Surfersblog

When it comes to Brand Managers there's not many with a more notorious reputation that Martin Brandner, who worked as the BM for brands such as F2 & JP. Now, Maciek Rutkowski (FMX Racing / Challenger Sails) has managed to pin him down for a marathon interview spanning over 2 hours as he gives a candid review of his time in the industry this far. You can watch episode #29 of the Windsurfing Podcast @ https://youtu.be/ZUf_qLD6aEs

#29 Martin Brandner – The Windsurfing Podcast

Legendary brand manager Martin Brandner is like the Godfather. Ruthless and mega effective, yet the ones working with and for him adore him. Especially after it’s done. He assembled some of the best, most successful teams in windsurfing history for F2 and JP, and now, retired he tells us all about it. From applying Nike’s strategy in windsurfing to almost starting a new brand with Peter Thommen and Bjorn, signing a young Ricardo Campello, Kauli Seadi always being late and not owning a phone, Antoine Albeau not being able to develop boards and a possible comeback to the business Martin really spills the beans. Sit back and listen and if you have questions just leave them in the comments – we might have Martin on again soon as there is so much left to talk about!

0:00 Intro, retired?
5:32 Will he comeback? His philosophy
13:30 His riders
18:25 Kauli Seadi
24:10 Ricardo Campello
41:27 Quantifying rider input
50:49 How he went from F2 to starting JP
1:04:18 Building the brand/image
1:19:40 Bjorn contracts
1:24:20 What to do with the windsurfing industry
1:33:03 Brand competition
1:43:03 Dealing with race teams
1:52:56 Antoine Albeau
2:01:30 Quickfire

For many it’s still considered the holy grail of windsurfing… what are we talking about? The forward loop of course, which still tends to have the biggest wow factor for non-windsurfers.

Whether you’ve never tried to pull the trigger, or are still trying to land your first one, or you are landing them already and want to refine them further - here’s Graham Ezzy’s tutorial on the forward loop @ youtu.be/Gm__362oUy4

The Canary Islands are well known for their year round sunshine, consistent trade winds and waves, which makes them very popular with watersport enthusiasts. Particularly during the winter they get hit by several big swells, which light up spots which may not otherwise break at different times of year. When the right forecast popped up Team Bruch - AKA Dany Bruch (Bruch Boards / Flight Sails) and Julian Salmonn (Bruch Boards / GUNSAILS) - headed to this spot in Tenerife where they scored some sick waves, but given the nature of the spot there were a few consequences to pay...

Dany Bruch: "Winter brings some special conditions to Tenerife. This time we went for a crash test session on the west coast. Check this mix of action and backstage look on sailing waves really close from the rocks!

You can see Team Bruch in action here.

It seems that the wind has been firing on all cylinders in Naxos, Greece and Lennart Neubauer’s latest video shows not only the great conditions they have been enjoying, but also that the 16-year-olds level is continuing to go through the roof!

Lennart Neubauer: “This is what you get with just 3 days of filming over here on Naxos. Stay tuned for some more tutorials coming soon.

IG: @lennartneubauer”

You can see Lennart Neubauer ripping in his latest edit @ youtu.be/YPCDATTWW84

Balz Müller (MB-Boards / Severne Sails) is no doubt still the most famous Foil Freestyler at the moment with the Swissman leading the way with his innovative approach to foiling, which has caught many an eye. However, with Foils to be allowed on the 2021 PWA Freestyle World Tour a few of the other pros have started training hard on foils to ensure they don’t lose too much ground. One of those sailors is Sam Esteve (JP / NeilPryde), who has been training hard in Dakhla earlier this year.

Sam Esteve: “Best moments of my Windsurf Foil Freestyle training in Dakhla Morocco January 2021. 

Edit by Baptiste Vignaud

Thanks to my partners : Neilpryde / JP Australia / Pep's House / Freak”

You can see Sam Esteve’s radical new Foil Freestyle edit @ youtu.be/YTOaV9BJVZg

Miguel Chapuis (JP / NeilPryde) recently recovered from a knee injury and has been having some great conditions in Tarifa.

Miguel Chapuis: “New video showing some port and starboard tack sessions that I've had since I came back from my knee injury. Tarifa has been pumping for the last 3 weeks so I could manage to get some nice shots and make this cool clip. 
Hope you enjoy it! 
Thanks to Philippe Chapuis, Leo Hochgrassl and Adrián Sánchez for filming. 
Thanks also to my sponsors: Neilpryde Wind, JP Australia, Mystic Boarding, Ozu Tarifa & Tarifa Centro Médico.”

You can see Miguel Chapuis’ latest edit @ youtu.be/Kq2WulfuMPE

Dear Friends,
 
We hope you are all well and finding your way through the unprecedented times we have found ourselves in over the last year.
 
As I am sure you can all imagine, the enormous levels of uncertainty, surrounding travel and large scale events, have had a significant impact on the PWA and the PWA Tour. Despite huge efforts on the part of our event organisers, 2020 saw only 2 events take place, with the very successful 1 Star Slalom World Tour event in Croatia, and enormously popular Youth Wave World Cup in Klitmøller both managing to avoid the worst of the pandemic and go ahead as planned.
 
Despite the challenges, we have been working hard with our event partners to ensure that top flight windsurfing does not disappear and that we can get back on the water, to compete, as soon as possible.
 
To that end, we are pleased to release a tentative schedule of events that we are working to bring you for 2021.

Provisional PWA World Tour Calendar 2021:

France- Marignane (May – TBC)
Israel (June -TBC) Slalom World Cup 5*
Spain – Catalonia/Costa Brava (8th – 13th June – TBC)
Portugal – Viana do Castelo (21th – 26th June) Slalom World Cup 5*
Croatia (2nd – 7th July) Slalom World Tour 2*
Spain – Gran Canaria/Pozo Izquierdo (9th – 17th July) Wave World Cup 5*
Sri Lanka (20th – 25th July) Slalom World Cup 5*
Spain – Fuerteventura/Sotavento (29th July – 7th August) Grand Slam 6* (Slalom & Freestyle)
Spain – Tenerife/El Cabezo (August – TBC) Wave World Cup 5*
South Korea – Ulsan/Jinha Beach (5th – 10th September) Slalom World Cup 5*
Denmark – Cold Hawaii/Klitmoller (12th – 18th September) Wave Youth World Cup
Germany – Sylt/Brandenburger Strand (24th September – 3rd October) Grand Slam 7* (Slalom, Wave & Freestyle)
New Caledonia – Noumea (November – TBC) Slalom World Cup 5*

Although there are no guarantees as to what will be possible this year, we wanted to let you know as much information as we could at this stage, to allow riders to start to plan, assuming we are able to get back on tour. Where we have relatively solid information such as event dates or disciplines, we have listed them but we must stress that, due to the pandemic, it is still possible that anything could change, and events may be rescheduled to different dates, switch to different disciplines, or change in status from World Cup or Grand Slam to something lower. In the worst cases, it may be that we are forced to cancel events.
 
We will keep you updated with any changes to the calendar as they develop but, in the meantime, stay safe and we hope to see you on the water soon.

After a few weeks break, Thomas Traversa (Tabou / GA Sails) is back with the final part of his Guided Tour of Reunion Island...

Thomas Traversa: “Welcome to this GUIDED TOUR! This is the third - and last! - episode from my trip in Reunion Island, and we are going back to Pointe-au-sel for an epic session with local ripper Pierre Godet! And a little throwback to a similar all-time session I had with Pierre in 2004 when I first came to the island.”

You can see the latest episode of Guided Tour @ https://youtu.be/8lCLb_J7zYc

Bonaire is currently enjoying a solid run of wind and Youp Schmit (Tabou / GA Sails) is back with another short action clip from Red Slave Beach, which also features former PWA Freestyle World Champion - Kiri Thode (Severne Windsurfing).

Red Slave Beach offers a mix of soft waves and little freestyle ramps - you can see Kiri and Youp in action @ https://youtu.be/N3rZuXJuPzg

What are the coldest conditions you’ve ever sailed in? What is your personal cutoff when it comes to temperature? For Maaike Huvermann (Severne / Severne Sails / Maui Ultra Fins) last week proved to be a first as she sailed in the snow for the first time… in a mind numbing -5 degrees celsius! 

Maaike Huvermann: “Last week there was a cold front hitting The Netherlands and the country went into code red. From one day to the other the country turned into a majestic winter wonderland. The cold front also came with fairly strong easterly wind.  It was the perfect opportunity to go out and try sailing in the snow.

I had prepared myself for it to be a mental game against the cold. But actually, for most of the session, it was really doable. I came in regularly to warm up, until at some point my boom froze and it became quite hard to sail. When sailing back upwind to the car the cold really hit me as you will see at the end of the video.”

You can see Maaike Huvermann sailing in below zero @ youtu.be/0SQcjN_RGnQ