Who can possibly forget the iconic images of racers screaming round buoys in breaking surf in windsurfing’s heyday! Since then, slalom has become a little tamer due to world cup events in surf locations often having a wave event taking priority when the surf is up, or it simply being too dangerous to lay a course! All that changed in Portugal at that the inaugural Viana World Cup as racers dodged waves, each other and took to the skies, voluntarily or involuntarily, in some of the most extreme slalom dogfights in modern times. John Carter assembles a collection of windsurfing’s finest to look back at a thrilling event and finds out how the riders coped with racing in the nuking ‘Nortada’ winds of Cabedelo Beach at Viana do Castelo, North Portugal.
Words John Carter, Ben Proffitt, Matteo Iachino, Antoine Albeau, Pierre Mortefon, Andrea Rosati, Ross Williams, Sarah-Quita Offringa, Maciek Rutkowski, Arnon Dagan // Photos John Carter
This feature originally appeared in the September 2018 issue of Windsurf Magazine
