At 10.00 am this morning the last part of the registration was finished. 21 riders signed for the first freestyle event of the season at the beautiful beaches of Leucate. The five French riders including top sailors Antony Ruenes, Nico Akgazciyan and Sam Esteve (JP/Neilpryde) and the young guns Nil Bacon Aubert (Severne/Starboard) and Romain Le Gouez (Northsails) are ready to take on the remaining international fleet. Apart from our top European riders, we are really happy to be welcoming two US freestyle windsurfers: Bryan Metcalf Perez and Alex Mertens (Severne / Fanatic). Latter was gaining some recognition with his editing and will be the assistant of EFPT videographer Adam Sims (Sailloft/Patrik).
Adam Sims going into a culo (pic by Pierre Bouras)
With very light southerly wind forecasted for today, the idea for a tow-in competition was presented to the riders. The organiser confirmed to provide an official tow-in contest with € 2.500 prize-money, which will count into the overall tow-in result of 2018 in case the conditions will not be suitable for a freestyle contest. 16 riders signed up to provide a show for the several hundred spectators that are expected in the next few days.
Alex Mertens from the USA (by Pierre Bouras)
Today should give everyone the chance to practice this discipline a bit and to step up the confidence level of going into even harder moves. Some tow-in experts like Tonky Frans (RRD/RRD), Mattia Fabrizi (Patrik) and Adam Sims (Sailloft/Patrik) were going for skopus, burner and culo combinations and gave advice to the more unexperienced riders like Felix Volkhardt (JP), Nil Bacon Aubert (Starboad/Severne) and Alex Mertens (Severne/Fanatic). In the end, even all the young guns could land their first tow-in tricks in front of a huge cheering audience. They showed incredible motivation and courage to practice two hours in front of that many people. Their persistence however paid off and all the riders left the water with big smiles on their faces.
Parts of the event-site at the Mondial du Vent (by Pierre Bouras)
Forecast for tomorrow doesn’t look too promising. However, the skippers meeting was schedulded for 10.00am and the tow-in competition for 2.00 pm when we expect the beaches to be packed with people.
From 2018 onward the EFPT will be working with a live scoring system, that will be already tested out tomorrow. To follow the tow-in results live, please head to efpt.net and check out the ‚live‘ section of the page.
Felic Volkhardt in one of his first tow-in runs ever (by Pierre Bouras)