Downwind in Portugal with SIC Bullet 17'4 FAST and dolphins (video)

[supnorte]

My favorite race of the year is the Nelo Summer Challenge, 21 km run in Northern Portugal, usually with perfect conditions and with a few hundreds riders with surfskies (like legends Oscar Chalupksy, Jesper Mocke and... Michael Booth!!!), OC1 and SUPs.
Unfortunatly the wind was absent during the 3 day waiting period and I had to paddle the whole run with the Bullet 17'4. Despite the massive effort I was always close to the the top 3 finishers (riding All-Stars).
The day after the waiting period the wind returned and it's been like that the whole week (and next weeek to). This is a solo run between work (in Matosinhos where I have the SUP center) and Miramar (just below the city of Porto), where I live. I just had to take with me the keys to the house, some flippers and the rest of the safety equipment (cellphone, double leash, impact vest and screw driver).
Hope you giys enjoy.

[Night Wing]

I always enjoy watching down winding videos.

Thanks for sharing it.

[JEG]

 

[iDownwind]

Nice! Fun to watch.

[PonoBill]

Great way to get to work. Portugal is on my bucket list. Especially if they get the F1 race at Algarve.

[yugi]

Best commute home ever! Nice riding.

Too bad the race waiting period isn't a week. Mother nature always needs a bit of time. I like the race categories your race has. Simple yet speaks to the people doing it instead of their f'ing gear. I'll point to those categories as inspiration for local races (we have no age categories other than adults and kids). Here we still have silly categories like 12'6, 12'6 inflatable, 14', 14' inflatable blah blah blah. Stupid.

I used to have a place I'd paraglide to for the commute home. Once I didn't live there anymore I never paraglided again.    Other than being dangerous as hell I had such a great time getting home paragliding as a commute I never had the interest to go do it as a sport. I think I was spoiled.

Also downwinding it's very easy for the better rider to stay close enough to a friend and chat the whole way. Nothing better than sharing a wave out at sea (other than getting home).

[supnorte]

Spot on Yugi

As for the categories this was was open, you could ride anything. Sometimes it plays in your advavantage (if it 25 knt plus, I would have a big advantage), but wind no wind I felt I had to paddle twice as hard, but it did motivated me to paddle harder.

On the National tour, we have separate classes: 12'6 and 14' and it has been a never ending debate on which class should count more.

[yugi]

Open is cool for open ocean courses.

Tomorrow morning looks great for the way back to work.

When is the best time of year for winds?
You got some DW boards for rent?

[viatormundi]

What is the screwdriver for?

[supnorte]

What is the screwdriver for?

I don't know  If I had any problem with the fin I might sorted it out with the screwdriver

[Off-Shore]

That looked like some perfect and warm conditions. Got to get out your way one of these days and downwind your runs! I hear that Oscar says it is one of the best places for wind in the world.. and he should know.

Probably more useful than the screwdriver is a short length of inner tube from a bicycle. If you break a rudder cable you can jam it between the rudder and the bottom of the board to fix it in place. I learnt this from Covesurfer and I always carry a length permanently attached to my hydration vest.

[supnorte]

Thanks for the tip.

Oscar has been breaking his personal records here. It's been more than 25 knots everyday since Saturday. Sadly, I wasn't able to score at least one session (too much work).

[Off-Shore]

I hate when that happens. Awesome winds and then either work or no-one to shuttle with...

Actually the newer production Bullets, I think have a locking mechanism for the rudder if the cables break so you can dispense with the inner tube. I don't carry a screwdriver, but I do carry a floating knife tethered to my hydration vest with a retractable steel diving lanyard for those kiteboarders who come too close...