Slab

Slab (pron. /slæb/) in surfing refers to "any shallow reef or rock shelf over which very steep and powerful waves break". Watch this video of an Assie slab. It hurts, really.

Celebratng Kelly's 50th win

Kelly Slater wins again in Trestles. Nothing new, except for the fact this is his 50th win in the ASP tour. Let's celebrate whatching the video above.

North depower line - broken again!

Shit happens - you know. How many of you figured out that some of your gear was missing once at the spot, almost ready for the best session of the year? Maybe you forgot the mastbase? The wetsuit? The harness?

Or - even worse - some of your gear got broken during the session, letting you on the beach completely pissed off while all your buddies are having so much fun?

Shit happens - as said - but it shouldn't happen so often. Not with the north depower line. As a matter of fact, mine got broken during the last session in Laredo, a couple of days ago, giving me no other choice than a 20minute walk down to the spot where I left the beach. 

I don't know why North is not able to provide its customers with decent depower line, something that could last more than 30/40 kiteboarding sessions. I already substituted it one year ago and now it's time to start over again. 

Back to the session... before shit happened I surfed for almost two hours in nice conditions in Laredo, the wind was blowing 15 to 20knots from East. Looots of people and swimmers...

 

With the remote and the bacpac on, I also tried a different mount for the GoPro, inspired by this video here:

The helmet straps are too short for the strut of the North Rebel but I find out that the mod above fits perfectly and it's pretty stable. My kite has been washed a couple of time by the waves and the camera is still there.

Here the edited video of the session. Enjoy!

Muskiz - PornoKiting

I scored a nice kitesurfing session yesterday in Muskiz, my (I think I can say it) wave home spot. The conditions were pretty gnarly, the wind wasn't too strong and there was some head high waves deploying into mushy ones. I sailed with my 10m North Rebel and the surf board.
Check this video out.


PornoKiting from Francesco Fucelli on Vimeo.

The camera was mounted on the helmet. I must say I don't particulary like this mounting option because 1) video is always shaking, no matter how much you tight the camera on the helmet and 2) because of the wide angle and the high waves appears smaller than they actually are. So when you friends see it their reaction is "bah, those mushy waves...". I suck.

By the way, PornoKiting because I'm not particulary creative, and the music remind me... well, you know. Use your imagination ;)

Talking about the remote wifi controller for the GoPro I bought a week ago, here's a video test I made while resting a little bit on the beach. Keeping the line of sight between the camera and the controller, I walked away about 25mt (the bar lines lenght) and still I was able to operate the camera via the bacpac. Quite goo I wold say.

Wonder if it works also underwater... ;)

GoPro WiFi combo kit first impressions

I just bought the Wifi backpack and the remote combo kit for the GoPro HD via Amazon.

The backpack is a little add on for the GoPro HD (the first and the second release) that provides wifi connectivity, allowing users to control the camera  through a remote controller.

The combo kit includes - obviously - both the backpack and the controller, as well as the case extension and some cables. The controller has two button for easy access to all functions of the camera (not the "SET" once). A little display shows the current selected mode. The remote can be wrist mounted using a velcro strap, also included in the kit, and is waterproof . The display is similar to the one which comes with the Hero HD2 camera, a black and white LCD.

To my surprise the camera, the wifi bacpac and the remote need to be upgraded once unboxed to start working properly. The upgrade procedure for the Hero HD is quite simple and it's described in this video; it's not that straightforward for the accessories, since you have to download the GoPro Cineform Studio software first, then connect the camera with the add-on attached and plug the micro USB cable to your laptop, praying it will be recognized by the software.
During the firts try using my brand new laptop running Windows 7 the bacpac failed to be recognized. Grrrr. No way, no matter what I was doing. I thought the bacpac was broken, but before calling the GoPro guys asking for an RMA I did try going through the upgrade procedure using my old macbook and - magic!- both the bacpac and the remote were recognized promptly. Thanks Steve! Done, the upgrade went on smoothly and the wifi bacpac started working as expected.

The remote is quite easy to operate. One button to turn on the camera and to change the recording mode, one button to start recording. A flashing red led will show the status of the camera, ie if it is recording.
I did also check the coverage of the wifi signal indoor and it seems to me quite ok. I will retest it attacching the camera on my kite during the next session (hopefully soon).

The remote can be charged using a USB port, unfortunately on the remote side the connector is proprietary so be advised, don't lose it or you will have to call GoPro for a spare one. The bacpac can be charged using the standard microUSB cable and it runs on it's own till the battery runs out, then start drying the camera battery.

Overall, good impression, the built quality is very good as usual.

Welcome back, windsurfing!

I'm in Italy for the summer holiday with all my family and some friends. I will spend almost all my days off as usual  in  Sabaudia and San Felice Circeo,and since I knew I wouldn't be plenty of time to sail out there (my recently born daughter Sofia is only 4 months old), I decided to look for a board with lot of volume, to help me planning with the typical summer thermal winds... I didn't want to buy a new board since (I had a look at new boards prices - OMG) - meaning wasting money for gear I will be using for some days -  so I went for a used one. The choice has been an RRD X-Fire V2 (yes, Roberto Ricci, I bought one of your board...  despite what happened to my kite surf board). That's definitely the widest and shortest board I ever owned: it's 230cm long and 85 (eightyfive!) wide, and it is sold (new) with no fin, so I had to pay for a 50cm carbon fin (supposedly craft made). So, here it is:

The construction is full carbon, and you can actually see the carbon folders on the deck of the board, something which I personally like. The board is impressively light, even less than my S-Type 116, I can bring it using one hand (if it wouln't be so wide) The rear pad are "aggressively" posioned almos on the poop and I was a little bit concerned about this till I sailed out. More about this later on.
The fin, as said, is hand made full carbon. 50cm long, it's big, big, big.

Ok, now the sailing impression. I sailed out the local spot (Carrubo) with 15 to 20 knots westerly direction, meaning I had to sail out the harbour. I have only one sail (a7.2m Point7 AC-0) so I was a little bit oversized, especially because of the windswell formig out there. Given that, the board runs smootlhy and easy planes with a little bit of wind. The position of the straps and the pads help to keep the board on the water even with strong wind and choppy water. Turning is... well, when you start pushing with you foot on the deck you will feel the board gybing on a rail, but the curve is not exactly what you would define "short radius". Hope to check a different (shorter) fin in the future to see the differences in terms of gybing.
My conclusion: I personally like this board, maybe a smaller size (122lt maybe) would have been fine too. I'm not worried about its wide "angle" since my weight can made with the 85cm for this board, and it will help me to start planning earlier... let's see...I hope I will have the opportunity to sail more during this summer days (hey, I still have 20 days left... :) )

The two latest kite sessions

I scored two session in the last two weeks. The first was not a memorable one but it was fun, especially because it was unexpected. I moved to Muskiz on a Saturday. This reminds me that whenever I don't have to trust weather forecast as they will often fail. So at the end I was into the water with something like 14 to 20kn NW wind for almost two hours.

The second one was one of the most funny I had during 2012 in Laredo. Easterly wind blowing strong for almost all day long. I went into the water early and got out only when my legs and knees were completly burned. I went out again with the Rebel 7.0 - I love it!
Laredo as usual was full of kiters, and lots of them were newbies that couldn't sail far from the beach. I didn't care because I could easily sail close to the wind an then go downind having fun with the shortboard.
For me this session scored an 9 out of ten. I'll just want to share a video I found on vimeo. What a waves in Iceland! Check at min. 1:54 how that wave got smashed... my eyes still I can't believe what I've seen....

 
kite surf iceland from TDZ on Vimeo.

Kalenji Keymaze 700 - first run on the water

Do you remember the Kalenji Keymaze 700 I bough last year? Well yesterday  finally rembered to bring it with me for a kite session in Laredo.

I'm pretty satisfied with this portable GPS system. I mainly use it during my mountain bike runs, and I have to say that is quite precise. It also has an heart rate monitor which is extremely useful for training.

The picture above has been elaborated by endomondo  importing the GPS data I recorded during the session. Although this online service is quite good if you only want to keep track of your training activities and share it amongst your friends, it gives you very few analysis tools. Maximum and average speeds are reported as well as distance, but nothing more that that.

There are some good tools out there to better analise your sailing performance. The one I used in the past is gpsactionreplay , written in Java and thus available for all platforms. There are two version: the oldest one is free, the newest which is called GPSarPro is shareware and the license cost around 30€, but it offers some additional feature like google map superpose and calibration. I personally don't want to spend money for a tool that I seldom use, so I must say that the freeware version is ok for my needs. Below you'll find a screenshot from GPSactionreplay of yesterday's kite session. I discovered, for example, that my upwind skills suck - well, not a surprise at all. At least I can see jibes... I still have to improve but at least my average "jiii-splash" ratio has decreased a lot.

Talking about yesterday I once again started sailing with the 7m North rebel. I thought the wind was going to blow stronger during the afternoon but I was wrong. So I find myself pumping like mad to keep kiting. Still, the North Rebel generate as said a lot of power, but it could be annoying do all that up-down-up with the kite all the time. When I finally decided to switch for the 10m (Rebel again) the wind was even less. Not good... I should remember that old refrain (coming from my windsurfer experience): better sailing over than under canvassed.

Holy truth no matter it's windsurfing or kiting.

New Arrive: North Rebel 7m 2012 - a user review

I use to check from time to time on eBay for some good deals on kitesurfing gear. I must confess that with a bit of luck you can save quite a lot of money on buying almost new equipment than in traditional online shops (that's where I used to go shopping... power of the WEB 2.0). Almost one month ago I was quite surprised when I managed to buy a completely new North Rebel 2012 7.0m on eBay from Germany for less than 750€. It has been more that a bargain. It has been a great deal.

This is the third North Rebel I got in the the last two years. I was happy with the first Rebel I bought (a 10m 2010model, used one), more than happy with the 2011 model (still a 10m). The North Rebel allowed me to progress quite a lot and start wavekiting. It's a powerful kite with a enourmouse wind range. I am quite an heavy sailor (between 98 to 92 kg, depending on the season), but I never had problem in sailing with 15kn winds when my friends were out with a 12m kite. It turns fast and generates lots  of power. For me it is simply perfect. Maybe it miss some hang time, but it's simply a no-issue for those guys who - like me - doesn't like those supa-coola-tricks of the month. I love wavekiting and this kite is almost perfect for what I do.

Now this are my impressions on this 2012 7m. Please note I had the opportunity to use it only two times with a similar wind range (14 to 24kn, 20kn average)...
The firts you'll observe is that this kite moves *FAST*, and when I say fast, I should add really fast. As a direct consequence, it generates lots of power, allowing you to pass those "wind holes" where even bigger - but slower - kites struggle to stay up in the sky.  The bar response is direct (I,m using  a 2010 one, to which I substituted the depower and the safety red line - thanks to North it is still compatible with the new model but North, please... use better lines) and I must tell that I love it - it is never not too hard, nor too strong, but still it gives you the exact feeling on where the kite is flying. Steering when de-powered sometimes is not that good but I will check the bar setup to see if I can get a better response. Not bad at all, considering I still have to improve quite a lot on the monodirectional board.

Construction appears solid, as all North products. The material being used here reflects the quality of the kite. No questions here. Please note that on the 2012 model there have been some changes on the back pigtail, now allowing for a better setup of the sheeting force  depending on the sailor preferences.

I hope there will be some good conditions during the next days around here, to give a you some more impressions on this kite, especially in waveriding...  next monday, maybe? :)

Unbeliveakelly

The Rip Curl pro surf contest in Bells Beach (Australia) has just ended. Kelly Slater and Mick Fanning made it to the final round. Not  surprise, especially for the 11th time world champion. Check his 10 score wave in the video above. He's almost 40 year old and this guy still rocks, man. Old man rules, young boys... you have to eat some more meat before getting up there!