Michael George

Height: 5ft 10in

Weight: 72kg

Job: Software Developer

Sponsors: RRD / Neil Pryde / F-Hot Fins

I took part in Defi Wind back in 2011 but it wasn’t the windiest of years and we only had the one race, albeit quite a long one (40km). This will be my first international slalom event so it will be a larger fleet than we see in the UK and it will be my first time doing a format consisting of heats, semi-finals and finals.

I’ve been considering an international slalom event for 2 or 3 years now and the IFCA Europeans seems ideal. It’ll be great to be out there with a bunch of guys I’ve been competing against for the last few years on the UK circuit. I’m looking forward to my first international slalom event and it’ll be interesting to see how competitive we are outside the UK.

We’re told the wind typically ranges from 12 to 25 knots so it’ll be my 2 biggest boards and 4 largest sails. They’re the RRD X-Fire V6 (105L + 122L) and Neil Pryde RS:Racing Evo V (6.4m, 7.0m, 7.8m, 8.6m) plus a range of F-Hot S3 Fins to match (36cm, 38cm, 42cm, 44cm).

I don’t really know what to expect in terms of the overall level but I think that I can be pretty competitive when sailing to the best of my ability. I’m not going to put undue pressure on myself so I’ll see how it goes during the event. My intention is to bring home as many scalps as possible!