ANDY CHAMBERS
Onshore certainly levels out the playing field as I don’t think anyone is really used to those kind of conditions. I was enjoying the jumping for sure, the riding was really hard though as the wave was so dumpy at low tide and with the onshore wind meant it was difficult to get out in front of the wave in the top turn which meant you got munched a lot! I opted for my JP Wave Slate 87 and Neil Pryde Combat 5.0. I figured as it was so onshore with a savage current I needed a bigger sail to keep my speed up for jumping and riding. The Slate has such good upwind ability and speed, so it is perfect for those types of conditions. Also the short compact shape makes it easy to do snappy turns!
During a heat I tend to relax a bit more once I have my jump in! So I would spend the first couple of runs trying to find a back loop ramp and make sure I had that in the bag and then spend the rest of the time trying to find waves to ride! With the waves I would start on the outside on a bigger one and try to get lots of turns in before searching for the smaller ones on the inside with the savage bowl section!
The onshore conditions were tricky! At one point I didn’t think I was going to get out at all. I headed towards Gwithian and just kept getting washed up the beach trying to get through the surge of whitewater. Also in front of the rivermouth was savage as the tide was so strong it almost had a standing wave in it! I have sailed in Sylt a lot when I used to compete in freestyle on the PWA and it can be a similar setup so I knew that I had to get out at least a heat or two before mine to make sure I was in the right place when my heat started. To keep warm between heats my secret was ‘Philps pasties’ and my ‘Dryrobe’! I had my mega winter NP Surf Mission 6/5/4 Hooded suit on so there was no way I was getting cold on the water! I sailed a lot of heats back to back in the double so didn’t really have time to eat or think about the cold, I was running on adrenaline!