of sporadic planing, the wind wasn’t enough and soon dropped back after showing promise in the early afternoon. Eventually the competitors were released from the second day at 4pm.

Earlier in the day we caught up with a few sailors: First up local girl Sarah Hauser (Tabou / Simmer):

PWA: What are the normal conditions for New Caledonia?

SH: 'November is the beginning of the summer here in New Caledonia, and that start of our windy season. The trades should blow between about 20-25 knots on a good day with the wind from the Southeast.'

PWA: We saw you competing in the waves at the recent Starboard Severne PWA Aloha Classic - do you do much slalom sailing as well?

SH: 'I actually started windsurfing on slalom and freestyle gear because the waves here are miles away, so that was the easiest thing to do when learning.'

PWA: Aim for the competition?

SH: 'Just to have fun really, I’m not focusing on the overall result.'

Casey Hauser (Tabou / MauiSails) - who is competing in his first PWA slalom event:

'I grew up with slalom as my dad loves it, so I learnt to waterstart and gybe on slalom gear. I race with Tyson Poor, Bruce Peterson – the owner of SailWorks – but when we’re racing we are racing in a fleet of about thirty people ranging between the age of 14 to say 60, so I’m just going to be happy if I don’t come last haha. I’m feeling pretty happy to be in the competition and it’s a beautiful place to be.'

Pascal Toselli (Starboard / Point-7), who currently sits in fifth place in the overall rankings:

'I’ve been here for five days - on the opening couple of days we had great conditions for 7.8m and 8.6. The wind here is really steady and it’s a really beautiful place to sail. The forecast looks as though it should be good from Thursday onwards, but it looks as though there might be a big of rain. On the first couple of days we had weather like today [perfect sunshine] and then the wind worked really well.'

Attention now turns to tomorrow which should see the competition begin with a promising looking forecast, which predicts winds of 14-16 knots from the east-south-east. The skippers’ meeting has been called for 10am with the action commencing from 10:30am. Get ready for what should be an action packed day and to find out who takes the initiative in the title PWA World Tour