CORNWALL - THE ONSHORE GAME

The 2017 BWA Cornwall Classic threw up tough onshore conditions and a real challenge for the pros as they battled the cold and current as much as each other! Managing onshore tests any sailor, especially in competition. John Carter caught up with some of the UK pros for tips and pointers on their preparation, equipment, technique and tactics to win the onshore and competition game!

Words & Photos John Carter

This feature originally appeared in the May 2018 issue of Windsurf Magazine.

PHIL HORROCKS
I actually don’t mind windsurfing in onshore conditions, it can be more fun than side-shore sometimes, sounds a bit odd I know but as long as you’ve got waves it can be challenging. I like gnarly, dredgy, sucky little bowls, if you time it right you’ve got a super vertical face with plenty of punch! To me that’s much more fun than a crumbling side-shore soft-lipped wave. But there has to be waves! By that I mean shoulder high at least, then it’s fun!I use my Simmer Quantums in those sort of conditions; they are Simmer’s onshore production boards and solid all-round boards. I think the gear changes over recent years have opened up a world of possibilities in what we used to call onshore mush. Now you can actually turn tight, staying closer to the section of the wave and there’s more speed carried through turns, so you are suddenly heading back at steep onshore bowls with power and speed. The sails have evolved also, helping you control all the extra power and speed too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not my all-time favourite thing! But it’s way more fun than it used to be! For Cornwall I used the Quantum 90 and the 5.0/5.3 Simmer Black tips. It’s a rocking combination. I don’t sail the Bluff any other time than the contests and it takes a little bit of getting used to. I started fairly terribly in the early rounds, getting caught wide right in the rivermouth close-outs, but later I figured you could sneak up the sandbank on the inside and out the left side of the rivermouth.

In a short heat in onshore conditions it’s very easy to go downwind very quickly when you’re hunting jumps and rides, so I try to start as far upwind and out the back of the break as possible. That way I can drop inside the break on a set if there’s one at the start of the heat. If it doesn’t come along I won’t go chasing it! I will then head back out and try a jump off a bigger ramp as I am already on the outer break line and not hopping over onshore mush on the inside. Once you’ve committed to coming inside the surf and you’re riding you’ve got to make that first hit count. That is the biggest the wave is going to get, that has to be your most powerful turn/smack as from there on it only gets smaller as it runs up the beach! Once you’re out sailing the adrenaline and the sailing itself is enough to keep you warm. It is the hanging around on the beach that gets me. I have a decent rigging jacket and try to snack all day and keep hydrated with water or tea.

Keeping an eye on the notice board is 100% important! You have got to know what you’re supposed to be doing, where you’re supposed to do it and when to do it, otherwise you have no chance! It’s basic stuff though, and is really easy if you actually listen at the briefings or ask at the board on the beach. The problems come when other things sidetrack you, changing boards, re-rigging sails, or disappearing off for a pee or coffee and forgetting the timings. So, the more of the ‘other’ stuff you can get out of the way the sooner the better. Rig early, buy your food and drinks the day before, stick your parking ticket on the van when you arrive, not waiting for the warden to arrive and then do it. In the past I have asked the judges what they are after and they are usually pretty keen at giving feedback, which is nice and reassuring when you hear that you’re doing something right. Just be prepared for when they say you sailed like a kook too! They can be so judgemental!

There’s a core of sailors that have been doing competitions quite a while now and they are all good at it, solid heat builders! I know what I can do too and all being well I fancy my chances against some of them, but you also know there are some where you have to sail your absolute best, and you get a little bit of luck making that move or wave and that luck can be the difference. One of my sponsors in the early days told me the famous golf saying, “The more I practise the luckier I get”, and that still sticks with me! So I know there are very fine margins and you can’t control them in a heat, that is dealt with in the previous 5000 onshore bottom turns or back loops in the last 12 months of sailing and what happens will happen, just go for it. In early heats the pressure is often off a bit and I can really let loose, there’s been heats where I was like, wow, that was awesome, I did 5 ace jumps and 6 sweet rides! And then the very next heat you tighten up as the contest gets harder and suddenly things don’t seem so straightforward. You scrape by with your 2 waves and 1 jump playing it safely. But when it comes to winning events, the difference is usually very small, and sometimes those whose take the risk win, but equally they can also lose, I guess it’s knowing when to take the risk? Ultimately the more you practise at it the less risky it becomes.

ADAM LEWIS
I used a Stubby 94 and 82 for the Cornwall Classic. Sail wise I chose a 5.0 and 5.3. I’m finding I use the Stubby’s more and more nowadays. You are able to move around the break a lot more and they are so quick to get going that it makes those fluky sessions so much easier and more fun. I think I could use that 82 as a one board only UK dream machine. With sails you just need to be really powered up to make the most of those conditions. If you are not fully powered you’re just losing speed in every move or wave. If you have power those conditions can be really fun.

It was tough sailing at dead low tide in a competition. If you gave yourself too much time to be in position before the heat you were waiting a long time, just stood on the beach all the way on the other side totally exposed to the cold. If you went too late, then you might be warm but totally in the wrong place and with such short heats every second counts. My strategy was to nail a jump straight away, you never know if the wind will drop or the waves back away. A landed jump right off the bat takes a bit of the time pressure off the rest of the heat. One of the main vital ingredients for competing is checking the notice board. If you don’t know what you are doing and how long you’ve got to do it in, there is no way you can plan out your heat efficiently. The heats are over really quick so time management is very important, you cannot afford to waste any time on doing things that you don’t need to or on the other side not doing moves to fill the score sheet. The parameters on the notice board can also change so keeping an eye on the board is a must! Rules wise the board is the law so if the information is wrong really you should re-sail or something should be done about it. In summary, check the board and get a count down timer watch.

I like to ask the judges what they are looking for, it is nice to have a rough idea. I think most of the time it is obvious, this time was a little trickier because of the distance they were from the sailing area. It was tricky to adjust to that.

To be honest, all the British guys in the pro fleet are at a pretty high standard, I think anyone in the top five could win! Something I feel proud of as a British wave sailor is the general level is incredibly high. Phil Horrocks, Coxy, Bubble, Ben Proffitt, The King’s or Timo are all awesome so you can’t give them an inch. In the final against Phil I think I didn’t take into account the judging angles and the distance. Plus Phil is a very, very good competitor. He could beat a lot of the top guys on the world tour. If I look at it now, I sort of didn’t adjust how I sailed compared to a normal heat. That far away it’s so hard to differentiate when you’re already splitting hairs like that. Then it comes a lot down to how much you can get done on the wave. I probably missed some scoring opportunities to go for a few bigger turns. I saw Phil was picking really solid runners and working them to the max. I think that’s what it came down too. After losing the first final I was nervous and a bit annoyed I’d lost. Competing is still a learning mental process for me. I think you just have to start again and move on, it’s hard not to let your opponent rattle you a little. Then you can go mad or over compensate and stay too safe. Emotions on the podium are always a mix, I was actually really happy for Phil because he seemed chuffed. I was obviously pretty disappointed in myself, it’s so hard to go from a single 1st to a 2nd in the double, and you really feel like you lost that 1st place. But looking back on it, I made mistakes and respect to Phil who beat me twice! You have to just learn from these things and move on!

“ If you are not fully powered you’re just losing speed in every move or wave. ”

TIMO MULLEN
These days the Gwithian contest is normally the only contest I do all year and I really look forward to it. I built a house at Gwithian about 3 years ago and as I work in Cornwall I spend a lot of time down there now, so it is an event that I love competing in. The one thing you have to remember about contests is that you have to be prepared for anything. That preparation has to be mental and physical, but almost as important is being prepared with all the correct equipment. For sure all the pro sailors would love to turn up to pumping side offshore Gwithian, but Mother Nature invariably will have a different plan come contest day! Probably the worst possible direction for any of the Gwithian beaches is a NNW wind, so it was Murphy’s Law that we had this forecast for the entire weekend! It basically means the only beach with any angle is the Bluff. Now when I say an angle, I mean it was just about port tack jumping, I heard the term Starport jumping used quite a bit that day!

As with any contest though the conditions, however tough, are the same for everyone, so you have to mentally prepare for the whole day and draw together the positives. For me going out with that positive attitude is my number one tip, my outlook on the contest conditions were that already I was gaining 2 bonus days on the water, as normally I would not sail on the this coast in this direction, so I was super excited to get out there and see what was possible. It is as much of a challenge to sail these sort of conditions well as it is to sail pumping hollow waves.

In my opinion I believe I have the best gear on the beach, my sponsors Severne have made a board called the Nano which just rips in everything but in particular excels in onshore. For Cornwall I used my 93 and 103 Nano, I ride both in standard thruster setup, but after the single elimination final in which I came 4th I felt that I needed to be able to tighten up my turns as it was so onshore and you really needed to milk every possible bowl section. So I changed my fin setup on my 103 to a quad, well what a difference that made! Normally I’m not a great fan of tuning gear during a contest as I feel it distracts me from the job at hand, but this was so worth it, my board was now driving down the line with ease, I could hit aerials, it felt so good! My heat strategy was to fill my jump scorecard almost straight away, so within the first minute I would solely concentrate on getting my jump, either a big forward or a clean high back loop, the judges were so far away they would not be able to see any one handed variations so that kept it all relatively simple.

That left 9 minutes to score as many waves as possible, the first hit and last hit are the most important, you really want to start with a big first explosive hit to grab the judges attention and then make sure you put an exclamation mark on the end with one last big hit. My strategy worked well, but when I came up against Phil for the battle for 2nd place I knew I’d have to go a bit harder so my plan was to stick a good solid back loop then try find a double ramp. I only do doubles in contests, I can do them OK but not with PWA consistency, so it is a bit of a risk, especially with a 5.3 and a 103 board! I came pretty close, getting both rotations, but my landing was too wet to score high.

I was super happy with my 3rd place result and the way I sailed, a podium finish at a BWA event is nothing to be sneezed at as all the guys rip, but a podium in port tack onshore for me was like winning the event, it’s not that I hate port tack onshore, I just never really sail it that much as fortunately where I live we don’t really have to!

“ It is as much of a challenge to sail these sort of conditions well as it is to sail pumping hollow waves. ”

ANDY CHAMBERS
Onshore certainly levels out the playing field as I don’t think anyone is really used to those kind of conditions. I was enjoying the jumping for sure, the riding was really hard though as the wave was so dumpy at low tide and with the onshore wind meant it was difficult to get out in front of the wave in the top turn which meant you got munched a lot! I opted for my JP Wave Slate 87 and Neil Pryde Combat 5.0. I figured as it was so onshore with a savage current I needed a bigger sail to keep my speed up for jumping and riding. The Slate has such good upwind ability and speed, so it is perfect for those types of conditions. Also the short compact shape makes it easy to do snappy turns!

During a heat I tend to relax a bit more once I have my jump in! So I would spend the first couple of runs trying to find a back loop ramp and make sure I had that in the bag and then spend the rest of the time trying to find waves to ride! With the waves I would start on the outside on a bigger one and try to get lots of turns in before searching for the smaller ones on the inside with the savage bowl section!

The onshore conditions were tricky! At one point I didn’t think I was going to get out at all. I headed towards Gwithian and just kept getting washed up the beach trying to get through the surge of whitewater. Also in front of the rivermouth was savage as the tide was so strong it almost had a standing wave in it! I have sailed in Sylt a lot when I used to compete in freestyle on the PWA and it can be a similar setup so I knew that I had to get out at least a heat or two before mine to make sure I was in the right place when my heat started. To keep warm between heats my secret was ‘Philps pasties’ and my ‘Dryrobe’! I had my mega winter NP Surf Mission 6/5/4 Hooded suit on so there was no way I was getting cold on the water! I sailed a lot of heats back to back in the double so didn’t really have time to eat or think about the cold, I was running on adrenaline!

Keeping an eye on the notice board was critical although it was pretty far away to check it due to the tide! If you had a mate with you to go check these things that would of helped. The BWA made sure someone was on hand by the water to keep us all informed. Luckily the BWA also have the timing lights which no other tour has and you can see them from miles away so that makes competing much easier.

I checked my score sheets after I lost my heat in the single and was slightly bemused at the scoring between mine and the other guy’s jump so I spoke to the judges about that to try and find out what more I needed to do. It is always useful to check out your score sheets and see what they liked and what they scored you well for. You have to sail your best against all the guys in the PRO fleet, you can’t afford to take your foot off the gas. As I said at the start, the conditions we had made it an even playing field for everyone so there weren’t any easy heats. You could easily go a whole heat without managing to find a steep jump ramp or a solid second wave score. In those conditions I think it is better to sail every heat the same and stick with the moves you can do consistently. Unless you manage to nail a high scoring jump and two solid waves at the start then you can take some more risks!

STEVE THORP
The Bluff was super hard because it was so dumpy, closing out with lots of cross chop and the odd rogue logo high sand dredger thrown in, so really hard to keep up the speed to get out. Getting knocked sideways by the whitewater would take all the wind out of your sail and bring you to a standstill. After the Cornwall event I have a whole new respect for the guys competing in Sylt!

It was pretty windy on the Sunday so I had the Ezzy 5.0 Taka 4 and an RRD Wave Cult 82 V7 set up in Thruster with 18 Flex/10 Ezzy which is what I usually sail with. I made no changes and thought my setup should be fine for onshore and I am definitely not blaming the gear! Well, I can tell you exactly what I should have been doing during my heats! I’m so disorganised it’s a joke though. I always seem to arrive at contests last minute and with no time to be prepared, and the Cornwall wave classic was no exception. This year I managed to not find my timer, didn’t check the heat duration, forget my rashie, only rigged one sail and thought it was 2 jumps and 1 wave for the first heat not the other way round. I actually had 4 hours sleep on the Friday night, so the first thing I did on arrival was try to get 2 hours sleep! I woke up to find out my heat started in 10 minutes! I’m usually a lot better on the second day but I still never quite seem to get my act together.

The shape of the beach seemed to be the worst thing, with the slight curve and shallow areas trapping you in. If you sailed over the river and did a big tack out you were fine, but if you tried to stay in front of the judges and save time, you never seemed to make any ground upwind. Standing around between heats you’d soon seize up, so a pair of boots and a ‘Dryrobe’ was a good idea. It’s super important to know what’s going on and what you need to do by checking the notice board. This was one of my failings in Cornwall. My trips to the notice board seemed to slide when there were friends you’ve not seen for months to talk to, dogs to throw balls for and some rad windsurfing to watch.

The last time I asked the judges what they are looking for was about 20 years ago, another of my failings in Cornwall! I knew having the two freestyle rippers (Andy Bubble Chambers and Nic Hibdige) in my heat would be a tough ask and when all I managed was some freestyle swimming after my kit I knew that was game over. A big stalled forward from Andy and a big stomped backie from Nic were pretty impressive given the bolt onshoreness in which I could barely get off the beach! For me winning an event is a tad optimistic against the real pros but it’s great to be in the mix now and then. The craic is always epic so it’s a good weekend without fail.

“ After the Cornwall event I have a whole new respect for the guys competing in Sylt!. ”

NIC HIBDIGE
It was pretty tricky surviving the shore break with my 5.2, only just floating most of the time on the inside. But I did have a great warm up in Sylt a few weeks prior on a freestyle board. I opted for my 5.2 freestyle sail and the Tabou 87 Pocket. Skippers was at 7am and during the spot check the wind was light so I took the biggest gear I had, but I would have liked a bigger board for wobbling over the shorebreak! I definitely put more effort into duck diving to make sure my sail wasn’t lying flat under the lip! The freestyle sail I don’t feel holds the bottom turn as well in bolt onshore, but the early planing and power was a bonus in those conditions.

For the wave contest it was really nice to sail a ten minute heat only having to do one jump and catch two decent waves. I was much more relaxed than when competing in freestyle where you have to perform 8 moves in 7 minutes. With it being bolt onshore I made sure I went for a back loop before catching any waves. On the wave, you have to take them all the way in to rack up the points, which leaves you downwind back in the shorebreak and currents. I went for some shiftys in the warm up Saturday but that was it, I opted to leave freestyle out of the wave heats. Adam Lewis was busting out the freestyle in the lagoon before his heats, he’s still got it!

To stay warm we were cooking up food in the back of Timmy’s 4×4 and between heats I stole Luke’s Dryrobe when he was sailing. The BWA have a good light system which is very visible from the water and people on the beach relaying results so I found it really easy to know where I was in the ladder and which heat to be sailing. We were told the judging criteria during skippers meeting – one good jump and ride two waves better than the other guys! There were a lot of talented riders in the pro fleet and the level on the UK wave scene has been incredibly high for years. I wasn’t really expecting anything from myself, I just wanted to have fun riding some wave heats so to pass quite a few heats felt amazing. I want to compete more and more in the waves, so I was just really going along to hang out with everyone and sail some new spots and different conditions. During Avon last year I met a lot of people who follow the tour and got on with them really well. The competitions are just a chance to sail with other guys stoked on windsurfing in the UK.