H-999 Martin ten Hoeve
Yes, this is my knee! If your thought is that the cut came from the fin of the board or while windsurfing, you are wrong!
Peter and I arrived to the parking in Torbole to test the AC-0 and AC-2, and just after parking, I jumped in the van to take out some extentions. Jumping off from the side door, I missed the step and I fell out hitting the sidewalk with my back and sprang my ankle. Everything happened in a second, that I just got breathless from the hit on my back. After few seconds when I got back my breath, I realized that I also cut my knee during the fall, but I have no idea how the cut came out. Not the best story to be proud of… 😉
So I left the gear to Peter, and left to the hospital for few stitches.
After whole night with the ice on the hits, I was hoping to get on the water this morning for testing, but after, I put on the wetsuit, my body told me to actually wait a day….
I stayed on the beach and rigged sails to Peter to test after the latest changes made. I gave him no rest in the 3 hour session with 20-25 knots north wind in Malcesine: AC-0 5.6, 6.1, 6.6, 7.1 and AC-2 5.7, 6.2, 6.7. Now Peter is back to the loft to make changes to each size. He will be pretty tired tonight, but it’s great to have a sail designer who jumps on the water each day with us and feels his creations.
While Peter was out, I filmed Alberto while he was training on his AC-1 6.7 and the I-sonic 87:
It looks like a new storm is coming this afternoon, so tomorrow morning it will be great to test the changes made on the same sails…I bought some protections for my cut, and I will not miss the session tomorrow. Making pictures one day is ok, but not a second day!
Stefan Schmoelzer
(Stefan here seen that the Shaka Bump ‘n Jump Session last weekend )
The guy who went from 5.3 to 4.7 in one year..Stefan 25, each summer a Torbole local who works in the Shaka surf shop, during winter when not travelling he is in the Austrian Alps skiing as much as possible. His passion for windsurfing begun years ago, when he was competing on the old Mistral one-design, but for the last 6 years he has been training hard on his freestyle moves.
Stefan has this year changed his sails out with Point-7 using the Sado as his preferred sail in the sizes 4.7 and 4.2.
”I’m real please with the sails, I have normally been using a 5.3 here on Garda for the local South wind ‘ora’, but with the power of these sails, I’ve skipped half a meter and am now using the 4.7 as my biggest. The sail delivers such a powerhouse of energy and it’s just amazing what you can do with it. It took me 2-3 sessions to get used to the characteristics of the sail, but now that I have tamed the ‘beast’ so to say and have gotten her under control. I know that I have got something special in my hands when sailing it. Having a smaller size during the moves is giving me great advantages! ‘
Garda Lake Slalom Race 2008: Point-7 dominates.
4 POINT-7 in top 5!
2 Slalom races were held this weekend during the second edition of the Garda Lake Race. The wind was pretty gusty between 8-14knots.
Alberto Menegatti was winning both the races on Point-7. Our new rider Marco Begalli was finishing second on the first race, and I after being first at the first mark of the second race, he got stuck in hole of no wind around the mark, and Alberto was able to catch him from behind. Marco finished 4th as not only Alberto took him while he was out of planing.
Final Results:
1. Alberto Menegatti: Point-7
2. Thomas Fauster
3. Begalli Marco: Point-7
4. Francesco Prati: Point-7
5. Florian Bandel: Point-7
The Roman Gladiator goes BLACK and Wins!
The Roman Gladiator ITA-415 goes Black and wins his first national event!!!
(Marco Begalli ITA-415, Matteo Iacchino ITA-140: first and third at the second event of the Italian Slalom Championship (14-15 June, Vindicio))
I took part at my first world championship slalom in Nordeney, Germany ’96. I was very excited to compete in such an event and there was a large group of italian racers with me.
In that occasion I met for the first time Marco Begalli. I had seen him at national events, (he was very noisy with his roman accent ;)). Marco was in his early 30’s and had just started racing and his results were still not highlights.
His passion for windsurfing and specially for racing increased with years. In a very short time he climbed the national ranking, and was actually the person to watch out on the national race fields together with Alberto Menegatti.
Marco organized his business in a way that he can be everyday on the water. Living in North of Rome, he drives kilometers along the coast, searching even for the lightest breeze, but if there is not even that, he is on the same road but on his race bike.
He is now 41 and probably one of the windsurfers working hardest on it’s body to keep fit for racing. Check out this picture!! The heavy guy in ’96, became the most fit in 2002!
The Eurocup those years were offering a lot of events. I had my personal trainer , Giuseppe Pugliese, who took care also of Marco and all the other 4 Italian stronger riders: Alberto, Davide Beverino, and Massimo Masserini. We all travelled together to the events and grew great friendship between us. Marco was the international master’s terror. He has won a lot in this category, and also some world titles, but the fun thing is to see him creating terror also between the younger guys!
There was a nice atmosphere between us and as we were back from racing, we could not just wait to meet up again at the next event.
In 2006 with Point-7 we could not get everyone on the team as we had just started, so it was just Massimo and I, as we were partners in the business. This year after we took Alberto on board, we decided to get on our team also our friend Marco. We believed in his passion and dedication in his racing.
I met Marco last week at the downwind race in Torbole. I went up to him, and said ‘ are you ready to go black?’ He smiled, and he was very brief ‘ of course!’
3 POINT-7 riders in TOP 5! :
At his first race on POINT-7 this weekend, Marco made himself a gift by winning the second event of the Slalom Italian championship! The first was won by Alberto in Porto Pollo in April. Now Marco is leading the ranking with a first and second position!
The race was in Vindicio. Great place for thermical wind. 20 knots on Saturday and 12 on Sunday.
Marco was winning by using the 7.7 and 9.0 AC-1! So not only the overall, but also his already booked master category.
Our rider Matteo Iacchino joined him on the podium in third position, by winning also in the Junior category. Francesco Prati finished in fourth position giving us 3 of our riders in top 5!
Marco ‘I have been for years considered the ‘dad of the riders’ and even if my results were good, it was hard to be considered. I’m 20 year older then many of the guys I fight with, but I love this sport and competing. I can’t live without competitions and I’m very motivated. Racing with Point-7 will boost up my motivation, as Andrea is very into it, and is pushing me to train hard for the next Ifca Slalom Master World Championship which will be held on Garda in July.’
A typical P7 sail development day at Lake Garda.
6.00 am. The alarm clock is ringing. The north wind in Malcesine is there blowing for us. So it’s our wake up call! No breakfast, just a rush to get on the beach in 5min! It’s almost a race to who get’s first to the beach.
6.20 am. It takes a while to realize how windy it is. The eyes are still sleepy. The wind is medium strong so we rig the flat water series sails in the smaller sizes. 5.6, 5.8…6.2, 6.7, AC-0, Runner, AC-2….
It’s another rush to put on the wetsuit as you can’t wait to test the new changes made, and as soon as the first foot goes in the water, it’s a second wake up call… the water, specially this morning, was freeeeezing.
So the heavier testers get the bigger sizes, and our smaller testers get the smaller sizes. The first 20 min are the warm up, then the testing sequence goes on: everyone tries all the sizes. In and out of the water non stop to change and compare the different sizes and models. Peter is on the water with us, and it’s the best thing for testing. It’s easy communication to have our sail designer on the water understanding our needs.
9.00 am. The wind starts dropping so we decide to take out our 120litre boards and 8.3, up to 10.0 sizes.
10.00am. Wind drops, we take out our writing pads and pens, we write down all the changes to be made on each size.
11: 00am. All the gear is back on the van. We have a big lunch breakfast at Antoine’s little mobile bar!
11:30 am .Peter goes back to the loft to check it’s specs of the sails and how to tackle the changes. He start making some surgery on them. I get on my mails, to organize the business with my team, clients, riders, suppliers, development of new material and products.
14: 00 pm. We are all back on the beach in Torbole hoping for some south wind, which lately is not the best wind, but enough to test the bigger sizes. Dennis, our sales director, is also ready with his wetsuit and gps to see if we are making a good work. The better we work, the easier life he has in selling the sails ;)….
We rig quickly the sails again with the integrated surgery freshly made by Peter, and off we try the evolution, or check out if we got the result we were looking for. The changes made are very small when we test on Garda. The big development job is done in Sardinia during the winter. Our deadlines for production are end of June, so what we have now in our hands are almost the final protos and it’s actually a very fine tuning which is being done. Garda is a perfect place for tuning these small details as the wind is very often the same.
16:00 pm. Peter starts taking some sails back to the loft to work more on them and we keep testing…,actually, we start racing between each other to have a bit more action on the water to try get best performance out of the flat water sails. On top of having light handling, powerful, and comfortable stable sails, in the AC-0, AC-2 and Runner, we want our freeracer and freeriders to be the fastest on the water…!!!
17:00pm. It’s hardest time of the day. Tired from surfing, it would be nice to sit down and relax. It’s time to pack up. Meeting in the loft with Peter, final comments written down, and then we all get stuck on our lap tops till we fall asleep. Long and tiring days, but very interesting and with a lot of integrated fun!
Ok I need to go, I’m late for the Ora, but it does not look that good today…too cloudy!
Motion windsurf magazine – abonnee worden
