PWA Sylt World Cup - No action on day 8

by Chris Yates on 7 Oct 2012 The eighth day of the PWA Reno Sylt World Cup appeared promising from the outset as winds between 11-20 knots arrived at the 10am skippers meeting. However, by 10:40, which was the first possible start time, the wind had already dropped and changed direction. Soon the morning rain was replaced with wall-to-wall sunshine, but sadly no wind arrived with the change of weather and so today ended with no action taking place on the water.

All eyes have now turned towards tomorrow, which offers an excellent forecast for the final day of the 2012 PWA World Tour with winds of up to thirty knots being predicted. Sunday promises to be an extremely exciting and nerve racking day as the men’s slalom world title and the battle for the final place on the podium in the men’s wave is still to be decided. Antoine Albeau (RRD / NeilPryde) has edged ahead of Bjorn Dunkerbeck (Starboard / Severne / Mystic / Dunkerbeck Eyewear / Chris Benz) in the battle for the 2012 title, but that could change again. Whilst in the men’s wave, the fight for third place will see a sail off between Ricardo Campello (JP / NeilPryde / MFC) and Alex Mussolini (Tabou / Gaastra).

In yesterday’s night session Victor Fernandez (Fanatic / North) suffered an injury to his ankle, thankfully it doesn’t look too bad, here are a few words with the 2010 PWA wave world champion: 'My ankle is ok it is a little bit swollen, but tomorrow is the last event of the year and I have an important heat, so I am going to try and sail on Sunday by using protection on my foot.'

Jose ‘Gollito’ Estredo (Fanatic / North) on how he prepared for this year’s tour where he has won every elimination thus far.

'I trained a lot in Adicora, Venezuela, where I found five new spots offering flat water, chop and waves. I trained there for three weeks before coming here (Sylt). I had good conditions and I sailed for at least three hours each day, which was great preparation. Before the event in Austria I didn’t get to train much because I broke my wrist in Brazil, but then for Fuerteventura and also for here I was training a lot in Egypt.'

The skippers meeting for the freestyle and wave sailors will take place at 08:30am tomorrow morning the action commencing from 9am, whilst the slalom skippers meeting will be held at 9am with a view to starting from 09:30am.

PWA Race Director, Juan Antonio Aragon, offers his thoughts on tomorrow.

'The plan for tomorrow is to prioritize the slalom, so we will try to complete the third slalom elimination and then run one more race. In the afternoon we will switch to the wave contest and complete both the men and women’s double PWA World Tour website Windsurf World Cup website