Chris Pressler´s windsurfing blog » Equipment

Severne NCX tested

chris — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:30:56 +0000

When I am out for a freeride session I actually use the Severne NCX or the NCX pro in 8,0. It´s a sail, which feels extremely light, but gives you enough power, when the wind drops and a lot of control, when the wind picks up.

You should have a try!

Chris

The 2010 NCX got tested by the German SURF (Source: Severne).

Using the NCX Pro 8,0 on Lake Neusiedl (Pic: Kerstin Reiger).

Back home in Austria

chris — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:25:01 +0000

Now I am already back in Europe for 19 days. These last days were busy. Had one super windsurfing session in 8 Beaufort at my homespot, sorted out almost all my gear for the 2010 racing season, had a great skiing session close to my birth place, celebrated my birthday, passed by Munich and so on and so on..

The stormy wind graph of Podersdorf on the 13.03.2010

In the third week of April I will run the Windsurfing teacher lesson together with Didi Raditsch. Have to be prepared as well for this event, which will happen from the 19th till the 26th of April.

If anybody is interested in to get the license to be a windsurfing teacher, just send me a message.

Now the spring fully kicked in while the last days – temperatures went up to 15°+ – and we should get strong southern wind tomorrow, at least strong enough for the big iSonics or the Formula board plus the 11.0 m.

Yesterday I passed by the Sport Schneider shop, who is the Austrian importer for Starboard, Severne, Aeron and many more brands, to present them the latest highlight of the Starboard range: the Two Piece 11’2″ x 30″ Camo Black SUP. Perfect handling at the airport with less than 2 meters max length!!!

What a nice piece for travelling! The guys were impressed. Check out some pics below.

Herbert with the splitted SUP Two Piece 11'2" x 30" Camo Black.

Herbert is checking the rails of the 11'2" x 30" Camo Black.

The 11'2" x 30" Camo Black half packed in an iSONIC large day bag. Easy!

Testing Starboards and the Reflex in Thailand

chris — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:09:09 +0000

Back from Vietnam we immediately went for testing new iSonics. We drove from Bangkok down to Prak Nam Pran. Remi had a lot of gear on his pickup. The windconditions were excellent. 12 to 18 knots from southern direction. The spot is definitely one of Thailand´s best. Kerstin and myself were here back in 2007 already, when exploring Thailand for windsurfing spots. Besides testing iSONICs 111 I could test a Reflex 7,8 m Proto. Just can say the sail has power plus super smooth cam rotation!!

Can´t await to ride on the production sails!

We will stay for one more day. Let´s see, if we are lucky with the wind again.

Rigging at Prak Nam Pran Beach (Pic: Kerstin Reiger).

Remi Vila and myself on the beach discussing the results (Pic: Kerstin Reiger).

Jibing with iSonic 111 and the new Reflex 7,8 (Pic: Kerstin Reiger).

The Prak Nam Pran Beach (Pic: Kerstin Reiger).

The new Severne weapons for the 2010 racing season

chris — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:32:36 +0000

Severne just launched their new racing site and the new living wing concept. Check it ou t! Looks like Ben Severne, Jesper Orth, Björn Dunkerbeck and Steve Allen. They created the living wing and added new batten tensioner plus super XL cams. The luff lenghts got shortened and cut out at the clew is much more compared to the 09 Code Reds. What I heard the cams are rotating super smooth!! Here is a link to the new product video!

I am super stoked to be on the Severene team right now. The sails look well developed. Let´s see how they work on the water!

I will use the Reflex Slalom sails for the upcoming 2010 season and can´t await to test them. In the moment I still train on the Code Reds here in Mui Ne at the Jibe´s. The wind is great. Used sizes from 4,5 up to 8,1 and boards in between 76 and 131 liters. It´s perfect for training here. I already got used to the iSonics in 111 and 131.

Freeride session at the Mole West

chris — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:31:03 +0000

I was really stocked about the fact, that it got warm and als the ice went away. My homespot works again. I had to look for a place without pack ice at the beach and found one in Neusiedl, directly in front of the first class restaurant Mole West. I decided to test out my new freeride set, the Futura 133 plus the NCX pro in 8,0.

It definitely felt different compared to my Slalom stuff, but was fun. A super light sail plus an easy going freerider. The wind was gusty and the water temperature around 3°. But it was worth and many more sessions could follow in the upcoming days.

Chris

Here are some shots, all are taken by Kerstin Reiger, sweet…

Starboard iSONICS 2010 overview

chris — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:28:11 +0000

For all, who were interested in the iSONICs from 2010 and for which conditions, sailsizes and weights they are suited well: check the link with a nice overview from Remi Vila, Jimmy Diaz, Kevin Pritchard and Cyril Moussilmani.

star-board.com iSONIC report

They all are super experienced. The weights of the top Starboard guys are in between 85 kg and 93 kg. The most heavy one, with more than 100 kg, is Björn Dunkerbeck. Let´s see which sizes he will choose. In 2009 he registered 133/ 111 & 86.

Most of the PWA sailors try to cover an extremely big windrange with the 3 boards they are allowed to register at their first event.
I am around 85 naked and tend to go with 86, 111 and 131, but will test the 131 against the 121 a little bit more. I really love the style of the 121, but guess that I can go in extremely light wind with the 131.

Definitely the 86 has a wide range. I use the strongwind board and lightwind speedboard from 5,0 up to 6,7. It´s the board for the Canaries or for events, where it can get rough. Perhaps at Costa Brava with Tramuntana wind, at Lake Neusiedler, in Croatia with Bora winds or in Sylt. In South Korea or Alacati it´s more the 111 or one size bigger.
On the 111 I can put 6,7 up to 8,1.
On the 131 I can use 8,5 and bigger up to 9,8.

The iSONICs 2010, which can be used on the PWA tour and at other international events (Pic: star-board.com)

The iSONIC 131 wood carbon plus the Code Red 8,8. Felt nice! (pic: myself)

The iSONICS 2010

chris — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:11:18 +0000

I kept on testing the new 2010 wood carbon iSONICS at my homespot and got cool conditions for the next Formula session.

The Formula session was definitely sweet. Grey in grey, clouds, late afternoon and 5 – 10 knots eastwind with super flat water. Pfaffi, my local testpartner and myself sailed along the reed. I got the chance to test a handmade fin from Pfaffi and felt good speed on my 11,0 and 162. Would say this session caught me to invest more time into this kind of windsurfing.

At the lake in Podersdorf, where we stated teh Formula session (Pic: chrispressler.com)

Just before the last light went away we made it back to the beach.

Some days later we went for iSONIC 121 testing. The question was: has the new 121 more lightwind performance? We had 12 to 18 knots. Pfaffi and myself compared the 122 from 2009 in wood edition with the 121 wood carbon. It was my second ride on this model. I already had the chance to jump on the 121, but in wood, at the dealers- and importersmeeting at Sotavento.

Definitely the new 121 starts to plan and accelerate very early. Both the boards were fast. We were on Code Reds 8,1 and 8,3, but switched boards. The new model had a great jibing performance and felt extremely good on all courses, also on extreme upwind and deep downwind.

Now it´s time to compare the 131 with the 121, but have to find the right day with the perfect windconditions for 8,8 /9,0 m sails.

Tomorrow we will head down to Sibenik, Croatia to compete in Formula- and Slalomraces at the Jadrija Hallowind, which is the Supercup final. It starts on the 29th of October.

If you are interested in some windsurfing gear, check out my offers:

Chris

iSONIC 131 wood carbon 2010

chris — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:23:29 +0000

I was waiting a while to get the right conditions to test the 2010 iSONIC 131 wood carbon. All the last week we had too strong wind conditions, which were great for small Slalom gear. I had a session with 5,4 and 86 fully powered up.

Today we had the perfect 131 conditions, 7 – 12 knots in the afternoon and I was lucky, that Sport Schneider had not sold the model already while the last weekend. So I could borrow the masterpiece – thanks Hannes – and could test it.

The board really started to accelerate in no wind. Was incredible and the jibes felt very easy. In the beginning I had the mastbase a bit back from the sweetspot, but moved it in front of the sweetspot by half a centimeter later.

The board went over the short chop of the lake very quick and it was easy to have good control. I was quite impressed. The wind was light, but I could accelerate almost 53 km/h in the top speed. The 8,8 m Code Red felt well balanced and the stance is a good one. The straps are far out towards the rails.

My plan is to test the 131 against the 121 while the next days. Could work out on Thursday.

Chris

The set of today: iSONIC 131 wood carbon 2010 plus Canfire 48 plus Code Red 8,8 (pic: www.chrispressler.com)

A view on the super light iSONIC 131 wood carbon 2010 (pic: www.chrispressler.com)

PWA Slalom Sotavento – day 1

chris — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:46:35 +0000

The day started even worse than the first day in Gran Canaria, but had a strong comeback in the third race of the day. Kerstin had shown me some videostuff from the first two races. Afterwards I went up a bit with the boom and felt more comfortable. As well I changed my jibing position a bit, which gave me a safer feeling. In the morning I crashed twice in one race at the jibemarks, which was not very efficient for the result
In Race 3 I could finish the first heat in 4th position and qualified for the next round. That was such a nice feeling after having sailed 16 rounds in Gran Canaria and here in Sotavento without qualification. The race I finally finished in 23.position. Now I really hope to get more good races done.
Below on the pic it´s Jesper Orth, Severne saildesigner and one of my best friends on the tour. He always supports me with tipps. It starts with the rigging and ends out there on the water. Thanks dude!!
The racing today was super exciting. Antoine made two victories, but Björn fought back in race 3. Will be very exciting while the next 4 eventdays.

Chris

Jepser Orth and myself on 5,4 and 86 liters (pic: John Carter/ PWAworldtour 2009).

Pozo is different

chris — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:18:55 +0000

I came here with the hope to go better than in the previous years. But did not really work out so far. In the beginning at the first round I had the chance to advance easily, but crashed a jibe. Then I continued crashing. On day 2 I took too small sailsize and finished very bad. On day 3 I decided to go on 6,2 when it looks lighter, which worked out much better. The speed on the first reach got better with the overpower and I feel much more confident compared to the previous years. It´s so interesting that I use the same sailsizes like Björn, who has 20 kg more than myself. My main problem in the moment are the jibes. The initiation seems to be ok, but the sail rotation does not look good. My plan for the near future is to train much more in these stronger windconditions.
Overall sailing in Pozo makes fun this year. I like my gear, which is trimmed well. Just the result is not satisfying. I sit in 32. position right now. 12 rounds have been sailed. 3 more rounds are possible on the last two days. The next race will bring another discard.

I keep you updated,
Chris

At the first jibemark. (pic: John Carter/PWAworldtour 2009)

Right after the start. Was a bit delayed. (pic: John Carter/PWAworldtour 2009)