EFPT Las Dunas Costa Brava - Day 4
by EFPT 9 Sep 2018 04:28 PDT
5-9 September 2018
Tow-in winner Adam Sims © Job Vermeulen / jobvermeulen.com
All focus on Saturday was about action with the tow-in finals scheduled around noon and the forecast of wind for the afternoon to run the single elimination.
The day opened calm and sunny like predicted, the beach started to fill up soon with the weekend crowd to enjoy the beautiful beach at Camping Las Dunas in Costa Brava.
Skippers meeting was held at 10.30h and as planned the start of the tow-in final was set for 11.30h. The top six riders from the qualification runs to battle it out were Antoine Albert (Goya/Goya), Riccardo Marca (Fanatic/Duotone), Francesco Cappuzzo (RRD/RRD), Mattia Fabrizi (Patrik), Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Gun Sails) and Adam Sims (Patrik/Sailloft).
After a few training runs it got serious, on their first attempts each it was Mattia Fabrizi with an Air Burner 360 and Steven Van Broeckhoven with an Air Funnel Burner who produced good scores and placed in first and second place for the beginning. Antoine Albert caught up with a Skopu scoring equal points to Stevens run and Mattia topped this high score with a no handed Burner on his last attempt. It all looked like Mattia Fabrizi is taking the win, if there had not been Adam Sims very last run in the final. With his first two attempts beeing average scores he went all in on the last one stomping a clean Double Culo earning him 8,91 out of 10 points and went away with the tow-in victory.
During lunch time the wind was still very light and a couple of the pro riders were up for sharing windsurfing tips and coaching with visitors on the beach. The interest was high among young and old spectators getting first hand advice from their idols. It was great to see a lot of kids on the water with the pros, some of them stoked to have their first ever windsurfing experience together with some of the best freestylers out there.
Around 14.00h the wind conditions looked suitable for the freestyle competition and the first 4 riders were send out to the hear area. 10 minutes heat and 3 moves counting each tack was the judging format to kick off. Wind conditions were really light, but the guys tried to make the best out of it filling their score sheets with some power moves but mainly sliding tricks like Flakas, Funnels, Esliders. The judge crew kept a close eye on the conditions and performances of the competitors and decided to abandon the first heat due to not beeing able to show enough moves in this light conditions. The cancellation flag went up and the riders were called to the beach for a briefing.
To adjust the judging format to the given conditions, the headjudge and the race director changed the format to only two moves counting each tack for the resail of the heat and send them out again. It was Loick Spicker (RRD/RRD) vs. Valentin Böckler (Gun Sails) and Adam Sims (Patrik/Sailloft) vs. Mattia Fabrizi (Patrik) again.
Loick beeing a light wind specialist managed to land four power moves with Culos and Konos both sides and advanced over Valentin. On the other side Mattia Fabrizi showed a heat mix of power and sliding moves to take the win over Adam Sims who struggled to perform his usual powerful style in these light winds.
In the second heat of the day it was two Italians advancing. Riccardo Marca (Fanatic/Duotone) made use of his competition experience landing some nice switch, regular and power moves to take out Alex Mertens (Severne/Severne) and Francesco Cappuzzo (RRD/RRD) was winning over Julian Wiemar (Starboard/Severne) who crashed all his attempts on one tack and was therefore lacking points.
When the elimination came to the first quarter finals heat it was time for the top seeds to display their skills. Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Gun Sails) against Loick Spicher and Giovanni Passani against Mattia Fabrizi. During the first two minutes of the heat, the judges had scored already some nice moves, but then the wind dropped a bit making it near impossible for the competitors to get planning any more and as a result the heat was cancelled. The competition remained on standby for around 45 minutes in the hope of having the wind increasing again, but the later it got the more obvious it became that this would not happen any more today.
At 18.00h the competition was called off for the day with the top 8 still sitting in the draw and hopefully completing the single elimination on the last day tomorrow. This evening we ll have an autograph session with all the riders at the Fase Wind Center and a BBQ with live music in Camping Las Dunas. Sunday skippersmeeting is 11.30h, first possible start 12.00h.
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