JC: What style of turns are you working on at the moment?
MB: We had a long stretch of no wind here in the winter so I hardly sailed for two months. Right now I am trying to get back into my rhythm of sailing every day. I try to focus on sailing with speed plus I like to try and link more than one move per wave and just try and do all the moves faster and with more power. I really want to be tuned up also since I have not sailed much. In my turns I try and get the board all the way around, that is my goal. I don’t want to finish the turn on the half. I want to go all the way round back into the white water. That is what I have in mind, it does not always work. I look at surfing turns a lot; guys like Mick Fanning, Pancho Sullivan, Kelly Slater, there are so many amazing ones now. I like surfers who ride with style, speed and power.
I think the way that windsurfers read the wave nowadays is very similar to pro surfers. I would like to draw lines like they do in pro surfing. Those guys are obviously a step ahead because they are faster, but that is what I want out of my turns. That is what I look up to and I would love to link a couple of turns together that look that way. It depends on the day, most of the waves that we sail when we windsurf we obviously have wind, which makes those waves a lot choppier and it would be amazing to sail a wave with a clean face. I’d love to sail clean waves at Bells beach or Cape Verde which is the closest we get to perfect smooth surfing waves. A lot of the waves we sail are open ocean waves meaning that they have big chop and can be all over the place, even Ho’okipa! You have to make the most of it; here and there you can find a good set up for one or two sick turns.