Recently Tushingham guru Sam Ross was joined by Jamie Drummond to coach this year’s Rippers Wave Freestyle Camp at West Wittering. Images and text by Simon Bassett of X-Train.
Baltic weather and cross offshore winds arrived for the Annual Rippers Wave Camp. The temperatures did not put off the hardcore 15 riders who were put through their paces by Sam Ross and Jamie Drummond.
The course was split into different sections – mental preparation, fitness, breaking the moves into small sections and going for it on the water! The wind on the Saturday was strong 3.7m weather to start with and dropped down to bigger sails on Sunday. James Randall from X-train was on hand to assist over the weekend. The many parents who were the Team support looked like they were freezing on the Saturday while everyone on the water had the first cold session of the season dressed in full rubber hats booties and gloves!
James organised food at the local pub in West Wittering “The Old House at Home” which was a pretty good end to the day on Saturday. Sunday had less wind but Trevor Funnel And Julian Du Vall of the UKWA came to X-train to run a mini comp and look at the preparation and competition tactics on the water. Trevor who is big supporter of kids windsurfing freestyle has been very keen to support the X-train rippers camp.
The mini freestyle comp was held in light winds so lots of spinny style sail tricks were judged by Trevor, Julian, James and Jamie. The heats worked through until the final Luke Williams 1st place, Ollie 2nd, Lucas 3rd and local Wittering windsurfer Jack Pettit 4th – all the riders showed a good effort on the water. There were some small prizes and tshirts for all the competitors .
Sam as usual pulled the stops out with the coaching –his uber positive style got he best out of the crew and it looked from the beach that the group really pushed themselves in trying new moves.
Sam’s comments “4 degrees, 30 knots and 15 Young rippers might not sound like a recipe for success but this goes down as one of my favourite weekends coaching I’ve ever had. Whether it was perfecting gybes and their variations, first jumps or forwards and vulcans all the Rippers literally threw themselves into it with incredible enthusiasm and energy. It’s rare to see sailors go from only having dabbled in moves before to be sliding, rotating and staying dry in all sorts of ways. The combination of like minded young windsurfers, location, conditions, and the team in place made it a great weekend so much so I can’t wait another year for the same camp and am now looking at spring for another chance to get a similar group on the water.”
