Vindsurfing spots världen över

[borje]

Jag känner inte till någon bok men titta in på http://www.worldwindsurf.com där står det om en massa spots världen över.

[anonym-anvandare]

såg för läng sedan en sida som beskrev vilken årstid olika platser fungerar bäst, någon som vet var denna sida finns?

[dr-masse]

Tror du tänker på http://www.gul.com/beach/bornhoft.html, men den länken verkar inte funka längre. Skall se om det går att hitta ändå. Någon som har sparat, månne?

Surfa På!

[anonym-anvandare]

‘Winds of the World’
Short Board Satisfaction

by Simon Bornhoft

How many times have you been ‘skunked’ and ended up sitting on the beach with no wind, ripping up the windstats, rather than the ocean? No one likes to sqander their valuable holiday time, and while it is impossible to totally guarantee the wind in even the most reliable locations, there are certain places that have a much higher percentage of wind than others. This might seem obvious, but it is not always easy to work out where and when are the best times to travel. So often people end up going to the wrong resort and the wrong time of year. To help you get the best conditions, Gul International quizzed the person who has visited so many windsurfing venues that he can recite his own passport number. Technique guru and travel journalist Simon Bornhoft picks off the best places for your short board windsurfing holiday.

[*]”Find the right place at the right time”
[*]”Fed up with sitting on the beach?”
[*]”Should have been here last week!”
[*]”It’s not normally like this!”[/list]

Travel time, type of accommodation, facilities, food, local culture and equipment all have a major effect on your choice of windsurfing destination. But the single most important factor, that makes or breaks your holiday is the WIND. If you find yourself at the right location, but at the wrong time of year, your memories and impression will fade as fast as the wind. Yet I’m amazed how many people go to locations at clearly the wrong time of year hoping for conditions that are actually far more likely at another time of the season. Even good friends of mine have called to say, “Hey we’re off to Margarita in July to crack my carve gybes”. Their enthusiasm is quashed somewhat by my silence at the other end of the phone. “Why didn’t you ask me?”. “Well we booked through, ‘itmightblow.com’ and we got a good price. Needless to say, the only thing they cracked was beer.
Whilst you can be in the windiest place at the most reliable time of year, you can still get caught out and not have enough wind to blow the froth off the top of a cappuccino, that’s windsurfing, it’s cruelty can sometimes match it’s charisma. But spending some time selecting the right destination before you travel, is far easier than trying to change the weather when you are there.

The reason for choosing your destination is usually a mixture of reputation, recommendation, wind statistics, price and just the desire to visit a particular location. However some of these can be a highly unreliable method of choosing your holiday. Here’s why……..

Reputations & Recommendations:

Some locations acquire good reputations, but that might be for only a certain time of year, or for a certain level. For instance, Vassiliki has a great reputation, because it’s a great place for beginners, but actually as a short board venue, the wind is simply not as reliable as a many other locations. Planing winds in Vassiliki are unpredictable, even over their summer season. You can get a week of planing afternoons, or evenings, and then a week of nothing. However, Vass has a brilliant reputation because it was one of the first full service centers, with great socials and it has a lot of satisfied beginner-intermediate clients. If you are relatively new to the sport, it’s got a lot to offer. But it might not be what you want if you’re looking for a solid, reliable short board blast.

Wind Statistics

Wind stats are a license to print money. I have known and seen, many locations claim ‘a F4 windy day’ the moment a six stone, school kid gets planing. It is very easy for a center to be romantic with the truth, and claim ‘windy days’, when in fact most of the people are on the beach are hooked on a book rather than their harness. The same goes for the resorts seasons. Most places have defined seasons, yet to make their operation more economic they ‘stretch the season’, when in fact the wind is not quite there, or in truth it’s tail off completely. In reality you’d be far better off in another location, or at least be well aware that you are in a very quiet time of their year for wind. I’d also be particularly wary of locations that have only just started up and have little history, unless reliable stats can be obtained from nearby airport or weather station.

Price v Risk

It is not uncommon to see bargin prices for locations. “£299 Hurgahada in January”. Now it doesn’t take a genius to work out that perhaps Egypt in January, might not be that reliable, I’d say it is a 25-50% chance that you might get a weeks wind during a January visit. So it’s quite a risk if WIND is what you really want. The same can be said for places like Cabarete. Quite often cheap in January-March, because the normal charter airlines are off loading their seats. But it’s a risk. I know how my card playing skills greatly increased the year we tested in Cabarete in January. So if you’re offered a cheap week, the chances are it’s out of season, so don’t just pack the harness.

365 days of wind?

When you’ve traveled with half a ton of windsurfing equipment to test, or a dozen expectant clients all wanting to crack a carve gybe, you want to find locations that work. I have complied this list after years of visiting most of these locations and using very reliable contacts, ranging from location managers (rather than owners), other pro sailors, the locals, continuous correspondence with Boards readers, over 2,000 of my coaching clients who have sailed and visited many of the locations around the world. Coupled with this I have recently been compiling a list from other windsurfing travel journalists. Over the last 20 years, I have made literally hundreds of windsurfing trips around the world and I’m amazed at how people still get it so horribly wrong. Whilst this information is not going to make the wind blow any better, it should help you avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In essence, if you took a year off and went to these popular locations, you could sail virtually every day of the year. The venues where I’ve given 99.9% chance of wind, mean that you are just about in the best place in the world at that time of year for wind during your 1-2 week holiday. I know there are many far off places that are perfect and there is some cross over between the resorts, but I’ve chosen popular locations with good access, reputation and infrastructure. If you won the lottery and went month to month through the 99.9% locations, I think you could actually sail every day of the year.

RULES

If you are looking for reliable wind for your next windsurfing holiday, I suggest following a few golden rules to choose the right locations and not stretch the seasons too much. As you will see, at some times of the year, unless you travel a great distance, you are limited in your options and success rate of wind. So for instance if you are traveling in November, there are very few of the popular destinations that will guarantee the wind. Sorry but it’s fact, so either travel further, or head off to Egypt with a reasonable chance, or wait until the southern Caribbean comes on line.

NUMBER ONE GOLDEN RULE!!!

Plan your holiday by the time of year rather than destination. It is far better to say, “Right, I can go away in March and then pick the places that work, rather than choose the location and still go when you have your holiday time. So often I hear, “Oh we’d like to go to Cabarete, we got a cheap deal and we’re going in November……It’s far better to select your dates and look through the best options. If you have few or no appealing options, try to change the time of travel to suit the best wind.

General Rules

Mediterranean

In a nutshell, the Mediterranean has a season that lasts from spring through to Autumn, but very few locations have wind all through this time. The majority have a wind spell of about 8 weeks, principally end of June through to end of August. There are some locations such as Sardinia (which is actually more reliable at the ends of the season rather than mid season), Tarifa and Alacati, which have a slightly extended season. In some cases this is due to local conditions which can produce winds opposite to their mid summer directions. So principally don’t even consider the Med unless you are right bang smack in the middle of their season. Pushing the limits of the season is a risk, that’s probably not worth taking.

Caribbean

The Caribbean is now a realistic option for European windsurfers. The trade winds blow pretty much throughout the year, but they are only strong enough for good windsurfing at certain times and on particular islands. Generally, in our winter time, the trades are strongest and more reliable in the southern islands, like Margarita. As our summer approaches, the trades shift north and the wind becomes far more reliable in places like Dominican Republic.

Eygpt

The Red Sea has now become one of the main windsurfing locations for European travelers. I have spent so much time there, (I can now recognise certain Egyptian tunes, which normally sound like a jumbled bag of strangled instruments to the European ear), I feel I have a very good idea on the best places in that part of the world. Where Egypt scored was in the winter where it is possible to escape the UK weather and get sun and a good chance of wind. However, Egypt’s real season is May-Oct, when the wind is far more reliable. Equally the Sinai Dahab & Moon Beach, is more reliable than the Egyptian side of Hurghada and Safaga. If you find yourself in Egypt around Dec/Jan/Feb you are running a risk. I know many people who have traveled around Xmas and get wind. I suggest, they back a few horses, as they are obviously lucky. There are an equal amount who go and get ZIP!

CHANCES OF WIND CHART

I’ve chosen a tour that would enable you to possibly sail 365 days of the year. I have also scored places due to their consistency of wind and if it s a location that get a little spurt of Ventura wind at the end of day because the local bread factory’s oven door is opened, then it won’t score that well or even be mentioned. I’m talking bet your house on it that you’d get wind for most of the day above 11knots plus. Whilst these aren’t set in stone and you could argue some of the locations scoring, this is going to be a pretty good starting point to plan a more reliable windsurfing holiday.

Chances of Wind

Month	75-99.9%	50-99.9%	50-50%	0-50% & Take a good book
January	Australia South Africa Canaries	Cape Verde	Egypt Margarita	Dom Rep Barbados
February	Australia Margarita Canaries South Africa	Cape Verde Tobago (9-18knots)	Egypt	Dom Rep Barbados
February	Australia Margarita Canaries South Africa	Cape Verde Tobago (9-18knots)	Egypt	Dom Rep Barbados
March	Margarita Aruba	Australia Cape Verde	Egypt	Dom Rep Canaries
April	Aruba Canaries	Maui Alacati (south wind) Tarifa	Egypt Sardinia	Dom Rep Margarita
May	Maui Aruba	Egypt	Canaries (not Tenerife) Mediterranean Cape Verde Alacati (south wind)	Tenerife
June	Maui Karpathos	Dom Rep Alacati Egypt Barbados Tarifa The Gorge	Canaries Rhodes Cape Verde Kos	Margarita
July	Maui Margarita Egypt Dom Rep Canaries Karpathos The Gorge	Alacati Tarifa Rhodes Essaouria Kos	Vassiliki (pm wind)
August	Maui Margarita Tarifa Canaries Karpathos	Alacati Dom Rep Egypt Essaouria The Gorge	Vassiliki(pm wind) Kos
September	Egypt Maui	Canaries Sardinia	Alacati (south wind) Dom Rep Tarifa	Vassiliki Mediterranean
October	Argentina	Maui Egypt	Alacati (south wind) Gran Canaria Tarifa UK	Mediterranean Dom Rep Margarita
November	Argentina	Costa Rica South Africa UK	Egypt Maui Cape Verde	Margarita Canaries
December	Australia South Africa Canaries	Cape Verde	Egypt Costa Rica Margarita	Dom Rep Barbados

As you can see there are some big players and also some quiet times of year. There are obviously hundreds of other locations and I’m writing the book in far more detail at the moment. I’ve listed the most popular and frequently traveled to locations. There are obviously a few secret spots, these should remain the quest of those who dare to seek….

See you on the water

SB.

SB ‘Winds of the World Tour 2002’

http://www.simonbornhoft.com

Course & Holidays for all levels:
Including Short Board Weeks / Safari’s / Freestyle / New Beginner Groups and Wave Weeks.

[*]Nov 2001 – Egypt
[*]Feb 2002 – Margarita
[*]Feb 2002 – Tobago
[*]March 2002 – Egypt
[*]March 2002 – Cape Verde
[*]June 2002 – Alacati
[*]July 2002 – Fuertaventura
[*]Sept 2002 – Moon Beach / Dahab
[/list]

01243 377651
simonbornhoft@compuserve.com

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[lars_k]

Bra artikel!
Ang Canaries Dec-Feb, menar han alla öar eller? Trodde inte Kanarieöarna skulle vara så bra på vintern…

[anonym-anvandare]

Det jag vet om exvis GC är att om du bara är beredd att åka bil så kan du i princip alltid räkna med planingsvind den tiden på året. Med det menar jag 7-8m2 och hur kul är det i längden..

[mikaels]

Kanonartikel, något för arkivet eller sparade trådar eller vad det nu heter kanske?

[anonym-anvandare]

Grym artikel, men jag är lite skeptisk till Kanarieholmarna som vindsäkert på vintern. Är det någon som vet vilken ö som är bäst på vintern???
Här är ett par andra tips på spotguider:
http://www.stehsegelrevue.com
http://www.club-mistral.com/

[anonym-anvandare]

Har varit “hårt” arbetande på Gran Canaria i månader under november-juli.. óch jag kan säga att det nog var lätträknat med vindfria dagar.. Det blåser friskt ganska ofta..

[sebbe]

Det är så att passadvindarna inte är lika kraftiga under vintern.
Kör man tex formula kan man nog surfa varje dag nästa på GC men kör man enbart Wave så är det ingen destination jag rekommenderar under nov-feb, finns då mycket bättre ställe att åka till. Vill man köra freestyle kan det dock fungera lite bättre.

[spinout]

Vilka är då de bästa resmålen i december-januari om man inte har tid och råd med västindien/sydafrika/australien?

[anonym-anvandare]

fuerteventura suger på vintern vet inte huir det är resten av året.

gustav