August 10, 2015
The final day here at Perna, Croatia which was the last chance for finishing the single elimination unfortunately passed by without a possibility to even try to start the competition. Due to high weather pressure over whole Europe the thermal wind didn’t really fill in. With 16 competitors and a completed first round the Martini EFPT Croatia has an official result, however our hopes were high to complete a whole elimination.
After two days of solid tow-in training behind a powerful rescue-boat, the riders were longing for a proper tow-in competition today. Ten sailors signed up to join the race for some very exceptional trophies, which were solely designed for the pro division at the Surf Perna Windsurfing Center. Besides experts like Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic), Adam Sims (Sailloft/Patrik), Yentel Caers (JP/Neilpryde), Hugo Sousa (RRD/RRD) and Amado Vriewswijk (JP/Severne) also the two juniors Tvrtko Ljutic and Lennart Neubauer (Starboard/Neilpyrde), as well as some EFPT rookies like Kostya Smirnov (JP/Neilpryde) and Matthias Erlacher (Sailloft/Fanatic) signed up. The riders had two runs (one straight after the other) to show their best moves with the higher score counting. After the completed first round they were granted another run to go even bigger and top their previous results.
It was quite obvious from the start who would made the podium with Frenchie Adrien Bosson throwing himself through a perfect air-funnell into one-handed burner- a move that he was training the past days. Whilst Hugo Sousa and Yentel Caers were styling it up with really nice burner 720s, Amado Vrieswijk attempted a culo-culo but couldn’t get the second rotation. In the third round though he landed a super nice burner-burner. Adam Sims who is always very impressive in this discipline and who presented his own tow-in board by worldclass shaper Patrik Diethelm, went for a spock-culo in the second run where he stepped off the board in the end, however managed to plane out of the move in the third round. Pointwise Bosson and Sims had the exact same amount for first place, yet with a higher scoring move in the previous round Bosson could take victory. Third place went to Amado Vrieswijk from Bonaire.
The prize-giving and closing ceremony will take place tonight in a local beach bar. Even though the wind conditions weren’t at its best we are looking back on a great event with a lot of motivated people in the organisation team, the race crew and a great fleet of riders. We are all hoping to return to the beautiful beaches here at the Surf Perna Club in the upcoming years.
The next event will be the DAM-X in Brouwersdam, Holland taking place from the 7th-11th of October 2015. We are delighted to be able to also run the first EFPT girls division at the Zeil- and Surfcentrum at this historic windsurfing spot, that is home to some of the best freestyle windsurfers worldwide. Thank you for following us and stay tuned for the last two events in autumn of 2015.