Youth wave sailors Tessa and Nikki (aka Sea Twins) had an amazing summer competing on the PWA. In particular the Pozo event (Grana Canaria Wind & Waves Festival) saw the pair achieve notable success, as well as their overall windsurfing level increase. We caught up with the girls to see how it was.
Tell us a bit about your summer and competing on the PWA. How did you do in the Pozo comp?
Although we didn’t really expect it, we did quite well in the competition. We ended 1st & 2nd in the overall competition of girls under 20. Even though we were quite insecure in the beginning about competing, especially against such amazing and talented other girls.
What was a particular highlight?
What we really liked about the event was the friendly atmosphere, even though it was a competition and people did their best to try and win they also were friends and helped each other to improve their windsurfing techniques. In that way one minute you were competing against someone and the next you talked with them about how you could improve your jumping. Other highlights were meeting a lot of new and interesting people from all around the world and the surprise of doing so well in our first competition.
Learn anything new while you were on tour?
We think we’ve learned a lot of new things on the tour. It might seem obvious but we had to learn a lot of things about competing, which we think is really different from “just” windsurfing. We also made a lot of progress with our windsurfing technique which isn’t that surprising considering we were almost every day on the water. That is one thing we notice quite well because at home we don’t have the possibility to windsurf every day as we don’t live near the water. It also helps to be constantly around other people that are really good at windsurfing.
Another thing we learned is how to talk more easily with new people. It might seem funny to have learned such thing but we always have been quite timid and therefore we really found it difficult to socialize with strangers.
What’s your opinion of youth windsurfing?
When we surf at our local spots, we’re basically the only juniors on the water. Probably this is because we only visit wave spots. Only when we travel to compete do we meet other youth windsurfers who surf in the waves.
But in the PWA there are every year more and more juniors who participate which is really amazing because we think windsurfing is an incredible sport.
And women’s?
There are also a lot of skilled women and even though it is a competition the atmosphere is very friendly and close knitted. We were very happy to hear that for the first time in history of windsurf competition there was equal prize money for the Pozo event, which is a very good start towards equality.
Who stood out for you as a ripper whilst you were away?
There were a lot of amazing windsurfers in the PWA competition, with a lot of talent and skills. In general the level is very high and it was very fun to watch. If we would have to point out someone who stood out from the others for us it would be Sarah Quita and Victor Fernandez.
Any mishaps during your trip?
Our biggest mishap was that we had a car accident in the parking lot of Pozo with our van, which was our everything: storage of our windsurfing kit, our place to sleep and eat as well as our means of transportation. So when we bumped into that other car it wasn’t serious because we didn’t get any injury at all but the van was broken and it didn’t drive anymore so we had to bring it to a garage where it would stand for a few days. Luckily for us we could stay at the parking lot with the van until the garage had time to repair it, so we only went a day without a home and our windsurfing gear.
What are your plans for the winter?
We don’t have any specific plans but it will probably consist of a lot of studying for our final year of high school and hopefully some Tramontana weekends when we can surf on our home spot, Pals. We may also be doing the junior PWA Almerimar competition early next year.
Any final thoughts on your summer windsurfing antics?
There was a very funny moment in Tenerife where we found out that Antoine Martin had lost a bet with Marc Paré and Ben Proffitt in Pozo. Antoine had to do a pushloop forward on his first run going out. Antoine lost, and as a result one morning he walked butt naked past our van with his kit. He went out at Cabezo and did a nude, totally clean forward in front of us. Ben probably has some video of this lying around!
Thanks and praise?
We would like to thank our parents, the organizers of the competitions, the PWA judges, the volunteers and everyone that made this competition and amazing holiday possible. A special thanks to Bouke, who helped us with all our gear and made sure we had boards and sails suitable for our weight.
We are very grateful to have had this opportunity and we hope we can repeat it next year.
