What does it take to reach the podium in PWA slalom? Ross Williams, the UK’s highest ranked slalom sailor, talks us through the highs and lows of the build up to the first event of the 2016 PWA racing season in Korea and gives us a compelling insight into the life of a top flight professional racer.
Words ROSS WILLIAMS
// Photos JOHN CARTER
Originally published within the August ’16 edition.
HUNGER GAMES
“It seems like every year the level of competition increases to new highs on the PWA world tour. The Winter break is no longer a time to relax; sailors are spending the whole ‘off’ season gaining strength in the gym and training on the water in locations like Tenerife or Tarifa. Every sailor is fighting harder to survive in this tough environment and the level has been raised accordingly. So how hard do you have to train? How important is the preparation? In the end, only one guy will be victorious and crowned World Champion. Contracts are made and lost on where you finish at the season’s end and you need prize money to help fund the whole mission. It’s always been tough on tour but now it really is survival of the fittest.
TESTING TIMES
My preparation for Korea began in January, a fresh start for the new year. The first step was the collection of all my new equipment for the upcoming season. My fins are ordered months prior, while I always have new masts, sails and boards that need testing. I make sure I water test each and every board and mast combination at home in the UK as it is too expensive to fly abroad just to be able to test in shorts and warmer water.
Using a testing partner is the optimum way to find your fastest racing combinations. Taking turns to change one piece of equipment, you and your partner line up together on the water with enough distances between you so that you both have clean wind, but close enough to tell if there is a difference in your respective speeds, commonly referred to as the “buddy system”. It’s a method most pros use and it works well as long as there is trust between‘buddies’ and you’re sure your mate isn’t going to sandbag you (sail slowly intentionally). I also use GPS as a reference to double check what I am feeling in the equipment and how my speed is against my mate on the water. Not that I don’t trust my testing partners, but more often than not I don’t have someone to go sailing with and time can be precious, so I will also use GPS to sail with when alone and this can be a much quicker way to work through a large amount of combinations in one session.
FINE TUNING
I start fine-tuning with the biggest items I travel with – boards. I don’t want to be carting 15 boards around the world with me all year so I make sure they are done and dusted first. I try footstrap and mastbase positions as well as fin size and model. Once I have found the best settings, then I try each board so I know its wind ranges, strengths and weaknesses and when it’s time to jump back and forth between the different sizes. Next up is masts, starting first with the new ones against my trusty masts from previous years. You can even go so far as to trying different combinations, old top/new bottom, smaller top/larger bottom, etc. After I am happy I have found my premium set ups, I will then recheck though all the fins I have, making sure I know when to use what and when to change. A key point to remember is that while these may be only small differences in your equipment, the more improvements you can find and the better you know your gear, the better your chances are out on the race course. This whole process takes a while, especially during the UK winter and took me roughly 20 hours over 3 weeks. It’s not always an option to fly away to warmer, more consistent conditions, the excess baggage alone would be crippling.
PRO SESSIONS MAUI
Next it was time to join together with a group of pros and practice and re-test and hopefully improve in a realistic racing environment. There seems to be three real slalom hubs or destinations where you can go and find this required criteria. One is in Tarifa where my team mate Benny Van der Steen lives and trains usually with a group of French sailors and other top European pros. Secondly there is Tenerife with the TWS centre. This mainly consists of a younger crew from throughout Europe representing all the major brands that are keen to prove and establish themselves as contenders and push the old guard out. Thirdly is Maui with the top guys while they are spending time on the island for photo shoots and also the local crew of sailors. I chose Maui, mainly due to the fact that I was getting married there at the end of February!
My wedding was the best moment of my life to date and I can’t help but feel that settling down with my wife has brought me some balance and focus in the run up to Korea, something that may have been missing in past seasons. I do believe in the psychological power of happiness and that a balanced life can help bring your performance level up in whatever you do.
SHAPING UP
Looking back into 2015 it was the first year of my career when I started to carry some injuries through the PWA season. This was not to say I hadn’t been injured before, it was just more the case that these injuries were not getting better with time. In fact they were doing the opposite. Probably not helped by my run of wavesailing and traveling up and down the UK throughout the autumn and winter. I had wavesailed my ass off in some of the best conditions I can remember, winning the British wave title, while also running the UK Gaastra/Tabou agency. I believed my body was slowly losing the war and in need of help. Knee, back, neck and elbow were all getting worse, so as soon as I got to Maui I started the athlete-training program with Sam and Kyla at Deep Relief Maui. For me the most important thing was to get back my full range of movement, break my body down to zero and start afresh again. This time focusing on flexibility and proper recovery so that I was protecting the longevity of my career.
HOMEWARD BOUND
After about a month or so at Deep Relief I was starting to see the fruits of my labour, sailing everyday along with a good gym/recovery program. I was feeling great, 100%. But then work was calling me back to the UK, so I made a return trip back home. It was time to see some shops and be present at the first UK slalom event, which I was sponsoring. Again I have to say sometimes I feel a little stretched and dream about chucking it all in and just going surfing! But this is now the reality for me and my career, a salesman and a sailor. If I am honest, it’s the hardest thing I have ever done. Bringing Gaastra and Tabou back into the shops in the UK has been frustrating and time consuming. But somehow I feel it’s my duty to bring the stoke I receive from windsurfing across to shops and die hard British sailors. I love a killer day at home sailing and rate UK spots as some of the best places to sail in the world. But of course you need to take the rough with the smooth.
SHOOTING TIME
I am sure by now those of you who are still reading this are all playing the world’s smallest violin to my tales of woe and jet setting lifestyle. So I will bring you back up to speed. UK commitments done and having competed in the first UK slalom race with Gaastra/Tabou finishing 1st and 2nd, my next job was organising the International Gaastra and Tabou photo shoot back on Maui. It’s not actually as glamorous as you might think, long days and hard work. To add to the stress, the day before we started our shoot I injured my ankle sailing at Ho’okipa, badly! I was unable to sail apart from short, key moments when I had to brace it with strapping and suck it up, but in the end I was very proud of what we achieved during the shoot all things considered.
REHABBED AND READY
After the photo shoot finished I was able to focus on rehabbing my ankle. I tried to sail only when conditions were right for completing unfinished testing on a certain size board or sail. Slowly and with time nearly running out, I was pretty much 100% finished with all my testing. We had one week intense race training with a few of the guys left on the island banging through maybe 20 races each day. After this I was feeling completely ready for my trip and the first event of the year.
ASIA BOUND
My journey from Maui to Korea was good, flying Maui-Oahu-Tokyo-Busan and then a final one-hour ride to Jinha Beach. At check-in I had five large bags of windsurfing equipment and two normal size luggage bags, where I put clothes, food supplements, sports shakes and all my small windsurfing accessories. I tried to split the two normal bags equally so that if one would get lost I would still have enough fins, extensions etc. to be able to compete. My two normal bags were covered by my baggage allowance but I had to pay excess on my large bags. In Maui I thought I had made a good deal and I was charged for two sets of windsurfing equipment, totalling $275, but when I went to change planes with Japan airlines, I was asked to pay an extra $1200 US dollars for my large bags, ouch!
After a heated debate of what one windsurfing set consists of, while the rest of the plane had boarded, we finally reached an agreement that if I paid a further $325 then they would allow me to travel. I accepted. It can be the most stressful part of a trip when you are checking in with an airline and you’re not 100% sure of the rules with the excess baggage. My advice is to always phone up the airline first and explain what you are travelling with and see if they can make a price for you in advance so that when you turn up to the airport there can be no nasty surprises.
CULTURE SHOCK
Life at Jinha Beach is pretty much the same as at any other competition. My routine doesn’t really change much when I am at events. The Korean organisation is one of the best on tour, so you know things will run smoothly. The local people from Jinha look a bit mystified at what we are up to. Most Koreans you encounter while buying stuff from the supermarket or coffee shop don’t speak a word of English but are generally very polite. Korean food is not usually the food of choice for us Westerners, and I stay clear of any of the local restaurants that have the meals ‘still alive’ and on display in tanks by the side of the streets.
TENT WARS
The organisers provide the competitors with beach tents to place and leave our equipment in during the event. There is always a battle for a tent in the best position with the least amount of distance to carry the bags from where the truck dumps all the gear, the nearest tent being the most favourable. I tend not to get involved in this and instead just walk till I find an available space. The French stick to themselves, same with the Asian sailors and the ladies. Then the rest of us trade around, usually sticking to the guys who we have been sailing with in the run up to the event. I was pretty much left alone and ended up sharing with my Latvian formula sailing pal Janis Presis, (also a rider for Gaastra and Tabou). I don’t have a problem sharing with anyone, as I am happy doing my own thing most of the time.
RACE TIME
The forecast in the run up to the event seemed pretty solid. Not the usual direction but quite consistent for at least the middle few days of the event. All the sailors were now ready and waiting to fight for the title. I hoped I had done my homework correctly; it was time to find out! As it transpired the wind strength predicted on Windguru was about five knots lighter, making it a waiting game each day on standby, getting sent to the water many times without being able to complete a heat. Another big problem was the direction. Though the wind was steady, its onshore flow was bringing a lot of rubbish and seaweed through the course area. Now it’s one thing to be racing in marginal winds, it’s another thing competing to stay clear of all the hidden obstacles submerged in the water. There were certainly more than a couple of the top guys who had unwanted encounters with objects in their heats. Any mistake at this level of intense competition can be a ‘game changer’ come the end of the season, so it can be pretty harsh to be knocked out by hitting a chunk of wood or having a plastic bag wrapped around your fin.
WAITING GAME
The windless days were long and there isn’t much else to do in that situation. I always have other business with my agency or brand and industry related work that helps pass the time but for the others the major activity of the week is downloading or streaming a TV series to their laptops. The Internet is very fast, so it’s not uncommon for guys to completely binge-watch a whole series or more; spending up to 8 hours at a time in front of their laptops.
By the middle of the week we just about finished the first elimination in very tricky conditions. My semi-final was run at least four times before it was decided who would advance through to the final. I was lucky enough to make it, so now I had a shot to take the first bullet of the season. In the final I was able to finish in 3rd, which was great, and I was feeling confident with my equipment. The forecast for the rest of the week looked bad apart from a small chance of wind on the last day; back from a more normal direction but with a lot of rain.
In past years, wind with rain meant no wind, fingers crossed! Nothing is 100% sure till it’s over so I always keep focused until the final horn is blown.
LADY LUCK
On the last day, the unexpected happened! The wind arrived even with the rain forecast and we were sent out on the water. The conditions were very tricky and in my quarterfinal heat I didn’t have the start I wanted; I played it too safe and just as we started the wind increased. I was overpowered and couldn’t make it back into a qualifying position. I was gutted, and frustrated. I should have taken a smaller sail, I knew it was my fault, a bad decision and now I had to sit and await my fate. The next few hours felt like the longest of my life, sitting watching as the heats slowly progressed with a podium position at stake. Then the real rain came and killed the wind and it looked as if I would be safe, but you can never be sure and with the time ticking slowly away, my hopes were raised. After a small break in the rain the wind appeared again. Now I was sure they would be able to finish, I had accepted that I was not going to make the podium. So I watched as they tried and tried to complete the round. It was very tricky conditions; lots of re-sails and general recalls saw many top guys also suffering the same exit as I did. They eventually reached the position where one more heat needed to be run for the result to count. It was a pretty cruel situation to be in and I was helpless to do anything about it. Finally around 5pm, the wind died off and so I had escaped. The relief was awesome. It had been a hard week and I was very fortunate to finish third. I am sure many would agree that I was super lucky, and in one way I agree but in another I believe I deserved my 3rd place. I had only made one mistake during the whole event, the rest of the time I was always up there in the top group, looking sharp on the water, even in the heats that were cancelled.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
When you compete, you normally hope that events will have enough wind for at least a few decent rounds. That way you feel the result is more deserved, but in this case it all boiled down to one race. And so I think it’s these events when it’s probably even more important to be ready in your mind, body in shape and equipment tuned for whatever nature throws at you. At the closing ceremony I did buy a few drinks for the guys who were not so fortunate as me with their result. I left Korea the next day with a headache and hangover but happy nonetheless. I was lucky and gave most of my gear to ‘Benny’ Van der Steen so I didn’t have to pay any excess baggage. After a short three-day stop over to spend some quality time with the wife in Maui, I packed my remaining bags and boarded my flight back to the UK and to the next mission in Costa Brava. I heard there were 160 large windsurf bags checked in on Benny’s flight and they all made it. Big thanks to Turkish airlines who continue to be one of the few good windsurf friendly airlines! Now the battle for the PWA slalom crown begins in earnest and this tale is to be continued..hopefully with a happy ending!”
