Windsurfing News

Argentinian ex world champion windsurfer, Francisco Goya is one of the all time legends in windsurfing! Having successfully competed in the Professional Windsurfers Association (PWA) since 1994 and becoming PWA World Champion in 2000, he is now based on Maui, Hawaii where he runs his own windsurf equipment company, Goya Windsurfing.

In a recent article he wrote for Boards Windsurfing Magazine, Goya sums up his thoughts on windsurfing…

“Wavesailing! I feel energy coming out of my skin as I say that word. The truth is that I’m still as passionate as ever about it; from gliding across a small wave to riding at Ho’okipa, this is my way of seeing the world. There is something magical about being propelled by something you can’t see. I still find it hard to wrap my mind around it all. How we can hit ramps full speed, ride the biggest waves, all with just a board and thin membrane called a sail – it’s crazy!” – Francisco Goya

COMPETITION RESULTS:
1st Place Gran Canaria World Cup 1999
1st Place Hawaii Grand Prix World Cup (Super Session)
1st Place Aloha Classic World Cup 2000
1st Place Ireland World Cup 2000
1st Place Wadell USA Tour 2000
1st Place Jalama USA Tour 2000
1st Place Omaezaki Japan 2000 (Wave & Super Session)

YEAR RESULTS AND AWARDS
1ST Place PWA ranking 2000
1999 SAILOR OF THE YEAR Paris Boatshow Boards Awards
2000 World Extreme Sports Awards, Munich “Nea Awards”

He loves windsurfing all over the world and includes the following as favourite spots:
Hawaii, Chile, Ireland, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, La torche, Klittmoller, Guincho, Cerdena, CapeVerde, Fiji, Bali

Francisco even found time to re-join the PWA Tour in 2009, finishing 5th in the 1st wave event at Cabo Verde.

Favourite board: Just about any board really, can be a 68 liter board at Ho’okipa or a 125liter one when I sail at Sprecks with my daughter Luna(4)

Favourite manoeuvre: Faster, higher, tweaker, on a deeper, bigger wave or simply riding the wind down the coast.

Francisco got into windsurfing through a combination of his older brother, Alejandro and from seeing videos and pictures of people windsurfing.

After moving to Maui when only 18 years old, Goya was living the dream, windsurfing all day long! 5 years later he got together with close friends to create his first windsurf board brand, Quatro. These boards absolutely rocked & still do today, with the brand going from strength to strength!

Now with Goya Windsurfing, the production covers a broader range of boards, sails, masts & now with a new branch of the company 211 Windsurfing Components there are also booms, extensions & base plates.

Here at the Poole Windsurfing School we are free to use whatever windsurf brands we choose & we choose Goya! The effort that goes into the design, quality of the finished products & awesome performance of the kit made them an obvious choice. Having a company where the owner/creator is still involved on a daily basis makes such a huge difference to the passion & end results. Francisco has even visited us for a demo day where we could chat directly to the man himself about the windsurf equipment and suggest changes, tweaks and improvements that he would then take back with him directly to the development team!

“I work together with a team that been focusing their whole life around windsurfing, the office, showroom, loft and factory are in Haiku, 5 minutes away from one of the most consistent and mixed conditions in the world to ride on. The mixed conditions that Maui has to offer along with a huge amount of visitors from all over the world, allow us to test the gear ourselves and receive direct feedback from our customers. So everyday we ride and hear feedback that is put back into the products, business and sport. All revolve around our passion and development for the ultimate ride, company and sport. When the new years gear arrive I’m just as excited about it as I was with my first board 25 years ago.” – Francisco Goya

With his company, Goya Windsurfing he is looking to take the sport to the next level!

The 1st May will be the opening day of season at the Poole Windsurfing school and we have lots of brand new windsurfing equipment from Goya, RRD, Amex & Billabong waiting for those who book early for windsurfing lessons and windsurf hire.

It is the prefect time to start learning how to windsurf or get back into the sport after the winter, giving you the whole summer to master the sport. The water temperatures are just starting to warm up by then and the days are getting longer, making it a more enjoyable experience to get out there on the water.

During the coming season all types of windsurfing lessons will be running, from beginner and intermediate windsurfing courses through to advanced lessons and private windsurf tuition. Also, Poole Windsurfing will continue to offer their ever popular windsurf hire scheme where you can pay by the hour or take advantage of a discounted 10 hour hire card that you use during the course of the summer season.

Our policy of replacing kit every year continues, with the latest 2013 RRD Evolution V3 boards, more Goya Surf 202lt beginner boards & RRD Easyrider 180lt beginner/improver boards. Every one of our advanced windsurf sails is being replaced with the latest top of the range 2013 Goya Guru & Nexus sails. To keep you warm out on the water we will be topping up our fleet of Billabong wetsuits with brand new 2013 Intruder models and we always have wetsuit shoes and buoyancy aids to ensure you have maximum comfort & safety when out windsurfing.

Absolute top quality windsurf equipment & great instruction on your windsurfing lessons will set you off in the right direction this coming summer.

RDM (Reduced Diameter Masts) are still being used exclusively throughout our windsurf school. You rarely go to a windsurf school that uses these masts for their students, they are normally only reserved for the instructors! At Poole Windsurfing we use RDM’s for everything from advanced sails right through to using them on our beginners windsurfing courses!

“They may be more expensive but we really feel the benefit to the students is worth it!” – Terril Winters, Senior Windsurfing Instructor – Poole Windsurfing

For a more detailed look at all the brand new windsurfing equipment you will be using this summer take a look on our Windsurfing Equipment Page. This page showcases our windsurfing equipment and will be updated with shots of all the 2013 windsurfing kit as soon as it is unwrapped ready for the start of the summer season.

Book up your windsurfing lessons or windsurf rental now and be some of the first to try out the latest 2013 windsurfing equipment.

Hope to see you during the summer & happy windsurfing!

Obviously, our home grown ‘Top Windsurfing Tips & News‘ should be your first port of call when it comes to getting info about anything windsurfing… You can’t get much better than FREE articles about technique, equipment, bargain buys, travel & windsurf news! You can use the simple sign up form just to the right of this post and start receiving your free windsurfing tips & news without any more effort.

For those reading who are UK based the choice for windsurfing magazines is very simple, as there are just two big players in the market:

1. Boards Windsurfing Magazine
Now coming out bi-annually Boards Windsurfing Magazine is packed with 180 pages of high quality windsurfing info. Boards magazine has been running for over 30 years and is designed first and foremost to inspire and inform, featuring imagery from the worlds top photographers and editorial from the best journalists in windsurfing. In annual format, the content is focused on longer, higher quality articles brought to life with full page imagery.

The Spring/Summer Annual of Boards Magazine focuses on the flat-water side of windsurfing, covering freeride, slalom, speed and freestyle, whilst the Autumn/Winter Annual puts its attention to the wave and freewave elements of the sport. Both editions will appeal to all types of windsurfer.

Stocked at almost all local windsurf shops, selected WHSmiths stores and private newsagents around the country.

You can subscribe to the Boards Windsurfing Magazine on their website to effortless receive your copies direct to your door. If you pay by direct debit, 2 issues will cost you £10.95 (as opposed to £12.50 when paying by credit card). If you are lucky you could also find a promotional code on the internet, to get further discounts off the price!

Back issues of Boards Windsurfing Magazine can be purchased from the website & they go all the way back to 2006.

2. Windsurf Magazine

Windsurf Magazine is published ten times per year: January/February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November/December.

1 years subscription of Windsurf Magazine costs £38 and like Boards Magazine, it can all be setup online & each issue delivered to your doorstep!

If you are on your game in terms of technology, Windsurf Magazine is now available in digital form for your iPhone, iPad or Google devices.

Download the latest edition now..
Available for your iPad, iPhone, iPod and Android devices.

Easy access to the latest issues of Windsurf Magazine.
Get the most out of your device with a full screen experience.
Share copies between devices.
Quick access to reviews, technique and travel articles.
Receive notifications when a new issue comes out.
Available offline, once downloaded.
The best Windsurfing photo’s and stories from the biggest names in the business.

Both are great magazines and really with one of them only coming out bi-annually, why not just get Boards & Windsurf Magazines? If you are really on a budget then maybe get the 2 Boards Magazines per year and then just top up with editions of Windsurf Magazine that have reviews/articles that take your fancy.

There is a new kid on the block when it comes to forecasting the wind and weather at Poole Harbour (and most of the world’s other great windsurfing locations)…

Muchoviento.net is a wind forecast provider for windsurfers, that provides quality wind forecasts for many surf locations in Europe. For us, it not only has a wind & weather forecast for Poole Harbour but also for, Branksome Dene & Boscombe as well! How it differs from other popular wind & weather forecasting websites such as Windfinder & WindGuru is by focusing on local regional weather models & forecasting the wind / weather at a much higher resolution model size.

As the creator of Muchviento.net says…
“What makes muchoviento.net different is the fact that we run several regional weather models (eight at the moment; cabeverde is the next to go live) spanning small, “surf hot-spot” areas. Our competitors, e.g. windfinder, runs one large europe model at a grid scale of 12km. We in turn decided to provide several higher resolution models (5km to 8km) for better topography modeling. This greatly improves the ability to include athmospheric effects like sea breezes and orographic effects at mountains.” – Michael Scheer, Muchoviento

The term ‘regional weather model’ refers to Muchviento’s highly sophisticated approach of applying state-of-the-art weather models to small, focused geographic regions. Since the focus is quality, the regions chosen are small and the model is set up to run with a very high grid size resolution. This configuration directly translates into great forecasts: orographic (study of the formation & relief of mountains) and thermal effects can be modeled as well, apparently making a real difference compared to the results of their competitors.

Each weather model has a both a fixed & dynamic aspect to it. The fixed side of things is the topography and the dynamic part is the initial weather conditions at the boundary of the model, which change with each run of the model.

You can see the topography layout for the UK channel model in the 3d-contour plot shown to the right.



Using the forecasts is pretty straight forward:
1. Bookmark your favorite regional forecast pages directly – its quicker than going through the dropdown menus each time
2. Click on Regional Model (0-72).
3. Read the forecast graph – time across the top & wind strength, gusts, direction, temperature, rain down the side
4. For a quick visual reference as to what the wind strength is doing, the charts are colour coded (blue for light wind, green, yellow, orange, red then purple for the strongest winds)

Direct links to our local windsurfing forecast pages:
wind & weather forecast for Poole Harbour
wind & weather forecast for Bournemouth, Branksome Dene
wind & weather forecast for Boscombe

All forecasts are updated every 6 hours and you can find the update cycles for a specific regional model at the top left of each local forecast page. The Global Forecast Model (GFS) button gives values useful for comparison and long-term forecasting – not something your average user needs to use.

So, there you have it another great tool for checking the wind & weather at Poole Harbour and a couple of our other local spots (Branksome Dene & Boscombe).

All the latest 2013 windsurfing equipment will be unwrapped this spring at the Poole Windsurfing School. Each year we take delivery of brand new windsurfing equipment from Goya Windsurfing, RRD, Amex, Billabong and Pat Love. This year is no exception, with the latest 2013 windsurfing boards and sails from Goya Windsurfing & RRD being prepared for you.

Learning to windsurf is a lot about having the right equipment and here at the Poole Windsurfing School we pride ourselves on having the latest windsurfing boards & windsurfing sails for our students.

Its early days at the moment, so we don’t have pictures of the rigged kit but thought everyone would be keen to get a sneak preview of some of the brand new windsurf boards & sails that we will have this summer season:

Goya Windsurfing
2013 Goya Surf 202lt Beginners Windsurf Board:

The Goya Surf is such a great beginners windsurfing board that can take every rider through the early stages of windsurfing and into learning the intermediate skills. A balanced board for beginners that can also be turned into one of the most used boards in the quiver of advanced riders. Not to forget the Stand Up Paddle qualities of this wonderful platform.

A wide & short fin helps first time water starts in shallow sections while still maintaining enough fin area once you are planing. Additionally, the all new fully retractable Allgaier® dagger board brings the best of both worlds. You can choose to either have it hidden away, tucked inside the board while riding around, or have it down for first time riders or for trimming upwind on the lighter wind days. Having the daggerboard down maximizes stability while learning to uphaul.


The board features a full EVA deck. Added foam thickness in the nose area keeps the board safe from potential boom front and mast hits. A harder and denser EVA around the whole perimeter of the board helps keeping the rails looking like new after a full season.

2013 Goya Surf Beginners Windsurf Sails:

The 2013 Goya Surf is a perfect windsurf sail for all those taking beginners windsurfing lessons. With full dacron panels, reinforced perimeter, integrated mast pad, and indestructible Ever Clear window, it is a sail that will last for years. Lightweight and durable make for easy windsurfing for those learning to windsurf.

A full head batten and a short leech batten provide stability in both light and strong winds. Adjustable head webbing allows compatibility with any RDM mast, which are used exclusively throughout the Poole Windsurfing School. A large viewing window provides clear and durable sight through the sail. Bright colors make it safe and easy to spot on the water, and fun to look at.

The Goya Surf is the perfect choice for learning to up haul and for learning the basic principals of sailing.


Jason Diffin: “The 2013 SURF is the classic Dacron trainer sail for beginning windsurfers. The SURF is the perfect choice for learning to up haul and for learning the basic principals of sailing.”

2013 Goya Guru Improver to Advanced Windsurf Sails:

The 2013 Goya Guru offers unbeatable high wind comfort and control, flexible feeling and smooth, forward driving power delivery. Finger tip handling and and easily neutralized in transitions. We will be using these sails when teaching improver to advanced windsurfing lessons and will be available in our fleet of advanced windsurf hire equipment.

It comes with an Ever Clear window and all scrim and x-ply construction, resulting in incredible strength and light weight, great power and unbeatable high wind control. New for 2013 are a much lighter construction weight, due to a scrim panel coverage of about 70%, resulting in a stronger and lighter feeling on the water.

Jason Diffin: “The GURU is the ultimate wave and high wind performance sail. Major advancements in materials and component technology create a new GURU model that has better low end, is lighter, and is more tunable than ever. The sail is easy incredibly easy to handle and depower even in the most radical conditions, and the GURU still offers the trademark flexible and comfortable feeling it has become famous for.”

2013 Goya Nexus Improver to Advanced Windsurf Sails:

The 2013 Goya Nexus is a No-Cam Freeride & Freerace sail that supplies the maximum of power, speed and control in the Goya Sail range. The Goya Nexus is pure performance and will be ready for your use on windsurfing courses and advanced windsurf equipment rental at the Poole Windsurfing School.

While cut for power, speed and control in all sizes, the focus is on maneuverability in sizes 4.3 to 6.9 and lift and control in sizes 7.5 to 9.0. Forward and focused drive and crisp, easy handling make Goya Nexus the “go to” sail for maximum performance in bump and jump and flat water conditions.

Sizes 4.3 to 6.9 come as a six batten design, while sizes 7.5 to 9.0 come with seven battens, offering maximum drive while sharing the same built and features.

Jason Diffin: “The 2013 NEXUS is pure freeride and freerace performance. While cut for power, speed and control in all sizes, the focus is on maneuverability in 4.3-6.9 and lift and control in sizes 7.5, 8.2 and 9.0. Forward and focused drive and crisp, easy handling make NEXUS the “go to” sail for maximum performance in bump and jump and flat water conditions.”

RRD Windsurfing
2013 RRD Easyride 180lt Beginners Windsurf Board:

The RRD Easyride windsurf boards give you the right feeling of security through stability and soft touch under your feet. The short length and the wide outline allow to use a small sail to steer the board wherever you want even after 10 minutes of riding. They are a result of a long research and development process in making windsurfing easy for everyone!

Technology includes EPS/HD Glass/Wood sandwich skin on stepping area with a combination of Glass fibers laminated in Single Shot moulding process. Deck covered with Softskin™.

2013 RRD Evolution 145lt & 158lt Improver to Advanced Windsurf Boards:

The balanced mix between floatation and performance makes the RRD 360 Evolution Duratech V3 S 145lt and RRD 360 Evolution Softskin V3 L 158lt the perfect boards to progress in your gybes and even allows you basic freestyle manoeuvres potential! These are THE windsurf board to learn how to carve gybe on, being super easy to initiate and hold a carve on. We will be using the brand new 2013 RRD Evolution windsurf boards at Poole Windsurfing to teach students everything from faster tacks & gybes, beach starts, harness, planing, footstraps & the ultimate carve gybes. The boards will also be a part of our improver to advanced windsurf hire fleet.

Technology includes EPS/ HD Glass Epoxy skin on top and bottom with a Glass crossed fibers laminated in AST moulding process. Covered by a full layer of 3 mm moulded EVA skin.

Billabong Intruder Wetsuits

Billabong is a market leader in wetsuits and we have been using them at the Poole Windsurfing School since day one. For 2013 we will be taking delivery of a fleet of brand new Billabong Intruder Wetsuits for both men and women. These wetsuits are built to last, still have amazing amounts of flexibility & have a feature list to be proud of…

AirLite SuperFlex G3 undersleeve panels
Flatlock construction
Lycra collar facing
Contour collar
Key loop

These features give the wetsuits excellent performance & using them at Poole Windsurfing we are setting a new standard for other windsurfing schools to follow!

• Nice to have those kind of conditions on your doorstep! http://t.co/ubcS9WFr #
• Awesome shot!! http://t.co/Tum1v1nY #
• More action from the 13yr old wonder kid of windsurfing… http://t.co/zDrAoH9c #
• Top Windsurfing Tips & News: Great Conditions – Last Week Of Windsurfing Season http://t.co/GPd3wsyw #

So, we are reaching the end of yet another great season at the Poole Windsurfing School. Thanks to everyone who has sent us glowing testimonials, your words of praise are much appreciated by all of us! It is good to know that the tuition we give & the latest equipment we use is keeping you all happy and loving your time windsurfing with us here at the Poole Windsurfing School.

Judging from the forecast for the next week it looks like we are going out in style this season. Conditions look really nice for anyone wanting to come down for a last few sessions of windsurfing before the winter months!

As you can see from the screen shot above its due to be warm, sunny & with a nice steady breeze all week!

Hope to see you all back at the Poole Windsurfing School for at least one final blast this season.

• Windsurfing shots from AWT Peru:
  http://t.co/qbPA6dp5 #
• Check this little ripper out…
  (if only we all had waves like this to ride everyday!)… http://t.co/tiY0IewM #

• Top Windsurfing Tips & News: Best Value Ski & Snowboard Trip To Japan http://t.co/qbjfGLOF #
• Ski/Snowboard Trip – Hidden Powder Stashes of Japan!
  The feedback we are getting is that everyone wants to go… http://t.co/vXs1RPmJ #

• Great news for our Japan Off Piste Powder Ski/Snowboard Trip… We have just negotiated a mega cheap flight price… http://t.co/AhBRA4se #
• Ski / Snowboard Trip of a Lifetime – Limited to 9 places. Join our guided off piste backcountry adventure in Japan: http://t.co/EyFfGOaY #
• Checkout the current standings in the American Windsurfing Tour: http://t.co/XaP6dl78 #
• Ski & snowboard off piste guided trip to the untouched powder fields of Japan. Limited To Only 9 Spaces – Small… http://t.co/eBQTUsB2 #
• Top Windsurfing Tips & News: Epic Ski & Snowboard Trip – Hidden Powder Stashes of Japan! http://t.co/VeMPu1sN #