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CABO VERDE: CABO COMP

The top three finishers in the 2022 SOMWR Cabo Verde World Cup, along with event commentator, Kai Katchadourian, reflect on a memorable contest that kicked off the 2022 PWA world tour in style. 

WORDS – Bernd Roediger, Marcilio Browne, Camille Juban and Kai Katchadourian. // PHOTOS – John Carter / pwaworldtour.com 

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BERND ROEDIGER – FIRST 

On the final day of the contest holding period, the day of the double elimination, I was troubled and riddled with anxiety. After a harrowing two weeks in Cabo Verde, all of us windsurfers were wounded in some capacity.

Most were cut, bleeding, and infested with urchin spines; others more seriously twisted and disjunct, (like Morgan Noireaux who missed his heat due to a sprained ankle he got in a practice session); other’s just had food poisoning. I had a few ongoing wounds to mend, but one seriously worrying one persisted in gaping wider each passing day, as if to mock my facial expression of alarm and disgust when peaking at it in the shower – whereby I’d engage in gingerly scrubbing it till it oozed something yellow or orange. I gave up trying to feel clean.  

STRESS 

That last day of the final, I was worried. Stressed about Camille, his stellar goiters made my stomach churn. When he scored a perfect ten I felt weak. Anxious to meet Braw in a heat, my veins running lukewarm due to the oscillating temperatures between my heart and feet. Fired up heart, cold feet. But mainly I had butterflies growing in regards to the metamorphosis in my leg wound, there was definitely something happening in there that the rest of my body was desperately trying to eradicate. Having said that, the adrenaline of competition totally blotted out the clouded fears of the flesh.  

BETTER  

That is the truly remarkable thing about contests; they make us strive to be better. I saw so much of that in this event. The venue inspired creative riding, and big manoeuvres. We all wanted that glory wave, one that would shine brilliantly in our memory and for the world of windsurfing. The PWA was back in action after a long hiatus, and that drove people to stoke their wild dreams and world title hopes. We ran each heat in a wild fervour, not to beat one another but to best our expectations of what Cabo Verde could be for us, in this moment. I wanted that feeling of connection, to a place long regarded as mythic by my friends and I. We watched all the heroes of the sport go out into the desert and return with gold, and we wanted the same. 

FANTASY 

Since my earliest days as a wavesailor, I felt this competition generated a movement in my culture, the rider’s movement. This was my chance to contribute to it, to shape it, and feel it remarkably coming full circle from fantasy to reality. And it was happening in just a few waves’ time. Just a few heats had taken me from an idle dream to a very tangible reality, and it was a short day of sailing by any standard, really only 8-10 scoring rides! Imagine the feeling of acceleration you get when you are able to drastically change your perception of life in mere moments, after decades of dreaming. 

GROVELING 

But I had one more heat, and this one required pulling out all the stops! Goiters are notorious for grazing shins, as the rider often lands with both board and sail driving into the oncoming whitewater. In larger surf a goiter can be completed out in the flats of the wave, but in conditions like we had in the double elimination final, there was to be a lot of grovelling. And I really did the best I could to grovel in what I found out there, knowing Braw was an expert in such conditions. I didn’t feel safe, or comfortable in my lead, at any time during that 20-minute final. So on my last wave, I decided to go for that make-it-or-break-it rotation trick that would land me in the whitewater, and hopefully in 1st place at the sound of the horn.  

GLORY 

Luckily for my dreams, unfortunately for my leg, I landed the thing. The entire event I had nursed this wound, but at last I could worry about it openly with my conscious brain no longer preoccupied. I became painfully aware of something put out of mind, rather like a “check engine” light on a dashboard, as the motor begins to smoke! I chose to ignore it because I knew what the prognosis would be: time to heal out of the water and antibiotics – which would make me sensitive to the sun. It wasn’t as if I was going to listen to that advice, or seek that medication knowing what it would do to my already troubled stomach!  

POETIC 

So I let that staph sink into my flesh for the sport, for my love of windsurfing. In a morbidly poetic sort of way I felt I was taking a part of Cabo Verde with me, a little piece of paradise, even if that piece were a colony of bacteria culturing in my open leg wound. Such is the way of these experiences, a Dionysian madness befalls the man who goes out looking to test himself in the elements. A disregard for the practical and a submission to the higher powers and grander forces. Primordial parents that cradle here and drop there, our mortal/infant forms. Funny thing is, I am so squeamish at home, and so indolent, if I feel even the slightest fatigue I’ll take the day to recover from a “virus”. However, with a trip this enticing, the rules change. I remember coming back from the Marshall Islands with fried eyes and a fractured vertebra, completely unawares. There’s something endearing about getting hurt, limping home off the glorious battlefield, adorned with trophies of the flesh, the torn banners of scab tissue tattooed on the skin in memory of raptured transcendental escapades and daring adventures of adrenaline! I hope to return to Cabo Verde next year, armed with more hydrogen peroxide!  

CAMILLE JUBAN – THIRD 

The highlight of the event for me was obviously my comeback through the double and ironically that was because I was so motivated after my low point of the event – a poor result in the single elimination where I lost in the second round.  

In the single I had tried to be focused and wanted to get through as many heats as I could.  But I had a super close heat with Thomas Traversa and Josh Angulo and they made it through. After that we had a couple days of waiting, then we had one day left and I really wanted the guys to do the contest that day, so when we did get a chance to run that day, it kind of perked me up. In a way my whole result was unexpected because even on the night before I didn’t think we would run, so I was quite relaxed that evening. My comeback was a super cool moment and the best thing for me was being with all my friends on tour and Julian Taboulet was there too, so I had a great support network. 

Throughout the event I was using my S2Maui 4.6 Dragon and my new AV Boards Dynamo 70 litre wave board and they were working really good. My result I think was also due to my experience of 10 years of doing contests, as well as my hunger to win.

I just tried to stay focused the whole time in the double and keep the same mindset. But actually my mental side kind of gave up on me in the eighth heat against Marcilio, battling for second place, because I think there was a little something in my brain that was saying I should be tired after doing seven heats. Physically I was ok though, I had some cramp but I think I had enough energy to go all the way to the final. Bernd was on fire though, so in the end I was super happy with third. 

MARCILIO BROWNE – SECOND 

This adventure started before we even left Maui. The event got confirmed last minute, so at that point there were not many flights available. The best I could find was: Maui – Phoenix – Miami – Lisbon (checking in again with TAP) – Sal. It was definitely a mission getting there. 

 

Once there things got easier. I booked all my stuff with Josh Angulo – car, hotel etc. So from the moment we left the airport everything was super organized and we could get some rest back at Josh’s hotel. We got a couple days to sleep in, eat at his club and recharge. It was really nice being somewhere for an event again after 2 years, and that place being Cabo Verde was even better. The first couple of days the boys were not super positive about the forecast, there were talks about us possibly not even being able to sail at Ponta Preta, but a couple days later things started looking more 50/50. As we waited we killed time by sailing little Ho’okipa, it was tiny, about waist high, but still nice to be out there on the water. 

GAME ON 

All of a sudden it was the first day of the event, and the waves had picked up at Ponta Preta the night before and we heard some of the boys had a few waves before dark. We were all excited and next morning I went to the beach at dark to try and get my first warm up at the event site. It worked out well as I had about 30 minutes – time for 1 set wave and a couple of smaller ones by myself before the fleet of 32 guys came out! There were definitely waves, but it was very very inconsistent – 1 set every 30 or 45 minutes. As I was watching the first heats it became apparent that the most important thing was to be on those sets, no matter what!  

TACTICS 

So that was my game plan, on my heats I went far out the back and waited a long time. It was working ok as I was finding one or 2 set waves per heat and advancing, but it was very nerve wracking as I never got 3 set waves in a heat, so once you were on a good one, you really didn’t want to waste it doing something silly. 

By the end of the single I was stoked to finish second. Of course I really wanted to win, but considering everything I was for sure stoked. I had one good set wave in the first minute of the 1 hour final and a couple of intermediate waves between to back up my score, as well as a couple of trips to the rocks and waited out the back for 26 minutes for a wave that never came. Bernd was ripping and so was Thomas and Titoun!

There were also other guys sailing very well. For example Ricardo was sailing really good, but he couldn’t manage to be on a set wave in his heat, which was a bummer and a hard pill to swallow for him I’m sure. Other standouts in my eyes were Boujmaa, Takuma Sugi and Takara Ishii, they were all killing it. I also saw Josh Angulo have some really sick waves in the warm up too.  

INFECTED 

After that I got a really terrible stomach bug, I pretty much couldn’t leave my room for 4 days, went to the hospital with an over 40 degree fever and there they sent me back home saying I had a virus (but it was found later to be a bacterial infection). I wasn’t eating a lot and by the time the double came I was feeling a little bit better, but still very weak. The conditions were super marginal by the time of my heat late in the day. I was happy to beat Camille who came back through so many heats in the double and kept my second place. In the final with Bernd I had a couple of tricks but couldn’t find the right waves. The only set I got was a close out. After that I rushed back to Josh’s centre, packed all my gear and went straight to the award ceremony at 9 p.m. By 11 p.m. we were headed to the airport to fly to Lisbon.  

RECOVERY 

Once there we had a day spare, so we took our bags and went to a hotel near the airport. It felt really good getting into that bed around 1 p.m., but around 2:30 I started getting these gnarly chills again and vomiting non-stop, I also had diarrhoea. By 8 p.m. I was feeling terrible with a burning 40.3 degree fever, so headed to a hospital. There they found out I had a bacterial infection in my stomach and got me on antibiotics. I was released to go back to the hotel around 2:30 a.m. By 5 a.m. I had to load the gear again and go to the airport to check in which was no fun. By the time we got back to Maui I was 8 kg lighter and it took me couple of weeks to feel normal again; I’m just getting there now! 

Other than this bug, I had a super fun time on the trip. It was nice seeing everyone again, being on the water every single day and kicking off the tour earlier in the year, instead of July as usual. Hopefully Cabo Verde becomes a consistent tour location and also that a couple more airlines start flying there ha ha! 

KAI KATCHADOURIAN – EVENT COMMENTATOR 

I had long been overdue to return to my favourite Atlantic Island of Sal. Getting the offer to do the live stream commentary for the 2022 SOMWR Cabo Verde World Cup was a no brainer chance to return.  

Having a PWA World Tour contest back in Cabo Verde was certainly justified by the performances of the competitors in this event. It has been evident nearly everyone has been doing plenty of sailing in the 2 year gap between contests. The level has skyrocketed and the contenders are many. The anticipation seemed very high; this was the first legitimate PWA wave riding contest since the Aloha Classic 2019 and it was clearly bringing back fond memories of the legendary events and flawless point break riding of years past. There looked to be a swell hitting just before the event window, and the event window itself had some very positive looks as well. 

I arrived on Sal via Lisbon with my friend Jake Schettewi who was enjoying a semester abroad in Madrid. We checked into Josh Angulo’s hotel, a stone’s throw from his centre in Santa Maria and set up our gear, hoping to get a warm up. We scored fun Ponta Preta the evening before the contest. It was a session that materialized late in the day for just a few of us, but its timing paid off for a solid warm-up and the stage was set for the event. 

LEVEL 

It was great to see Ponta Preta breaking again and witness the current level of riding. The results do tell the story, but there were a lot of moments within the run through the brackets that spoke of a new process.  

That process was the new balance that Cabo Verde will bring to this year’s PWA World Tour. Down the line wave riding is as critical a discipline to consider as high wind jumping in terms of world title contention. Nobody would argue Cabo Verde has some of the best down the line setups anywhere. It’s a blessing to ride Ponta Preta in any situation one is able to, as a lot of specific factors need to come together. While conditions never quite reached levels previously seen in events of past years, there were more than several instances where someone would catch a set wave, proceed to tear it to bits, then launch a huge air, land it and connect it all the way, dodging rocks and reminding us all how wave sailing continues to evolve and transform the perception of how waves can be ridden.  

It was rewarding to see so many first time Cabo Verde riders get a good piece of the action to be had during the event. The approaches and adaptations revealed a prioritizing of what it takes to score points and advance, but there was also room to simply enjoy riding such beautiful perfect waves. Wave selection was pivotal. Placement of turns made or broke rides. Strong airs, connecting turns and rotational moves were scored at a premium if connected correctly.  

STYLE 

The true style of every rider came out in many instances when the wind and waves were truly firing and it was simply perfection on display. It is almost challenging to hold contests in such perfect waves; one simply reverts to soul riding and channelling how the wave wants to be ridden. But there were scorching performances and memorable moments that will be etched into windsurfing lore and it was by all means a step forward competitively. 

Once again Cabo Verde delivered and while the double bracket could not be held entirely at Ponta Preta, by the time the last heat was sailed at Little Ho’okipa, the feeling was that it was a great run of conditions taken full advantage of. Combine that with a few mysto sessions that went down off the comp areas, and everyone was left with the same feeling of how magic Cabo Verde is and especially how ideal for wave sailing it can be.  

Huge thanks to the sponsors, organizers, and host Josh Angulo for making it happen! Mission accomplished!!